‘Where’s Verity and his wife?’ said Crow, swinging down out of the saddle and tethering the stallion to the corral fence. Walking in towards the smoldering fire, stepping over a headless dog.
The lawman joined him, groaning with pain as he clambered down oil the back of his horse. Reaching round and easing himself as he tried to loosen the tightness of his breeches over the boil.
There was little heat from the ashes. Enough to make the hills beyond shimmer and dance, but it was easy for the two men to walk in close enough to be able to see there were no bodies there. Nothing but the embers of what had once been home to the Mayor and his pretty blonde wife.
‘Jesus Christ all … Look at that. Killed the stock. Slaughtered poor Judd and Reagan. And by God it surely looks like they gone and taken Abe and Martha. Jesus Christ! Crow, this surely beats all.’
‘Don’t it?’ The tall man in black was puzzled. There were things here that didn’t fit. ‘Chiricahua attack like this and they’d have hit and rim. In and out like a greased blade between the third and fourth ribs. Very fast and very fatal. Maybe drive off stock. Not butcher it. That wasn’t the Apache way. Nor to torture men on the spot. Unless they had a grudge against Verity. Something so special that it made them act out of character.
‘Nope. They ain’t here,’ said Derekson, kicking at a leaning roof beam so that it collapsed into the fire with a soft crackle and a fountain of glowing red sparks that whirled and scattered into the morning sky.
‘Indians hate Verity?’ asked Crow.
The Sheriff wasn’t really concentrating and he spoke without thinking. ‘Everyone hated Verity.’ Then he realized what he’d said and tried to mend it. ‘I don’t rightly mean it that way, Crow. Now, I wouldn’t want that to get around in Dead Hawk.’
Crow smiled, even though his deep-set eyes never altered. ‘Lips are sealed, Derekson. But I get the message. Can’t say I found him an easy guy to love. Nor his skinny brother.’
The Sheriff grinned and some of the lines of tension eased away, making him look ten years younger. Fact is, most folks hereabouts can’t take to them. Martha’s a pretty little thing, sure enough. There’s men who’d give a whole pile of silver cartwheels to … But that’s … Guess Jake’ll be out in a while. Left word with him to come on out. He ain’t got long for this world.’
‘Sure,’ said Crow, looking around the silent horizon.
Away to the west, near the rim of a line of bluffs, he’d seen a pair of birds rise and circle into the sky. As if something might have disturbed them. Could have been a lizard. Prairie dog. Snake.
Could have been any of those.
Or none of them.
Derekson didn’t notice that the other man had become preoccupied and carried on talking about the Verity family.
‘All the money in Dead Hawk comes from them. From Abe and from Jake’s banking. Take that away and the damned place dies on its feet.’
Crow was walking slowly around the spread, avoiding the pools of blood that muddied up the ground everywhere. Occasionally stooping to look at tracks, or bending to pick up a spent bullet.
‘And with Jacob carryin’ the Reaper’s stamp on his brow and Abe took by the Chiricahua, then that might just it. Abe’s head of the family all right. What you go there, Crow?’
‘Bullet.’
‘From those red bastards.’
‘From a Winchester. Not many Apaches got those yet. The Seventy-threes.’
Derekson looked at Crow, his mouth working with rising anger. ‘You tryin’ to say it was whites done this, Crow?’
‘No. Saying you got to be careful. Wouldn’t be the first time white killers tried to hide behind Indian clothes and ways.’
The Sheriff turned to the bodies dangling obscenely from the corral gates. Fighting for words. ‘You … sayin’ white men’d do that?’
‘Indian never learned scalping until the white men came along.’
‘You’re a fuckin’ Indian-lover, Crow! I knew there was something fuckin’ wrong ’bout you. By God … ’
‘Here comes Verity, whippin’ his team up like it’s the end of the world, poor bastard. Guess in a way of speaking it is.’
The lawman turned to look at the cloud of dust that was swirling towards them from the outskirts of Dead Hawk, a mile off.
‘You got some eyes there, Crow. Unless you’re just guessing. Like you are about this not being the Chiricahua.’
