by Kurt Barker
With a sudden lunge, Blackshot sprang forward and grabbed the gun barrel. There was a muffled cry from the brush as he gave the gun a sharp jerk, pulling the gunman towards him as he raised the pistol in his other hand. The gunman stumbled out into the open and was revealed not to be a gunman at all; Blackshot found himself face to face with Linda, her face as pale as a ghost, eyes wide as dinner plates, and Conchita's hand clamped over her mouth.
“What the hell are you two playing at?!” Blackshot demanded.
Linda pushed Conchita's hand away angrily. “Let go of me! Leave me alone!” she snapped.
“You were going to scream,” Conchita whispered. “Blondes are always screaming.”
“What are you doing out here?” Blackshot hissed. “I told you to wait for me at the house!”
“We found this rifle,” Linda stammered. “I thought we could help you, like to watch your back or...”
“What she means is, we got scared,” Conchita said. “It started getting dark and there were sounds from outside and we were afraid to stay there all alone.”
“You were scared! I wasn't!” Linda retorted.
“Well, if you think it's less dangerous where I'm going, you're in for a rude awakening!” Blackshot snarled. He jabbed a finger at the rifle in Linda's trembling hands. “Does this one have bullets in it, at least?”
Linda's cheeks quickly turned from white to a bright red, and she opened her mouth to speak but then closed it again without a word. Conchita looked down and remained silent, too.
“That's what I thought,” Blackshot sighed. “Well, I can't have you wandering around in the dark by yourselves, so I guess you'll have to come with me. Stay back behind me and let me lead, and do as I say without any arguing. If there's any shooting, hit the dirt!”
The girls nodded sheepishly. Blackshot pulled the rifle out of Linda's hand and tossed it into the brush. “And don't go waving this thing around and getting yourself shot!” he growled.
“Don't worry about her,” Conchita said, throwing her arms around Linda dramatically, “If there's any danger, I'll shield the princess with my body!”
“Keep your hands off me, bitch!” Linda glowered.
“Not a word from either of you!” Blackshot warned. “I may have spanked you for making a ruckus, but those rats out there will shoot you, so keep quiet!”
He started off through the woods, trying to keep to the course he had taken earlier in the day. It wasn't easy in the dark, but Blackshot was a seasoned tracker, and a man that can't pick up his own trail is no kind of tracker at all! The soft padding of the girls' footsteps a ways behind him told him that they were obeying instructions for once. After a good quarter of an hour picking their way through the dense foliage, the great hulk of the mine complex appeared up the hill ahead of them, looming black and ominous against the purple sky.
Blackshot gestured to the girls to stay where they were, and he crept forward to the edge of the clearing as noiselessly as he could. Crouching in the brush he waited again, surveying the shadowed hillside and listening intently. A faint glimmer from the far side of the clearing attracted his eye; it was the dull red glow of a cigarette. A watchman, posted outside the mouth of the mine, as suspected.
Blackshot eased forward deliberately along the rim of the dusty lot, choosing each footstep carefully so as not to give away his presence with a breaking branch or crunching leaves. As he neared the smoking man, he could make out the dim shape of a wagon; it was the same one that he had seen following the pursuit from Linda's shack. He had been right again; the old fire-starter was here, camped somewhere nearby. Blackshot grinned mirthlessly; he had his bait, and now it was time to set the trap!
Chapter 15
The man with the cigarette was leaning against the wagon, one leg resting on the front wheel. Blackshot could just make out the long barrel of a shotgun protruding from the crook of the man's arm. From all appearances the sentry was alone at his post, but in the darkness it was hard to be sure. Blackshot kept moving slowly and steadily around the edges of the clearing until he reached the far side. The wagon was silhouetted now against the night sky, and through the spokes of the wheels he could see the legs of the man on the opposite side, moving and fidgeting occasionally.
