by Chuck Tyrell
“Why’s that?”
“They were headed for Silverton to get even. What for, I dunno. But getting even was on their minds.”
“Could be. So whatta we do?”
“Sit and wait.”
“Wait!”
Fletcher Comstock spoke. “I pretty well have to stay. At least until we find out what happened to the gold. It was … . is … my responsibility, after all.”
Stryker made the decision. “We’ll watch,” he declared. He assigned positions and set the schedule. Stryker’s posse, what was left of it, settled in to wait.
The horse showed up late in the afternoon. Comstock saw it first, limping two or three steps forward, then stopping. It rested a long time between steps. When it got close enough, he could see its saddle had slipped, and now hung under its belly. Short lengths of leather hung from the bridle bit, saying the horse had stepped on the reins at some time.
“Stryker!” Comstock called in a low voice, not wanting anyone but Stryker to hear.
Moments later, Stryker stood by Comstock, a pair of field glasses in his hand.
Comstock pointed at the horse, still a small splotch on the desert. “Horse coming,” he said.
“I see him,” Stryker said. He put the field glasses to his eyes. “That’s the one they was riding double until Bowman shot the young kid. Wonder if he shot the other rider, too?”
As they watched, the horse made its way toward the Muddy with faltering steps.
“Let’s take some water to that poor beast,” Comstock said.
Stryker said nothing as he watched the limping horse through his field glasses.
Comstock hung a canteen over his shoulder and struck out for the horse.
Stryker watched, a small smile on his face.
The horse’s head came up when it realized someone was walking toward it. Comstock extended a hand and the horse summoned enough strength to snuffle it. Comstock uncorked the canteen. The horse’s head came up as it smelled the water. Comstock filled his hat with water from the canteen and held it for the horse. It drank. Comstock poured the remainder into the hat and the horse drank again. It’s head came up and the light of life flashed in its eyes once again. Comstock took hold of the short rein leathers. “Come on, boy,” he said, and started for the camp.
“Good job, Fletch,” Stryker said. “You could grow into a top hand.”
“Thanks,” Comstock said, “I think.” Still, a smile showed itself on Fletcher Comstock’s face. Praise. And from Matt Stryker.
“Let’s have a look at that nag,” Stryker said.
“Careful,” Comstock said. “You may hurt his feelings. After all, he come across that alkali flat all by himself, and with his front leg hurting.”
“Hold on, hoss. I’ll get that crazy saddle off ya,” Stryker said. He unbuckled the flank strap and then the main cinch, and the saddle dropped to the ground. Stryker pulled it from under the horse. “Saddle blanket musta come off when the saddle slipped,” he said. “Saddle bags stayed tied and he didn’t step on them. That’s good.” He shouldered the saddle and went back to the swale where the posse was camped.
Comstock carefully led the footsore pony to the Muddy, where he could have all the water he wanted and grass, too. Then, as he was about to take the horse’s bridle off, he noticed the wound in its neck. “Hey. Stryker!” he called.
“Whatta ya need?”
“Horse’s got a funny puncture in its neck. Wanna take a look?”
Stryker left the saddle and came to look at the horse. “Well. I’ll be damned. I heard of Apaches doin’ that, but not white men.”
“Do what?”
“Bleed a horse and drink the blood. Saves a man from dying. For a while, anyway. Musta thought the horse was gonna die, or didn’t have the gumption himself to do anything but move on. Lame like that, the cayuse was no good to him.”
“Should we back-track the horse?”
“You’re all fired up, Fletcher Comstock,” Stryker said. “I reckon they’ll show up at this here river sooner or later. They’ll come.”
“What’d you find in the saddlebags?”
“Ain’t had a chance to look. Put the lame horse with ours. It won’t stray. I’ll look the saddle and saddlebags over.”
“Yo,” Comstock said in his best cavalry imitation. He managed to draw a chuckle from Matt Stryker, and a wave of dismissal.