‘I’m not saying it is or isn’t. I’m just saying there’s things make me wonder.’
Derekson shook his head. ‘You better not start that kind of talk in front of Jacob Verity, Crow. Nor in front of anyone from Dead Hawk. Judd and Reagan was well
Crow was considering a reply when a movement caught his eye. Away over where the pair of birds had come flying suddenly from cover. Out of the low hills. Derekson was beginning to walk out past the corpses to greet the banker, when the movement caught his eye too. And he stopped, turning to grin at Crow. A grin that was without any pretense of humor.
‘There’s your white men, Crow. Does that satisfy you?’
Crow didn’t reply. Simply looking at the row of a half-dozen mounted men that had appeared on the skyline mile or so away. Even at that distance they were clearly recognizable as Chiricahua warriors.
Chapter Six
The Indians disappeared as quickly as they’d appeared. Vanishing off the ridge while the two white men stood and watched them. Still staring at the space on the horizon where they’d been. Crow looked away first.
‘I still say it might not have been Chiricahua.’
The Sheriff spat in the dust. ‘Sure. And fuckin’ pigs might fly. Come on, Crow. I don’t take you for a man scared to admit it when he’s shown wrong.’
‘I’ll admit it. Soon as anyone finds the Mayor and his lady. Then I’ll be able to tell.’
‘Well, I’m tellin’ Jacob Verity what we just seen and if you got any damned sense, Crow, you’ll keep your guesses to yourself. Only bring trouble.’
On balance, Crow decided that it might be good advice.
For the time being.
Much to Crow’s surprise, the banker broke down and wept when Derekson mumbled out the bad news. Averting his eyes from the makeshift gibbet and two bodies hanging there, sitting down on a slashed grain sack and weeping. His weight forcing more of the corn out, running in the dirt in a steady trickle.
Derekson looked across at Crow, embarrassed by the public grief. Not knowing how to handle it. But the tall lean man just shrugged his shoulders back and turned away. It wasn’t his business.
After a couple of minutes Jacob Verity managed to re-gain control of himself and wiped his eyes with a large white handkerchief, then blowing his nose with a trumpeting noise. Standing up and brushing grain off his dark suit.
‘My apologies, Sheriff. Mister Crow. My brother and I were very close.’
‘This don’t signify he’s dead, Verity,’ said Crow, quietly.
‘What?’
Derekson stepped forward. ‘Now, Crow. Don’t go gettin’ ideas about … ’
But the banker ignored him. ‘What do you mean? Do you think that Abraham could be alive?’
‘I’d take fifty to one in gold that he’s alive right now.’
‘But he … ’
His soft voice a remorseless knife, Crow carried on as though Verity hadn’t interrupted him. ‘They raided this place about four, maybe five, hours back. Killed those boys. Took your brother and his wife. Alive. Must have been. No point in carrying corpses around Arizona.’
‘So?’
‘So I guess that whoever took him … Maybe them Apache boys back watchin’ over there … took him and the lady for some good reason.’
The banker was out of his depth. His breath coming in shallow, fluttery bursts that shook his fragile body. Inside the dark suit he looked like a frail bird imprisoned in a clinging trap. Crow felt that if he gripped the banker by the arm, the bones would splinter to powder beneath his fingers.
<
br /> ‘What kind of reason, Mister Crow?’
The Sheriff felt he was being pushed into the background and stepped in. ‘Maybe someone had a kind of grudge against you or the Mayor, Mister Verity. That’s what Crow thought,’ he ended, lamely.
‘If one has money, Mister Crow,’ said the banker, quietly, ‘then one has enemies. The more money, the greater the number of enemies.’
‘Then you must have plenty,’ commented Crow.
‘Their name is legion,’ sighed Verity.
‘So I guess you might be getting some kind of a demand from the people who took them.’
‘I thought it was those heathen savages over there who … Oh!’
The line of Chiricahua had vanished again as though it had never been, leaving the land as bare as before.
‘Crow ain’t precisely … well I. . . kind of … he thinks that maybe … ’ stammered Derekson. r
‘You got something to say,. Sheriff,’ snapped Verity, ‘then I suggest you say it, ’stead of gobblin’ away like a turkey.’