Just then, above the low hum of the crickets and rustling of bats in the treetops came the faint sound of a man coughing. Blackshot turned to look for the source of the sound and saw the flickering of a campfire through the brush behind him, about a hundred yards down the hill from the mine entrance. That's where he would find his quarry, and where this would ordeal finally end, if Blackshot had anything to say about it.
Silently creeping on all fours from the underbrush onto the stony dirt floor of the clearing, Blackshot made his way to the rear of the wagon, and crouched by the back wheel. Moonlight shimmered on glass in the wagon bed; whiskey bottles, he noted with a grim smile. A cheap, bad brand, but he knew from recent experience that they weren't intended for drinking!
On the other side of the wagon, Blackshot saw the spent cigarette butt hit the ground, and the toe of the man's boot extinguish the embers. Paper rustled lightly as he went about crafting another one, and then a match was struck against the wagon wheel, bathing the man's boots in brief light.
Blackshot slid beneath the wagon, and with a sudden lunge he grabbed the sentry by both ankles and jerked them toward him. With a startled yelp, the man hit the ground face first, the match flying from his hand and dying in the dust. Before he could react, Blackshot pounced onto him and drove a knee into his back between the shoulder blades, pinning him to the ground.
The man fumbled to wield the shotgun trapped against his chest, but Blackshot had beat him to it. Gripping the barrel and the stock in his strong hands, he yanked the gun upward and ground it into the watchman's windpipe. The man thrashed mightily, trying to break free from the immense pressure of the shotgun barrel against his throat, but Blackshot held on, putting all of his weight onto the man's back. With a powerful heave, he pulled the gun barrel back against his body, bending his opponent's head back until his spine snapped with a sickening crack.
Blackshot released the gun from his grip, and the sentry's body lolled forward, limp and lifeless. Stopping to listen once again, he heard nothing but the normal sounds of the night; the man had apparently been left to watch the mine alone. Taking him by the ankles, Blackshot dragged the dead man to the mouth of the mine shaft and pushed him into its pitch black maw with the heel of his boot. This done, he stole to the edge of the clearing where he had first come up, and beckoned for Linda and Conchita to come up quickly and quietly.
“Wait here by the wagon,” he told them. “The bastards are camped down below, and I'm going to go pay them a visit.”
“No, don't,” Linda whispered. Her eyes were wide with fear, and she didn't even try to stop Conchita from nervously clutching her sleeve. “We can just run away! We can go someplace where they won't find us!”
“I'm not much good at running away,” Blackshot replied, “and it would take someone a sight tougher than this clown to make me learn to do it better. I'm going to send him to his grave, and bury Clem Turpin's schemes and troubles right along with him!”
The girls said nothing, only watching him anxiously as he walked away and reentered the woods. Blackshot cut a straight path for the campfire, making no attempt at stealth now; let them hear him coming and make ready! It wouldn't help them now!
Chapter 16
The hill sloped down to a rocky crest, and it was beneath this that the campfire burned. Blackshot strode straight to the crest and stood atop it, looking down at the camp below. There were five men gathered about the fire; four which were now on their feet with pistols in their hands, all aimed directly at Blackshot.
The last man sat hunched atop a wooden box, and glared up at Blackshot with hatred burning in his beady black eyes. His face was scarred and lined with wrinkles, and long stringy gray locks protruded from beneath his faded bowler hat. His back
was stooped and one of his hands was withered and gnarled, and sat useless in his lap.
The angry face struck a faint chord in Blackshot's memory; he had seen the man before somewhere. Then he recalled; long ago, when he was just a young boy he had seen a weathered poster pasted outside the sheriff's office in town. “Wanted for Train Robbery and Murder” the headline read, and the same face that stared at him now was printed just beneath. The long hair was black, and the face not so worn with years of hard living, but there was no mistaking the malice in the black eyes.
Most bandits and bad men died young and died violently, but Blackshot supposed that if they could see this man who had escaped that fate, his body paying the toll for old wounds and old strife and his mind half-mad and devoid of peace, they might almost prefer to meet a swift end from a lawman's bullet.
