“Sounds like something O’Neill would concoct up,” Madigan said. “Then what was I supposed to do?” Madigan asked with tightened jaws.
“He said you raped the women and then shot them and left the bodies there to the wolves while you rode off with the gold. He said it took him close to four hours to bury everybody or he would have come after you right away. By then it was too late and he lost your trail, so he headed back to get help.” Madigan looked at the man in silence for a while, wondering why he bothered to tell him all this.
“And you believed him? I mean, that I killed all of them and took the gold?”
“At first I might have, then he told me he knew who you were. After he told me you were Sam Madigan, the scout, the one they call the man hunter, I began to doubt him. Figured he had another reason to blame you.”
“With a far-fetched story like that, how did you believe any of it in the first place?” Madigan questioned, irritation showing in his voice.
The cowboy slowly reached into his pants pocket and retrieved a small gold figurine. “Because of this! He had half a saddlebag full of these. When you’ve been hungry for a few weeks your mind does funny things, and at the time I would have followed him to hell and back.” He moved his right hand to the wound in his chest. “I guess you might say I did follow him to hell, but it doesn’t look like I’m coming back, does it?”
He took the little gold man in his hand and turned it over and over as he talked. “Is there any truth to O’Neills’ story?” the wounded man asked.
“Some. But I didn’t kill the women or anybody that had their hands up. And I didn’t take the gold. I gave it back to the women, although I often ask myself why. You, my friend, have died in vain. For I have nothing except a few guns and some supplies that would have interested O’Neill or anyone else.”
“I had so many plans and now I’m dead,” the cowboy said with remorse.
Before the cowboy died, he asked Madigan to bury him away from the stream. “Too many animals come down to drink and I don’t want to be their dinner,” he had said. He also gave Madigan the little gold man.
Madigan buried him there on a little knoll back from the stream, then piled stones over him and cut a rough cross for his grave.
The next day Madigan left the cowboy there and rode out toward the Great Divide and a future of uncertainty. But one thing he took to heart: if he ever came across O’Neill he would kill him without mercy, not only for what O’Neill had done to Madigan so many weeks before, but for this boy that needlessly lay buried beneath the ground.
Madigan skipped breakfast as usual, so later in the day, when the sun was high overhead, he stopped by a small creek and dropped in a line. No sooner had his bait hit the water than a hungry trout took the hook and the fight was on.
Madigan played with him for a while then, when the fish tired, pulled him in. He was just reaching to pull the trout out of the creek when, in the water’s reflection, he saw a flash of light high overhead on the mountainside in front of him. If he had not been looking into the water he would have missed it altogether. He quickly looked up but could see nothing. This time he was sure it was not the reflection from an eagle’s wings. It was a flash from something metal.
Chapter 5
O’Neill kept riding until he was sure he was safe from the man he had planned to kill. Now in the quiet of the night he took his scarf and pressed it against the fresh wound on his face. It was bleeding badly and it took some time before he got the flow of blood stopped. Another inch to the left and he would not be alive, but he was. And he was determined to make Madigan pay for this mark that he’d be forced to wear for the rest of his life.
It didn’t matter that O’Neill had brought it on himself, for cowards such as he never took the blame when due. All that mattered was that someday, somewhere, he’d put a bullet in the back of the man who had done this to him.
That his friend died did not bother him in the least. He had planned on killing him anyway after he got what he wanted, so he felt no loss. Except, of course, now he would have to find another to take his place.
O’Neill got down from his horse and, not bothering to unsaddle, tied him to the branch of a tree. He then curled up in his blanket and went to sleep, leaving his horse to dry in its own sweat. Morning found him stiff and sore, the left side of his face caked with blood. He was hungry and scared, for he had never spent much time in the mountains alone, even while he was in the army, always preferring to surround himself with others for protection. He pulled his watch from his pocket with trembling hands and realized that he had slept till mid-morning. O’Neill cussed at his luck. “Should have shot that bastard Madigan when I had the chance,” he mumbled to himself.
Later in the day after constantly looking over his shoulder, O’Neill saw the smoke from a campfire ahead of him. Reasoning that it couldn’t be Madigan, he stopped long enough to pull the dried scab from his face. After making sure there was plenty of fresh blood, he laid over in his saddle and started towards the camp.
“Rider coming in!” someone yelled. O’Neill slumped over in the saddle, closed his eyes, and let his horse lead him in. In a few seconds he heard footsteps running toward him. He took a deep breath and leaned over still further until he fell to the ground.
“He’s hurt! He’s covered with blood! Get him over to the fire!” a voice commanded.
O’Neill kept his eyes closed, feigning unconsciousness. It worked, and soon he was being carried to where several blankets had been placed on the ground.
“Put him down gently, boys. No tellin’ how bad he’s hurt,” LaRue ordered.
“Water, I need water,” O’Neill moaned through half-closed lips. A man brought a canteen over and held it to his mouth.
“Not too much at first,” the man said. “Just take it easy for a while. We’ll take care of you.”