Crow sniffed. ‘Derekson doesn’t hold with me wonderin’ about why these Indians made this hit. Why they used Seventy-three Winchesters. Not the easiest guns to get hold of out here. Why they tortured those dead boys. Why there isn’t a single arrow around. I know most Apaches carry some sort of gun, but in this kind of raid you’d figure to see a few with bows.’
‘Plenty of questions,’ said the banker, gravely.
‘Yeah. Not a whole lot of answers.’
‘You know a lot about Indians, Mister Crow? I believe the Sheriff feels you are what is called a hunter of bounties?’ ’
‘That’s two more questions, Verity. But they’re easy tones. I know some about Indians; I’m not a bounty-hunter. Not truly. I’m just a man lookin’ for a way of gettin’ a few dollars to rub together.’
‘If I hire you to take on the task of searching for my brother, would you take it?’
Crow stood silently. ‘Depends.’
‘On what?’
‘Couple of things.’
‘Just name them, Mister Crow.’ Sensing an interruption from Derekson and shaking his head testily. ‘I know there are men coming out of town, Sheriff! I told them.’ Turning back to Crow. ‘Well?’
‘You want your brother and his wife?’
‘The little slut is of no concern.’
‘Might be to your brother.’ Immediately Crow knew that he’d stepped into a problem area for the Verity clan. He’d opened up a coffin that might have been better left closed.
Verity had gone even more pale, the lines on his face smoothing out so that he resembled a skull with waxed paper drawn tight over it. The cheek-bones so prominent that Crow feared they would tear through his cheeks. The lips peeled back off the yellowed teeth in a snarl of anger more in keeping with a hired gun than with a respected banker.
‘You will not … !!’ He fought to regain his self-control.
‘Get this, Verity, and you get it good,’ snarled Crow, suddenly angry with all the game-playing. ‘I don’t give a sweet damn about your brother. His wife. You. Your family or anyone else in Dead Hawk. You want me to work for you then get that in your head. I want to know whether you want both back. Alive or dead. And now much you’re putting up for this.’
Derekson opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, when he saw the expression on Jacob Verity’s face and closed it again.
‘Very well, Mister Crow. I like a man who speaks his mind.’
Crow thought what a damned lie that was, but he allowed it to pass.
‘Go on.’
‘I will pay you a total of three thousand dollars in silver for the return of the head of our family. Three hundred dollars for the whore he married.’
‘Alive?’
‘Yes for my brother. I don’t care about the woman. Three hundred dollars whether she breathes or not. In some ways I would be happier if she was … ’ Verity realized that he was being rash in front of the Sheriff and this stranger and tugged back his horns some. ‘Three thousand for my brother alive. One hundred dollars for positive proof of his death. Three hundred for the woman. Alive. Thirty dollars for her corpse or proof of her demise. Is that satisfactory?
Crow thought about it. He was low in money and it was job. The more he thought about it the more sure he was that the Chiricahua were a convenient screen for the real killers. That made it easier. He didn’t savor the idea of taking on half an Apache tribe on their own home territory.
‘Yeah. I’ll do it. But I want a basic hundred dollars for starters.’
‘Agreed,’ said Verity with a frosty smile. Nodding benignly as if he had just confirmed a loan with adequate collateral with a prosperous client. Instead of a payment to a bounty-hunter to save his brother’s skin.
‘What about the men who’ve got them?’
‘I don’t … ’
Crow shook his head in wonderment. ‘You hire me and I get them back. I may have to kill some men. They’ll be surely trying to kill me. Are you paying anything above that for the number I gun down?’
‘It’s not unusual,’ interrupted Sheriff Derekson, half-watching the group of men riding at a fast gallop towards the still-smoldering remains of Abraham Verity’s house. ‘Very well. How much?’
‘Say about fifty a man, proved.’
‘Lot for Indians,’ said the Sheriff.
‘They aren’t Indians. Indians never send a ransom demand.’
‘Nor have these,’ said Verity.