“Good evening, gents,” Blackshot said, nodding to the gun muzzles facing him. “Nice night for a bit of camping, eh?”
“I ain't sure what you're doing here, fella, but you ain't too bright if you think we'll let you leave alive,” the old man wheezed.
“That may be,” Blackshot replied, “but I can show you something that's plenty bright!”
He had kept his hands behind his back as he approached the camp, and drew out one now, holding up a shard of the vase. He turned it this way and that, letting the diamonds flash brilliantly in the firelight.
“Now, isn't that pretty?” he grinned. “Of course, if it hadn't been broken it would make a better display. I tell you, it took me quite a while to gather up all the pieces, and some were damn sharp! I hope you boys didn't cut yourself on them when you were ransacking the house looking for the diamonds.”
“Those are mine, fair and square!” the old gangster snarled. Rage distorted his thin, reedy voice. “Turpin had no right to 'em and you ain't got no right to 'em either!”
“I can't argue with that,” Blackshot shrugged. “Here, they're yours!” With that he flipped the shard into the air and watched as it landed in the middle of the fire.
“You fool!” the old man fumed, toppling off his seat as he tried to retrieve the shard with his one good arm. “What the hell are you doing?!”
“It'll abide the fire better than you will,” Blackshot growled. In a flash his other hand came from behind his back, and in it were two of the whiskey bottles from the wagon! Before any of the men could react, he flung them into the fire where they shattered and exploded into a roaring fireball!
The alcohol-fueled blaze swallowed up the old bandit before he could move and leaped onto the legs of his henchmen. Men went stumbling and swearing into the woods with fire dancing on their clothes. Blackshot's Colts were in his hands, and he cut down the man closest to him with two bullets to the chest. Another of the gunmen was not far beyond him, his flaming shirtsleeves clearly illuminating him in the dark brush. Blackshot sent a slug slicing through his throat, nearly taking his head off and extinguishing the fire with a gout of blood.
The gunfire alerted the remaining bandits that there was a greater danger than just the fire, and as Blackshot took aim at one rolling in the dust by the edge of the camp, he lunged behind a tree just as a bullet bit into the dirt where his head had been a moment before. The man let loose with a panicked burst of return fire, shooting blind from behind the tree.
Bullets sparked off the rocks at Blackshot's feet, but he paid them no mind; the tree was not wide enough to shelter the man's whole body and his leg was still in sight. Blackshot squeezed off a shot that shattered the gunman's knee, and when he rose up in pain, another bullet bored through his skull, showering the foliage behind him with blood and brains.
As the echoes of the shots died away, Blackshot listened for any sign of the whereabouts of the last man, but the only sound was the crackling of the blaze. The old man's body was just a skeletal silhouette in the inferno now, his twisted hand outstretched as if still reaching for his precious diamonds.
Suddenly, horse hooves thudded on the hard turf behind Blackshot, and he turned to see the blur of a horse and rider streaking through the brush along the side of the hill. Bright flame flashed out as the man fired a wild shot, cutting through the upper branches of the trees above Blackshot's head. Blackshot sprinted up the hill, intent on cutting off the escape before the bandit could bring his horse to open ground.
Just then, a shotgun roared from the crest of the hill and the horse leaped sideways and reared up on its hind legs. The rider got off two quick shots as he tried to regain control of his mount, but Blackshot was close now. He let rip with both guns, pounding slugs into the bandit's back before the horse could start running again. When it did find its footing and gallop away there was no one on its back, for the lifeless body of the rider was rolling down the hill, leaving a trail of guts and blood on the grass behind him.
“Oh, Blackshot, help!” Linda's voice came from the top of the hill, ragged with fear. “Oh, Blackshot, they've killed her!”
Chapter 17
Blackshot swore and ran up the grade as fast as his legs would take him. At the top he saw Linda collapsed against the rear wheel of the wagon, the smoking shotgun at her feet, and Conchita lying atop her with her face pressed to Linda's chest. Linda's hand was clutching the other woman's back, and blood oozed from between her fingers.
