‘You’re scarin’ the life outa me. Two women! That purely gives me the shits.’
Duke said: ‘We have to face it, boys. We’ve been over-indulging ourselves lately. We killed too many and somebody’s got mad at us.’
Ike studied him for a moment and said: ‘So we kill these two bastards soon’s we get a good chance. Then we hole up for a while till things simmer down. Once we’re in the Elbow, the frettin’ stops.’
This was El Codo to the local Mexicans, the high canyon with a crook in it with, so far as the rest of the world knew, just one way in and no way out. Which went to show that the rest of the world did not know everything. The ‘boys’ knew of another way out to the south, through the Sangre de Cristo mountains. No wider than a goat-track, it forced anybody who wanted to take supplies through to use pack-animals. It was hard-going, but welcome enough when the law came in at the front door.
Duke said: ‘I have a feeling in my water these two hombres are the staying kind.’
Lon Southey said: ‘Maybe we should bushwhack ’em and get it over with.’
Duke nodded—‘You could be right.’
Ike liked the idea too—‘We kill the two men, then we cut cards for the women. Jesus, I didn’t have a tit in my hand for too long. The Mex’d suit me down to the ground.’
Lon Southey said: ‘Brown’s Crossing. Good cover an’ we’ll have ’em right out in the open with nowhere to go but down into the goddam water.’
The Mexican who had sat apart from the others spoke for the first time. This was Pepe Inclán, a small, taciturn and terrible man for whom the others had no liking but an immense amount of respect. His face was still pinched from the starvation years of his childhood. His eyes showed the bitterness of a man who had never reconciled himself to suffering. His neck still bore the marks of the rawhide reata that had failed to hang him, down in El Paso three years before. The local citizenry had understandably resented his raping one of their more respectable ladies and killing her husband. There were a number of lawmen in the Southwest who would have liked him shackled in their jails. He liked to dress well, but now he had been many days in the saddle traveling through rough country and his clothes were in poor condition. He had lavished money on his hat and his boots. The hat was heavily braided and decorated with conchos. His boots were hand-carved. The spurs that decorated the heels of the boots had been engraved beautifully in silver. They made music as he walked slowly up to the fire. He spoke very careful, but awkward English:
‘I do not like that we do not know who it is that follow us. You know? It is strange, this thing. They are bounty hunters? Lawmen? All we know is they have two women with them. One of the men do not wear boots. A white man with no boots. I never saw this before.’
The other three looked at him. They never knew what to make of him. All they knew for sure was that he was poison. He cocked his head on one side and regarded them one by one without haste, like a man who was confident that his question was an important one and deserved an answer from each of them.
Ike said: ‘So he lost his boots. A feller can lose his boots. It could happen to anybody.’
Inclán said: ‘One woman is of my own people. She is a lady, that I know for sure. Her body has a delicacy … The other is an Indian. Does not this strike you as strange?’
Lon Southey said: ‘What's so goddam strange about it for crissake? One feller fancies red meat, the other feller likes it all pale an’ delicate like you said.’
The Mexican stared away across the plain. He looked dreamy.
‘I am uneasy,’ he said. ‘We have one killed and one hurt bad, but still we do not take these two men seriously enough I think. We do not feel real danger from two men traveling with two women and one man without boots. They make us laugh. Is it not so?’
Ike said: ‘You bet they make me laugh. We’ll rub ’em out at the crossin’ an’ that'll be an end to it.’
Inclán turned his dark eyes to where the still form of the wounded man lay under a single blanket, sleeping.
‘What do we do about him?’ he asked.
Southey said: ‘If he don’t hand in his chips tonight, he’ll be gone tomorrow. You ever hear of a man gut-shot who lasted?’
Duke smiled.
‘No, I never,’ he said.
The Mexican grew suddenly alert. His sharp ears had caught a faint sound the others had failed to hear.
‘A rider,’ he informed them.
Automatically, they reached for weapons. They relaxed when Inclán told them: ‘It is Brazos,’ and a few minutes later a tired and sweating horse bore a man over a nearby ridge and down into the camp.