O’Neill opened his eyes enough to see that the man that had brought him water was not much taller than a young boy. He started to laugh but stopped himself in time, making it seem like a cough instead, but not before Shorty caught the beginnings of the laugh and became instantly suspicious of the stranger before him.
“I’ll get you something to eat. Try not to move,” Shorty said as he stepped away and moved toward the fire-blackened cook pot full of beans. “Stir those beans up and give the wounded man some. He looks hungry,” Shorty ordered the cook.
LaRue stood back watching the whole affair as Shorty came toward him. He noticed Shorty loosen the thong from his Colt as he came closer.
“What’s up?” he asked as his friend walked over.
“It’s that wounded man. I get an uneasy feeling when I’m close to him. Maybe it’s me, but I think he’s trying to pull the wool over our eyes.”
“Why do you think he’d do that?”
Shorty looked around uneasily before speaking. “Maybe he’s got friends hid out waiting to catch us off guard. Maybe he’s a friend of the guy we had the run-in with a few days ago. I don’t know, but he just doesn’t look like he’s in as bad a shape as he’s putting on.”
LaRue shifted his weight to his left foot. “I’ll go have a chat with him. Might find out what he’s up to. Quietly spread the word for everybody to be on guard just in case.”
O’Neill watched as LaRue crossed over to where he was laying.
“This your bunch?” he asked as LaRue crouched down beside him.
“I hired them if that’s what you mean.” Pete shifted his weight to the other leg. “Where’d you get that wound, if you don’t mind me asking.”
O’Neill didn’t mind at all. In fact he was waiting for someone to ask so he could exercise the plan he had dreamed up just minutes before. If everything went the way he hoped it would, he’d have all the men he needed and at no expense to himself.
“Don’t mind at all, just lucky to be alive!”
“Who did that to you?”
O’Neill shifted around trying to get comfortable, letting out little moaning sounds as he
did so.
“It’s kind of a long story. Are you sure you want to hear it?” LaRue nodded his head. “It happened about five days ago, give or take a day or two. I was riding along just minding my own business when I heard some screaming in the distance. Spurring my horse on at a fast run I came upon some men-there were about five of them-raping a couple of Injun women.”
O’Neill stopped to let what he had said sink in. By now several other men had gathered around. “I ordered them to stop. But instead of stopping they started shooting at me! I drew and shot back getting three of them before I was forced to run for cover.
“Now I ain’t an Injun lover, but what them boys was doing to those women wasn’t called for, Injun or not! So I couldn’t just leave them. I started to reload my sidearm when one of them boys rushed me and I had to fight him barehanded. It was a terrible fight. All the time I was worried that the other man might sneak up behind me and shoot me while I was unarmed.” O’Neill glanced around at the faces above him. He knew he had them hooked. “Those kind will do that, you know.”
“Do what?” Shorty inquired.
“Why sneak up and shoot you in the back, that’s what. Course, don’t expect someone like you to know that, but it’s the gospel.”
“What are you implying, ‘someone like me’?” Shorty was starting to boil and several of the men stepped back to give him room.
“Why look at you, boy! You’re not much bigger than a child. Couldn’t put up much of a fight against a real man now, could you?”
LaRue saw what was coming and put his hand on Shorty’s shoulder. “He’s half out of his head, Shorty. Doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Better you go over and have some beans while you cool off.” Shorty eyed his friend for a moment, then turned his back and ambled off.
“You shouldn’t talk to him like that. He can kill you before you can slap leather any day of the year.”
“That pip-squeak? Who says-him?” O’Neill said with a sneer.
“No, the men he killed and there have been plenty of them. So, for your own safety, keep a civil tongue in your head when you’re around him. Now tell us the rest of your story,” LaRue demanded angrily.
“I finally got the best of him and was able to grab his gun and put a couple bullets in him before the other one could get behind me. Diving for cover I was just in time to see the other one ride out. I cut the women loose and buried the men, only decent thing to do. After I was done, one of the women came up to me and gave me something.”
O’Neill reached into his pocket and retrieved a little gold figurine. The men gasped as they saw it. “She told me that her tribe had thousands of these and I could have as many as I wanted of them. Only one problem. An enemy tribe had captured her people and now held them and the gold captive. She begged me to help her, but I being only one man could do nothing against so many. I was on my way to get help when the man that got away ambushed me last night. I escaped in the dark. You know the rest of the story.”
LaRue studied the man for a moment. “Did you get a look at the man who shot you?”
“No, everything happened so fast, but I can tell you who it was!”
“If you didn’t get a look at him, how can you know who it was?” LaRue inquired.
“Easy. He had a Sharps and there’s only one man that uses one of them these days.”
“Who might that be?” LaRue was finding this conversation very interesting.
“His name’s Madigan!”
“Madigan, the army scout?” LaRue found it hard to believe that the man they called the man hunter would be any party to rape and murder.
“That’s the one. You hear of him?”
“I’ve heard people talk of him. Don’t know him myself though. How can you be sure that it’s really him? Just ‘cause a man carries a Sharps doesn’t mean he’s this Madigan.”
“Oh, it was him all right. I’d know him anywhere. You can take my word for it!”