Comstock and the lame horse headed off toward the posse’s mounts. Stryker unknotted the saddlebags and dragged them from the saddle. He found mostly utensils in the offside bag. Tin cup. 4-inch cast-iron skillet. 4-cup coffee pot. A little bag of flour, probably with saleratus already mixed in. Some Arbuckles coffee beans. A piece of bacon wrapped in part of a flour sack. Some raisins. Two cans of peaches. Whoever rode the horse rode prepared. Stryker noted there was no alcohol in the bag. But the most important thing Stryker found was way in the bottom of the other saddlebag, under a spare shirt, extra drawers, a pair of Levi’s, and a square of toweling. Under all those clothes, Stryker felt something hard and rectangular and heavy. Of course he knew what he’d found, but he said nothing. He took the gold ingot from the saddlebag without unwrapping it.
“Good Lord Almighty,” he said, almost under his breath.
“What’d ya find? Comstock stood some ten yards away, with a handful of sticks for the fire in his fists.
Stryker held up the ingot in its flour-sacking wrap. “I’ll wager this is one of your ingots. Wanna bet?”
Comstock shook his head, but his eyes remained glued to the wrapped ingot.
Stryker set it on a waist-high rock and commenced to unwrap it. About halfway through the process, a piece of paper fluttered down to a rest beside the rock. Stryker stepped on it to keep it from blowing away.
“This one of yours?” Stryker held the ingot out to Comstock.
“It’s ours all right. Forty ounces of pure gold.” He turned the ingot over. The letters M c Q were cast into it, along with 40 oz.”
“Keep it,” Stryker said. “If it comes down to that ingot at a trial, I’ll ask for it back.”
Comstock retrieved the square of flour sacking and re-wrapped the ingot.
Stryker bent over and scooped up the piece of paper. “Well. Well. Well.” Slowly he read the writing. “Walk into the sunrise from the Muddy. Cross two arroyos. Walk to the red rock tower. Back to the tower, walk 500 steps to a slash in the wall. Climb the slash to the cave hideout.” Stryker gave Comstock a hard look. “Reckon this tells us where McQueen’s gold is?”
“Or it’s a decoy,” Comstock said. “Seems kinda thoughtless to wrap instructions on how to find the whole with just one ingot.”
“Hmmm,” Stryker said. “Decoy, eh?”
“Could be.” Comstock piled the sticks on the remains of the fire so they’d catch and slowly burn.
Stryker watched. “Yep. Afore long you’ll make a top hand.”
“Man’s gotta live,” Comstock said.
“Important thing to keep in mind, Fletch,” Stryker said. “So what’s your take on the paper?”
“If we can take the paper at face value, it says someone hid the gold. Most of it, anyway. And if it’s what the paper says, one man did the hiding and left the paper, or probably papers, for the rest of the gang to follow if the one who hid the gold got killed.”
Stryker grunted. “Hmph. Makes sense.”
“But the man who hid the gold is not going to want anybody else to find too easily. That’s my take on it, anyway.”
“Could be. Could be. At any rate, if there’s anyone of that gang alive, he’ll come walking for the place where the gold’s hid, don’t you think?”
“Unless the man that hid the gold is the only one left. If that’s the case, then he could run in any direction and come back for the gold when no one is looking.” Comstock scrubbed at the sandy soil with the toe of his boot. “The way those men treated the Taylor woman, I wouldn’t put it past the leader to execute the gang just for the gold.”
; Chapter Twelve – Blood in the Desert
Thirty-odd miles from Dead Man’s Notch to the Muddy River, and Cahill Bowman had wasted about that many miles wandering in a large circle and ending up closer to the Notch than to the Muddy. But now, with two draughts of horse blood in his belly, there was no doubt in his mind that he could make the Muddy, recover the gold … he stumbled.
“You OK, Bowman?”
Geebee? Right. Geebee’d told him about drinking horse’s blood to stay alive. Good ol’ Geebee. “Me? I’m OK. Don’chu worry none,” Bowman said. He pasted a grin on his face.
Bowman and Geebee were headed in the right direction now. The setting sun was dead ahead, and they were more than halfway to the Muddy. Bowman’s bay horse, the one that’d supplied them with a gallon or so of blood to drink, followed along, head drooping and hooves dragging.
Gold. Bowman fixed his thoughts on the gold they’d taken from McQueen’s bullion room in Silverton. Gold. More’n fifty pounds of gold. His mind scrabbled with the weight. Almost sixty pounds. Well. Not quite. Three ingots of forty ounces had gone to Geebee and them what was dead in the Notch. Shot down by the Silverton posse and that black Indian. Bowman ignored the fact that he had shot Junior Saxenhausen himself. Wait. Geebee. “Hey,” Bowman hollered, but his voice was not much louder than the breeze blowing from the west.
