“And I’m obliged to you. But I’ll be more obliged for a drink.”
“Supper first.”
Badger seemed too weak to argue even though he might have liked to.
Luke got tin cups from his gear and filled them, then put bacon on a tin plate and carried it and one of the cups over to Badger. “Need help?”
“No, I think I can manage. Lemme try, anyway.” Badger used both hands to hold the cup and took a sip. He was a little shaky but didn’t spill any. He started nibbling a piece of bacon but after a moment gobbled it down. “Didn’t realize I was hungry until I started eatin’,” he said as he reached for another piece. “You might want to cook up some more.”
“You must be feeling better.”
“I ain’t gonna be gettin’ up and dancin’ a jig any time soon, but I reckon I might live.”
Two cups of coffee and a pile of bacon later, the old-timer leaned back against the tree and sighed in obvious satisfaction. “I ain’t sayin’ that’s the best meal I ever et, but it was right up there,” he declared. “I’m sure mighty obliged to you, Luke. If there’s ever anythin’ I can do to pay you back . . .”
“You can start by telling me what you were doing out here. There’s not much reason for anybody to be roaming around these hills.”
“That shows how much you know! There’s the best reason of all . . . Gold.”
Luke frowned across the fire at the old-timer. “You’re a prospector? I never heard of any gold strikes around here. They’ve all been in other parts of the territory.”
“And there was a time there hadn’t been any gold strikes in those places, wasn’t there? Nobody knows where gold is until somebody finds it the first time.”
Luke couldn’t argue with that logic. “Do you have a claim somewhere around here?”
“No, but I’m still lookin’. I been all over these hills from one end to the other more ’n once, and I know it’s here. I can feel it in my bones. It’s just a matter of time ’fore I find it.”
That was interesting. Luke wasn’t convinced that any gold deposits lurked in the area, but if Badger was telling the truth, he was very familiar with the stretch of rugged hills. Luke took another sip of coffee and said, “Maybe you could help me find something I’m looking for.”
“What might that be?”
“Do you know of a place called the Black Castle?”
Badger’s eyes, deep set and surrounded by wrinkles, widened in surprise and what might have been fear. “The Black Castle,” he repeated in a croaking voice. “I never heard of it.”
His reaction made it plain that he was lying. Clearly, he did know the name. And that made Luke believe maybe there was some truth to the legend of the outlaw haven.
“I think you have heard of it, Badger, and if you’re as grateful to me as you claim, you’ll tell me how to find it.”
Badger groaned. “Oh, hell. You’re an owlhoot. When I first seen you, I thought you must be, as big and ugly and all dressed in black like you are. But then you talked so good, and you saved my life, and I figured I must be wrong. But I ain’t, am I? You want to go there ’cause you’re an outlaw. A wanted man. The law’s after you, ain’t it?” Badger looked around wildly. “Is there a posse closin’ in on us right now?”
“Take it easy,” Luke told him. “I don’t know of any posse around here. Can’t somebody want to go to the Black Castle without being an outlaw?”
“I never heard tell of anybody who did! A man ’d be a damn fool to try if he wasn’t one o’ that breed.” Badger shook his head. “Don’t ask me to take you there, son. It’d be worth your life iffen I did.”
“That’s a risk I have to take. Now, fate allowed me to spot those buzzards, and they led me to you, Badger. I saved your life. Doesn’t that tell you that fate intends for me to find what I’m looking for?”
“Fate’s one thing, and bein’ a plumb idjit’s another.” A sly look came over the whiskery old face. “Anyway, just ’cause I heard of the place don’t mean I know how to find it.”
“I’ll bet you can point me in the right direction.”
Badger scowled. “Might’ve been better if you’d just let the damn buzzards have me.”
“It could still be arranged,” Luke said.
“And now you’re threatenin’ me!”
Luke shook his head. “No, you’re right. I wouldn’t do that. Why don’t we just wait until tomorrow morning and see how you’re doing then? I want to make sure that wound is healing properly, after all the trouble I went to in order to keep it from killing you. We can discuss the Black Castle again then.”
Badger muttered and blew out his breath and scowled, but he didn’t argue anymore. After a while he said, “I’m tired. Reckon I’ll get some sleep.”
Luke got one of his spare blankets and rolled it up for the old man to use as a pillow. He spread the other blanket over Badger, knowing that the air could get chilly at night, even during the summer. It wasn’t long before the old-timer was snoring. The rest would help his injured body heal.
Luke slept only lightly, counting on his keen senses and those of his horse to alert him if anyone came around. The possibility that Apaches might be lurking in the area didn’t make for a very restful night.
And neither did the persistent, nagging feeling he had that someone was watching him.
* * *
Luke came awake to the faint jingle of bit chains. Soundlessly, he opened his eyes and closed his hand around the butt of a Remington. He had coiled up the gunbelt around the holstered revolvers and placed them close beside him before he dozed off.
The sun wasn’t up, but enough gray light filled the sky for him to see the whip-thin figure getting his horse ready to ride. Luke pushed his blanket aside and stood up, then in his stocking feet he closed in from behind without making any noise. The man cinching up the saddle didn’t have any idea he was there until Luke thumbed back the Remington’s hammer. That ominous sound made the man freeze.