‘They will,’ said Crow.
They did. ·
Chapter Seven
It was written on a scrap of brown paper and had been stuck under the banker’s back door. Found by one of his servants after Jacob had gone out in his buckboard to see the carnage for himself.
Crow and the Sheriff were both there when it was handed to Verity. And it was Crow who caught him when he toppled like a felled tree to the earth after he’d read it. Laying him gently down, reaching into the cavernous mouth and freeing the tongue so that the banker didn’t choke to death. Easing the piece of paper from the talons that gripped it.
Holding it out to the lawman. Who shook his head.
‘Never been that good at readin’. Not when it’s writ like that. I can figure the big letters.’
Crow took it back and read it out loud, ignoring the helpless figure of the banker, now being carried groaning into his own house by servants. It was scrawled in thick pencil, the lettering blurred and smudged. The spelling leaving a lot to be desired. But they meaning came through loud and clear. Menacing and vicious.
We got Mare and ladi and wil kil and cut them if you do nott pa uss $100,000 inn severm das from this da. We meen bisnes and ar roothles indyanns.
It wasn’t signed. At the bottom there was what seemed
to be a hasty postscript, in a different hand. We wil lett you no how to pa an wen.
That was it.
Derekson sniffed, looking around the neat garden, the first spring shoots appearing from the gray earth. Glancing round to make sure that nobody was near enough to overhear him.
‘Hundred thousand in big ones.’ He whistled. through his teeth. ‘I … Jesus I surely could use a drink. Come back to Mike’s Place for a snort after this? No? Maybe you’re right. Keep your head clear and … Jesus! Hundred thousand. You think they got it?’
Crow nodded. ‘I guess they have. Doesn’t matter much to me. That’s not my part of things. You still think it’s Apaches?’
The Sheriff shook his head mournfully. ‘Says so in that note,’ but his words lacked conviction, even to himself.
‘Yeah,’ said Crow.
‘I could eat some breakfast. Ridin’ out like that on an empty stomach. Seeing Judd and Reagan and then … some eggs and grits with a steak!’ The lawman actually licked his lips at the thought. ‘Hundred thousand. Think they’ll do a deal?’
‘Guess they want the money more than the Mayor and his woman. So Verity has to decide what he’s goin’ to
do. Talk or pay or fight. So far he’s paid me to do his fightin’ and I’m leavin’ in an hour or so. He’d best make up his mind.’
When they were allowed in to the banker’s house, the old man had recovered a little of his composure. Sitting with a blanket across his legs on a chaise longue. His back supported with cushions, a crystal goblet of brandy at his elbow.
His voice was quivery and the hand that reached for the liquor trembled. But the eyes were bright and the purpose strong.
‘You go after them, Crow. After them and bring back the head of our family. Kill every one of these bastards. I’ll pay you a total of five thousand dollars if you do that.’
The tall man shook his head. ‘No. Deal’s a deal. Stick to what we agreed. Three thousand for the Mayor, alive. Hundred for proof of death. Three hundred for the lady.’
‘Gold-huntin’ little whore!’ spat the banker, a fine spray of brandy dappling the blanket on his lap.
Crow ignored him. ‘Three hundred for the lady, alive. Thirty for proof of death. And fifty for every one of the men I kill.’
‘Proven.’
‘Sure. What do you want?’
Verity glanced across at Derekson, who had been preoccupied looking at a painting of some scantily-clad water nymphs running in mock fear from a group of heavily-endowed satyrs. He caught the banker staring at him and turned, face reddening.
‘I didn’t … ’
‘Mister Crow is talking about providing proof of the men he will kill, Sheriff. If it is not too much to ask you to tear your gaze from my classical picture, bought from Paris, France, perhaps you could favor me with your opinion of how such proof is normally provided.’
‘Cocks.’
‘What?’
‘Cocks!’ blurted Derekson. ’Or ears. Tongues. Noses. If it’s someone kind of important then they ask for the whole head. Difficult in summer. Have to get someone to pickle it or dry it in sand if the chase’s been a long one. Ain’t that right, Crow?’
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