“You say something, Bowman?”
“Hey.”
“Hey what?” Geebee seemed stronger than Bowman. Maybe that extra drink of blood from his horse made the difference.
“Where’s your piece of gold? The one I gave you before we left the Muddy?”
Geebee gave Bowman a blank look. “Gold?”
“Yeah. I give you one whole ingot. Forty ounces. More’n eight hundred bucks. A lot more’n you could ever make riding the line.”
“Oh. That gold.”
“Yeah. Where is it?”
“In m’saddlebag.”
“You ain’t carrying no saddlebag!”
Geebee looked around, befuddled. “Should be on m’hoss.”
“You said you cut your hoss’s throat for blood to drink.”
“I did, but it never killed him. He come along after. Lame, mind you, but game.”
“Damn.”
“What you mad at, Bowman?”
“Three ingots gone.”
“We got lots more, you and me, when we make the Muddy River, right?”
Bowman said nothing, just put his head down and kept up a steady pace toward the hills that bordered the Muddy. A dry wind swept up from the south and sucked whatever moisture it chanced upon. Bowman tied his hat to his head with his neckerchief and plodded westward toward the river. Geebee lagged a yard. Then two. Before long, he was a good ten yards behind Bowman. The bay horse tagged along right behind Geebee. Wouldn’t do to lose the horse. Needed him to carry the gold. And right now, he carried Bowman’s Winchester and all the extra ammunition. Bowman ran a dry tongue over his cracked and split lower lip. He stopped and turned around.
Geebee came along, his feet dragging, but Bowman couldn’t help wondering how much of his weariness was play-acting.
The horse came, too. Maybe he trusted the men to get him to water.
Bowman once again turned his face toward the Muddy. Gold. More than fifty pounds, all smelted out and made into ingots. Once he had the gold. Once he was on his way … where would he go? Slip across to Hubbell’s trading post? Hide a while at Window Rock? Or maybe just float down the Colorado all the way to Mexico. He stumbled, but caught himself before he fell. He breathed through his mouth and the hot dry air cracked his lips and scored the membranes of his throat. He squinted at the hills that market the way to the Muddy River. They looked dark blue in the fading light. He stopped.
Geebee came up first, then the horse.
Bowman ignored Geebee. He was most interested in the horse, or rather, what the horse carried. The animal stood head down, tail to the wind. Bowman dug into the nearside saddlebag for the lump of bacon that should be there.
Geebee watched with dull eyes.
There. Bowman pulled a lump of greasy flour sacking from the saddlebag. “Got a little bacon,” he said. “Want some?”
Geebee nodded and held out a hand.
Bowman unwrapped the greasy lump. “Here.” He used the same jack knife he’d bled the horse with to slice bacon into Geebee’s hand. Three thick slices was half the lump of bacon.
They chewed on the bacon. Greasy and slick, it seemed to moisten the insides of their mouths. Neither man rushed. The longer the bacon lasted, the more they felt like they were getting moisture. The last of the bacon brought a sigh.
“We gotta make the Muddy by morning” Bowman said. “It ain’t that far, but it ain’t that near neither.”
“Gumph,” Geebee said.
Bowman walked on, making sure he was headed west. After a while, he realized he was alone. He stopped and looked back. Geebee and the horse were a single black blob. “Hey,” he shouted, but the sound came out in a rasping whisper. He went back to see what was wrong.
Once he was close enough, Bowman could see that Geebee was kneeling by the bay horse. Kneeling. Why in hell was Geebee kneeling there? Bowman walked carefully, soundlessly. Geebee kept up whatever he was doing, kneeling by the foreleg of Bowman’s docile bay.
Then he understood. Geebee was sucking on the bay’s leg. Sucking right where Bowman had stuck the horse with his jackknife to bleed him. Blood-sucking Geebee. Sumbitch. Bowman drew his six-gun and reversed it so he could hold it by the barrel. He slipped up to Geebee, who wasn’t paying any attention to anything but the blood he was sucking from the bay horse.