This was Bill Weyland, a big long-legged Texan, known for his mild manner and occasional outbursts of maniacal fury. It was in such a fury that he had started his violent career with the murder of three federal Negro soldiers back in his teens. His face was pleasant, his eyes clear blue and his hair, which hung to his shoulders, was fair. Saddle-leather creaked as he stepped down from the saddle.
‘Old Charlie Hedges struck gold,’ he announced.
He waited while the information and all its implications sank in. Slowly, the grins came. Everybody in the Sangre de Cristos knew old Charlie Hedges. The old-timer had twice before found and lost fortunes in the West. Men said he only liked hunting for gold and dreaming what he would do with it. Once he had it, he seemed to lose his presence of mind. Gambling, drink and women ate it up. He speculated wildly. So now, for the third time, he had found the source of fortune in the hills.
Duke asked: ‘You saw him?’
‘I sure did.’
‘What’s more important—did he see you?’
‘No, sir, he did not.’
‘So,’ Pepe Inclán declared, ‘we are all rich man—for the price of one little bullet.’
They liked the way Pepe put it and they laughed. The Mexican looked faintly surprised he had made a joke. Then he screwed his eyes up in deep thought for a moment and said: ‘But we have these men following us. That could make big difficulties.’
Ike yelled: ‘Aw, for crissakes, Pepe, how long do it take to throw a bullet into an old hill nutty?’
Lon Southey saw a snag: ‘Maybe the old man didn’t dig any gold out yet.’
Bill Weyland reassured him: ‘He’s all packed to move. He has more gold than his three burros can carry. This is the way I see it—we move two-three hours before dawn. That way we pull well ahead of these two hombres that’s followin’ us. We hit the old man about one hour after first light. Then we high-tail it for the Elbow. We’ll be safe an’ sound with our asses on a bonanza the day after tomorrow. How’s that sound?’
‘What about me?’
At the sound of the words so softly spoken they were almost a whisper, they all turned. The wounded man was staring at them out of frightened eyes.
Duke said in an unaccustomed gentle voice: ‘We can’t take you along, Jack. You see that.’
Jack Longley held his belly and pursed his lips in silent pain for a moment.
‘You bastards,’ he said. ‘You goddam sneakin’ yeller bastards.’
Duke said: ‘You’d do the same in our boots, Jack.’
‘Leave me a horse,’ Longley said. ‘I’ll follow best I can. Christ, you can’t leave a man out here on his lonesome.’
Ike said: ‘That’s askin’ a lot, Jack. A horse is good cash-money an’ you ain’t going’ no place.’
The wounded man’s reply to this was to produce a gun from the cover of the blanket and say: ‘Saddle me a horse, Ike. Right this minute an’ no foolin’.’
They all listened to the authoritative sound of the gun coming to full cock and none of them missed the fact that the small movement called for enormous effort on the wounded man’s part.
It was the Mexican who shot him. He was no more than on the edge of Longley’s vision, and slid the Remington from leather with no more than a whisper of sound. The wounded man was aware of the movement and made an effort to turn and point his gun at
Pepe. He managed to trigger off a shot, but his hand was too feeble to aim the gun properly. The Mexican fired twice from habit. One sure shot to the large target of the torso caught Longley in the chest. The second hit him above the left ear. The result was not pleasant.
Even the hardest men cannot remain unaffected by the killing of a man who has ridden with them for any length of time. While they regarded this as a necessary execution, they still regretted it. But there was no remorse, and they would have half-expected such a fate if they had been in Longley’s place.
Pepe crossed himself and muttered a few quick words in Spanish that passed for a prayer.
Lon Southey said: ‘Poor son-of-a-bitch.’
Even tough Bill Weyland shook his head and said: ‘Hell of a way to go. Let’s plant him right, boys.’
They all agreed that was a seemly idea. They moved away from the fire for a couple of dozen paces and scraped a shallow grave in the hard soil with their knives. They then hauled the dead man carelessly, as if he were no more than carrion, dropped him in the grave and piled rocks on him. They said nothing over the grave, for that would have embarrassed them.