How’s that, if he didn’t see him, LaRue wondered to himself. He was not about to take this stranger’s word for anything right now.
.“Eat up! There’s more if you want it,” LaRue said as he moved away from the man. O’Neill eyed him suspiciously.
LaRue found Shorty over by the horses. “Come with me, Shorty. I feel like a walk.” Shorty put his plate of beans down and came up beside LaRue.
“What’s up?” he asked the big man. “That stranger making you a little nervous too?”
“The stranger is a fake. You know it and I know it, but I’m afraid our men may think he’s telling the truth. That might lead to problems for us.”
“You think we should send him away? Might avoid trouble if we do.”
LaRue thought for a minute. “It’s not as easy as that. If we get rid of him now, the others will start asking questions, questions that could only lead to trouble. So you see, no matter what we do right now, we got trouble.”
“I see what you mean. Can’t do anything without stirring up a little manure. What do you suggest?”
“Don’t rightly know. Just wait for him to make his move first, I guess. Keep an eye on him if you will. Maybe if he sees we’re watching, he’ll take it on his own to pack up and leave.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll push me a little too hard. My friend here can end any trouble real quick.” Shorty raised his Colt slowly out in front of him, then in a flash holstered it again.
“Let’s hope we’ll not need that,” LaRue commented.
For the next two days as LaRue’s band traveled steadily westward, O’Neill gained followers. It wasn’t hard to understand why. LaRue’s group had been brought together for the purpose of finding the very gold that O’Neill now promised he could find. LaRue was losing his hold on his men again, and he knew this time he would not get it back, for the lust for gold was strong and these men that LaRue had assembled for his expedition were an illiterate bunch at best. They lived for the moment and were ready to follow anyone able to lead them the sooner to riches. Shorty agreed with LaRue that a showdown was imminent.
On the third day it came. LaRue had been scouting ahead when he saw a rider coming. As the rider approached he saw that it was his friend Shorty and that he was in a hurry. A packhorse trailed behind him. LaRue put his rifle back in its scabbard and greeted the small gunman as he came closer.
“I’m up here, Shorty. What’s with the packhorse?”
Shorty drew up abreast of Pete. “It’s that O’Neill fellow. He’s talked the rest of the men into setting an ambush for you when you come back to camp. With all the talk he’s been doing about knowing where the gold is, the men agreed to follow him.”
“Then why the ambush? If they all agreed by their own choice, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“He says you’re in cahoots with Madigan and that if they don’t kill you first, you’ll set a trap for them after they have the gold. You know there’s not a smart one in that lot, so they believed him to the letter.”
“How’d they plan to get me?”
Shorty smiled at his friend’s question. “In the back, of course! Someone convinced O’Neill that you were too fast to take straight on, so he devised a plan to get your attention, then shoot you in the back while you were helpless to do anything about it.”
“They knew we were friends. How’d you manage to get out with your body in one piece?”
“Real easy. At first they thought I was out of camp with you. When they realized that I was back and had heard what they were planning, they offered to cut me in for a big share if I’d kill you.”
“Why didn’t you? May make you a rich man.”
“Or a dead one! Just be a matter of time before someone took a rifle shot at me. From the rear, of course!”
“Why did they let you leave? You were outnumbered and they still let you go?”
Shorty grinned at his friend. “Anybody tell you that you ask a lot of questions?”
“You’re the first. But how did you get away?”
<
br /> “Simple. I told O’Neill if he gave me any trouble I’d kill him first, then kill as many others as I could before they got me.”
“And O’Neill believed you?”
“Not at first, but the others made him believe it. None of them wanted to join him in the ground.”
“So they just stood by while you packed up and left?”
“Not exactly. I made several of them pack up for me while I watched them and the rest of the bunch,” he said with a grin. “Now I have a question for you. What the heck do we do now? O’Neill’s got the men and most of the supplies. If he really does know where the gold is, which I doubt very much, he’ll have it before we can do anything about it. We’re only two against all of them. And another thing that’s been on my mind: what do you think he’ll do to any of those poor Indians that get in his way?”
“You mean Indian war parties?”
Shorty pulled his horse to a stop. “No, not war parties. I’ve heard rumors of a peaceful tribe of fair-skinned Indians that used to live in cliff dwellings. Then they moved one night to a valley that only they knew about. Maybe O’Neill found that valley. If he did, I wouldn’t give a snowball’s chance in hell for those people.”
What Shorty was saying got LaRue to thinking. Could it be the last of the Aztecs that Shorty heard rumors about?
“One more thing,” Shorty said, pausing. “You know I’ve never killed a man just to be killing, but in my book O’Neill needs killing and I’m thinking I’ll be the one that does it!” With that, Shorty kicked his horse into action. LaRue moved his own horse alongside his friend.
“It’s not like you to hold a grudge. If you want to go back and kill O’Neill, I’d be the last to stand in your way. Just doesn’t seem like you, that’s all.”
“I don’t mean to go back after him. It’s just that I have a feeling that he and I will meet again, and when we do, it will be him or me. Now let’s put some ground between us before he sends someone out looking to cook our goose.”
Madigan Page 7