Geebee’s hat lay on the ground. Maybe the brim got in the way of his sucking blood. Bowman didn’t care. “You lowdown blood-sucking baboon,” he said, and lambasted Geebee in the back of the head with the butt of his Colt Army. Geebee fell straight forward, collapsing to the desert floor like he’d been pole axed. “If'n we drink blood, we all drink blood together,” Bowman said, his voice cracking the membranes in his throat. Geebee didn’t move.
Bowman stared at the motionless body.
Geebee still didn’t move.
Bowman kicked him.
Geebee flopped.
Bowman put a finger to Geebee’s throat. He was alive, but still out cold. Bowman cursed under his breath. Here was a man, a member of the Shadow Box Gang. Sworn to take care of other Shadow Boxers as if they were blood brothers … blood brothers. Yeah. Blood brothers. Bowman smiled.
He grabbed Geebee’s left arm, bent down, and worked the unconscious Geebee up and across his shoulders. From there, he was able to shift Geebee onto the saddle on the bay, belly down, head and arms hanging down one side, legs sticking out the other. He even took the trouble of tying Geebee in place, legs and arms. “Dirty blood-sucker,” he said. “You’re gonna pay.”
Bowman unhooked his canteen from the saddlehorn. The same canteen that they’d used to get the bay’s blood from his foreleg. He got Geebee’s hat, too, which he placed on the ground just under Geebee’s right hand. Now for the jackknife. He opened the spear-point blade and made a deep cut inside Geebee’s wrist. Blood flowed and pumped and dripped from Geebee’s thumb into the canteen. Geebee’s heart pumped the blood from the artery in his wrist faster than it could clot. When the two-quart canteen was full, Bowman let the blood flow into Geebee’s hat while he gulped blood from the canteen. Somehow it was not as revolting as when he and Geebee had drunk the horse’s blood. He took two more gulps, then upended the canteen and poured all the blood into Geebee’s hat. He took the hat around the offered it to the horse. To his surprise, the bay drank everything it could get. Maybe three quarts in all. Its head came up.
“Blood’ll keep us alive,” Bowman said. He repositioned the neckerchief around the bay’s foreleg, then cut the piggin strings that held Geebee in the saddle. His lifeless, bloodless body fell to the ground. “Serves ya right, bloodsucker,” Bowman said. He got his bearings and started walki
ng west. Somehow he didn’t feel as dehydrated as before. Bowman grinned. Stupid Geebee. Thinking to pull a fast one on the boss of the Shadow Box Gang. Showed him.
The hills lining Muddy River came closer, and by dawn, Bowman was making his way through them to the river.
“Look,” Comstock said. He pointed eastward.
“I see ’em,” Stryker said. “Something new dead. We’d better keep an eye peeled in that direction.” He watched the zopilote vultures wheel, then land.
Gid Rockwell slipped up the hill toward Stryker’s lookout.
“What is it, Gid?”
“Don’t need to watch the vultures, Matt. A rider came in from a little north of here during the night.”
“And you didn’t shoot him?”
“I shoot him and Comstock can’t get his gold back,” Rockwell said.
“Don’t want him to get away,” Stryker said. “You just leave him be?”
“He drunk a lot of river water and so did his horse. He’s holed up right now, sleeping, I reckon. He’ll likely not move in daylight anyway. Still, I could be wrong.”
“You know a place we can watch from?”
“I do.”
“Lead on, then.”
Stryker left Comstock with their horses and went with Rockwell to keep a watch on the rider, whoever he was.”
A horse grazed in a grassy swale near the river. It had a cloth of some kind tied around its left foreleg.
“Injured horse?” Stryker said.
“Don’t seem to be. Walks OK. Grazes good.”
“Hmmm. Where’s he holed up?”
Rockwell pointed at a wall of rock fronted by tumbled stone and box elder. “There’s a hole in that wall,” he said. “I reckon he’s in there sleeping. That’s what I’d do, if I’d walked all the way from Dead Man’s Notch.”
“You think he walked?” Stryker peered at the wall, which was actually half a hill. Sometime in the distant past, a giant had cleft the hill with a huge axe and left a jumble of rock lying before the wall that remained. “You can go back to camp and get something to eat. Comstock’s becoming a passable cook. I’ll keep an eye on our friend in the hole. Sometime he’s gonna wake up and want to go get his … er, Comstock’s gold.”