Southey suggested: ‘What say we pull out now? There ain’t nothin’ here for us.’
They all thought that not a bad idea. Their horses were tiring, but they had enough spares for a change of mounts. Those two who were following them had not taken all the Indian ponies. Each leading a horse on a line they trotted steadily into the foothills, the great peaks of the mountains thrusting titanically into the hot azure above them. The riders were microscopic figures in a giant landscape, creeping over its broken surface, dwarfed by nature even in their great villainy. To them, the grandeur and majesty of the scene was no more than a commonplace backcloth of the small sordid dramas of their lives. Yet even they responded in their ways to the change in the scene as they climbed into the hills. The first rash of real green began to show itself. By dark they were among the pale trunks of the silver birch and saw the light green of their leaves reflected in the placid water of a small lake.
Now they could feel the immense relief of men at last rescued from the eternal heat of the merciless sun. Here the recent rains had left their effect. Everything in sight was lush and green. The horses picked up and, as soon as they had filled their bellies with water, they headed for grass and started munching contentedly. The men felt their spirits lift also. They began to laugh and joke among themselves. Even the Mexican produced a wry smile. Even the hard tack tasted better as they lolled around the fire.
Ike Mannion suddenly produced a hankering for fresh fish. He’d bet there was fish a-plenty in that there water. Bill Weyland agreed. He’d been right smart with a rod and line when he was a kid back on the Nueces. Nothing would satisfy the two men but they should catch them a mess of fish. .
As they perched on rocks with crude rods in their hands, Ike started to laugh. He laughed until Weyland asked: ‘What the hell’s so funny?’
‘Just thinkin’ about that old man,’ Mannion replied. ‘Christ, the look on his face when we blow his goddam head off.’
Weyland turned to give him a good look.
‘You really enjoy your work, Ike,’ he said.
‘Sure,’ said Ike, grinning happily. ‘What’s so wrong with that?’
Four
The old man who was going to have his head blown off thrust his booted foot into the flank of the burro and threw his whole weight back on the rawhide rope. The little donkey swayed and turned to look at him reproachfully. This was Annabel, his most intelligent companion and his favorite. He had gotten the name from his sister whom he had last seen some forty years before back in Nottingham Town, England.
Charlie talked to his burros all the time they were near him. He had started to do this twenty years back when he had first taken to the hills. He reckoned a man who cut himself off from his fellow men for long periods had to practice the powers of speech or he would forget how. Now it was habit. He regarded his burros as individuals with characters of their own. He would quarrel one-sidedly with them and would even grow so angry with one of them that he would refuse to speak to it for a day or more.
Now Charlie was all amiability, for once more he was the possessor of gold. This time he had made up his mind that there would be no more wandering for him. He would head back for Taos, buy himself some store clothes and set up house like a real gentleman. There was enough on the backs of his companions to keep him in style and comfort for the rest of his life.
He completed the lashing and rested. The years were catching up on him now and he had to rest more frequently. He sat down and thought. There was one fly in the ointment. He had been prospecting the area since early spring and had found gold in May. He had worked steadily for four months, taking out more gold per day than he had ever done in his life. And not a soul came near him, not white man or Indian. Of that he was certain. At least, not until yesterday.
Yesterday, a horse-back rider had been up there in the rocks watching his camp. Annabel had given the alarm, not by voice but by the unfailing signals of her ears. They had indicated something up there and Charlie had investigated with great care, taking his old Sharps single-shot rifle along with him. He had found where the man had stood and, after hunting around for an hour, had found where he tied his horse while he did so. Just one man, but if he had bothered to observe Charlie from the rocks for a good while, then he must have done so for a purpose. Else why had he not come down to the camp and begged a cup of coffee and exchanged a neighborly word? The fellow had caught the scent of gold, that was the truth of it. And he’d gone to fetch some more of his kind. Where there was gold, there were gold-thieves. Just as cattle and sheep produced cattle and sheep thieves. Charlie knew as well as he knew his own name that whatever a man possessed there was always another man who would wish to take it from him. Life consisted of holding your own. He had his gold and, by God, he was going to hold on to it.