“She really did it, Tom!” Linda cried, tears welling in her eyes. “She really shielded me with her body! Oh, don't let her die, Tom! Please!”
Blackshot ran over to them and took Conchita in his arms. She moaned plaintively as he laid her on the ground and tore off her blouse to get a look at the wound. To his relief, he found that the bullet had only grazed her, burning her back and drawing a thin line of blood as it skittered across her shoulder blade.
“You'll be alright,” he told her. “I'll get you fixed up.”
“Oh, Tom, are you sure?” Linda gasped, clutching Conchita's hand in hers.
Blackshot retrieved another bottle of whiskey from the wagon and used it to clean the wound thoroughly. Conchita wailed in anguish at the sting of the alcohol, but Linda was holding her head tight to her bosom, wiping her tears with a shaking hand and whispering soothing words to her with an almost desperate intensity.
“Let's get her into the wagon,” Blackshot said.
“No, I'm okay,” Conchita whimpered. “I can walk.”
“No, you can't!” Linda snapped. “I'm not going to let you! You're getting in the wagon!”
She scrambled up onto the back of the wagon as Blackshot picked up Conchita, and took her in her arms again as he lifted her into the wagon bed. Blackshot went to the front of the coach and took the rest of the pieces of the vase from the canvas cloth and laid them on the seat. Then he brought the cloth back to the girls and pressed it to the cut on Conchita's back.
“Hold that there,” he told Linda, who obeyed his instruction.
“I can hold it myself,” Conchita sniffed. “Really, I'm okay.”
“You're not okay, you stupid bitch!” Linda sobbed. “You could have died!” Tears came streaming down her face as she held Conchita against her, burying her face in her long brown hair. Conchita threw her arms around Linda's back, her body shaking as she wept fervently as well.
A long pent-up well of fear and pain and loving Clem Turpin and hating Clem Turpin was spilling out for both of them all at once now, and Blackshot knew better than to intercede. He retrieved one of the bandits' horses and hitched it up to the wagon. Guiding it toward the road, he made the slow journey through the night to King Charlie's Castle with the soft sound of the girls' sobbing ever present in the darkness behind him.
When they reached the house, Blackshot pulled the horse to a stop by the front porch and gathered up all the remaining pieces of the diamond-studded vase. He walked around to the rear of the wagon, and found the girls glassy-eyed but calm.
“I'm okay now,” Conchita sniffed, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “It doesn't even hurt anymore.”
“I'm glad to hear it,” Bla
ckshot said. “And since you've been such good girls, the doctor's going to give you a prize. Hold out your hands.”
They exchanged a puzzled glance, but did as he said. He took the shards of the vase and dropped them into their upturned hands.
“What- what's this?” Linda asked.
“Papi's little jewels,” Blackshot replied. “Enough diamonds to keep you girls in furs and footmen for a good long time.”
“My vase...” Conchita said slowly, turning the pieces over in her hands. “That's what they were looking for. He put diamonds on my vase.... What a dumb shit!”
She burst out laughing and neither Linda or Blackshot could help but join her.
“Couldn't have said it better myself!” Blackshot chuckled. “Come on, let's go inside.”
He helped the girls down from the wagon and they went into the house, Linda walking arm in arm with Conchita in spite of her protestations that she was okay. Once inside the main room, Blackshot kicked the sheet away from the large couch and collapsed onto it. Now that the adrenaline of the fight had worn off, the long day was taking its toll.
The girls had gone into the bedroom, and Linda's musical voice called to him through the door. “Well, I suppose I won't need to worry about debt collectors coming to the door anymore, huh?”
“I'd reckon not.”
“And I can buy new dresses now, just like you said!”
“And there's no one left to chase us anymore, so we don't have to run!” Conchita chimed in.
“That's right,” Blackshot murmured, closing his eyes. “Not a single one left.”
“It's like a dream,” Linda said. “I can't remember the last time I've been this happy.”