He got up and inspected the patiently waiting burros. The packs were all shipshape and Bristol fashion. He prided himself on his packing. Never in a day’s march would these packs slip. He picked up his rifle and checked for the third or fourth time if it was loaded. He was not afraid. He guessed he was too old to be afraid. But, just
the same, he wasn’t going to take any damn fool chances.
He took a good look around his camp and he wondered if it would not be wisest if he buried his gold and came back for it later.
Hell, no, he thought, I’m so goddam old maybe I won’t live long enough to trail right up here. Who knows? I might not be able to find the way to this exact spot again. No, he reckoned he’d tote his gold out of here as it was his right to do and let any son-of-a-bitch who wanted try to take it away from him.
‘Git up, you damn burros,’ he piped and hit Annabel a sound whack across her bony rump. She took the blow in good part and also took her time about getting started. Without a lead line, she followed her master directly south. Charlie grinned pridefully to himself: If anybody tried following him, they would have their work cut out. Even with three burros along, he could hide a trail good as any man breathing.
First of all, he led his string of burros to water. There wasn’t a tracker alive who could follow him through water. The bed of the creek was rocky and that made it hard going even for the sure-footed little donkeys. One fell, and lay in the water braying frantically until Charlie slipped the pack and got it on its feet again. The noise alarmed the old man and, though his feet were in cold mountain water, he started to sweat. It seemed to him that everybody in the world must have heard that ass braying. He re-packed the burro and went on, pushing along the fast-flowing little creek for around a quarter-mile and then taking to malpais.
This bad country took him a good half-mile further without him leaving a single hoof mark, or so he fondly thought. He now found himself abruptly in deep timber, the neat hoofs of the burros muffled on the pine needles. Now he was working his way down-slope and knew that he would come out
on to open country before noon. Then he would swing west before the timber ended and travel maybe another four-five hours under cover. Then he would be in the canyon country where vision would be restricted and, if luck stayed with him, he would still be hidden from prying eyes. Of course, if he ran slap-bang into somebody that simply meant that fortune was no longer smiling on him.
He did, in fact, travel through to full dark without seeing a living soul and was as sure as he could be that he had not been seen. He camped deep in the rocks, cooked a meal over a small fire and shortly after killed it, knowing full well that this three burros would be as good as watch dogs against prowling Indians or wild beasts.
But, was his last thought, that fellow spying on me was a white man. His horse was shod with iron.
He fell asleep with his hand resting on the old Sharps.
‘I reckon,’ Ike Mannion announced, ‘this old bastard knows we’re followin’ him.’
‘It don’t signify,’ said Bill Weyland. ‘Anybody carryin’ gold is goin’ to be careful and hide his tracks.’
They had reached the creek and they knew that he had either gone up or down stream. All they could do was divide up and search in both directions. They would lose time and the old man might slip from their closing grasp.
Pepe Inclán was not put off.
‘You rest here,’ he told them. ‘This old man, he is smart, but he’s not as smart as me. He has three burros. No foolish old man with three burros can hide his tracks forever. Believe me. I find him. Tomorrow, we catch this old man and we have his gold. That is promise.’
They debated it awhile. They were villains, but they lived in a democracy of the gun and none throws up more equals. They agreed that Pepe should take a fresh horse and ride ahead, looking for sign. But first they made him swear on his mother’s grave that he would not kill the old man and keep the gold for himself. He swore readily and immediately thought the idea a good one. It made him quite cheerful as he rode off along the edge of the creek. He would, he decided, invest that one bullet himself. One well-aimed bullet and he would turn his horse for Mexico. Within a month he would be leading the life of an hidalgo in the town of Coyame from which he had fled ten years back after killing a local judge. Once there, he promised himself, he would push some noses in the dirt. Ah, yes, life was very good when the luck was running your way. Praise the good Lord for his kindness. He crossed himself for, though a sinful man, he was a devout one.
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