“Going somewhere, Badger?”
The old-timer heaved a sigh. “Go ahead and pull the trigger. I got it comin’, no mistake about that. It takes a mighty sorry varmint to try to steal the horse o’ the man who saved his life.”
“I’m not going to shoot you,” Luke said as he carefully lowered the hammer. “I do want to know what you thought you were doing, though.”
“What does it look like? I was gonna steal your horse and leave you here for the ’Paches! Go ahead and shoot me, damn it!”
“Is this because of what I said about the Black Castle? You’d rather steal from me than help me find it?”
“I don’t want to go back there,” Badger mumbled.
“So you do know where it is.”
“Yeah. Can I turn around?”
Luke stepped back. He didn’t believe that Badger would try any tricks . . . but he hadn’t expected the old man to try to steal his horse, either.
“Yes, you can turn around,” Luke told him as he held the gun down at his side.
Badger did so and sighed again. “What do you know about the Black Castle?”
“Just that it’s supposed to be a place where men on the dodge can go and hide out for a while. Like the Hole in the Wall up north.”
“That’s part of it. I can tell you the rest, iffen you’re bound and determined to hear it.”
“That’s exactly what I want,” Luke said, “but first let’s take a look at that wound and see how it’s doing.”
The reddish-gold arc of light from the approaching sunrise was bright enough for Luke to examine the bullet gash in Badger’s side. He saw at first glance that the wound was better. The redness around it had receded, and it didn’t start bleeding again when he changed the dressing.
“I still make no guarantees, but I think you’re going to live,” he told the old-timer.
“Don’t be so sure o’ that. Not if you make me tell you about the Black Castle . . . and the Black Knight.”
“The Black Knight!” That
exclamation was startled out of Luke. “That sounds like something out of Howard Pyle’s book about Robin Hood.”
“It ain’t from no book. I never learned how to read. I laid eyes on the fella myself, and I’d just as soon never do that again.”
“The Black Castle belongs to this man you’re talking about?” Luke guessed.
“As much as it can belong to anybody, I reckon it does.”
“You’re not going to tell me that he wears a suit of armor and jousts with other knights.”
“I never heard of no jousts, whatever that is,” Badger snapped. “Do you want to hear the story or not?”
“I do.”
“Best put on a pot of coffee, then, and maybe cook up some more o’ that bacon. And I never did get that drop o’ whiskey last night like you promised. Might use it to sweeten that coffee and get my throat lubricated so’s I can talk good.”
CHAPTER 13
Luke made biscuits to go with the bacon. The sun was up by the time he and Badger were eating breakfast and drinking coffee. Only a few drops of whiskey were left in the flask, but he added them to Badger’s cup as promised. It was enough to brace up the old-timer.
“Here’s the story as best I know it. I only heard rumors and gossip, so I could be wrong about some of it, but it starts with a fella name of Henry Stockbridge. He’s from England, one o’ those . . . what do you call ’em, when you’re the little brother and your big brother inherits all the family money and the title and such that goes with it, and you get shipped off to America and paid to stay outta the way?”
“Someone like that is called a remittance man,” Luke said. “I’ve run into a few over the years.”
With a nod, Badger said, “Yeah, that. Stockbridge’s brother is a duke or a count or some such nonsense, but he was just a nobody. Reckon that’s one of the things that made him so all-fired proddy. Wasn’t his fault he was born second. He just got the sorry end o’ the deal.”
“So this Stockbridge fellow came to America.”
“Yep. After a while he come west, and when he got out here, he fell in with some . . . well, let’s call ’em shady characters. Turns out he had a knack for bein’ on the wrong side of the law. He took so well to bein’ an owlhoot, in fact, that he wound up leadin’ the gang.”
“What does this have to do with the Black Castle?” Luke asked.
“I’m gettin’ there, I’m gettin’ there. Just hold your hosses. Came a time when Stockbridge was ridin’ hell-bent for leather through these very hills with a posse on his heels. The fellas he’d been runnin’ with all got their selves killed or took prisoner when the posse jumped ’em, so Stockbridge was the only one left and he was carryin’ a law dog’s bullet in him. He didn’t have a chance in hell of gettin’ away . . . but then he seen it.”
“The Black Castle,” Luke said.
“That’s right. Now, understand, it weren’t a real castle. It was this kinda jagged-edged rock formation with stone towers that stuck up on the corners. It looked enough like a castle that it reminded Stockbridge of the real thing like he’d seen back in England, like the one where his no-good brother the duke or the count or whatever he was lived. Stockbridge climbed up there and forted up and the way it turned out, he wasn’t just able to hold off that posse. He killed ever’ durn one o’ them star packers before it was all over, so he figured that was a sign he ought to make the place his home. He got another gang together, pulled some jobs that got him a lot of loot, and poured all that money into building a big stone house in the middle o’ that rock formation. He coulda called hisself a duke if he’d wanted to, or even a king, since he was the boss o’ the whole place, but he decided to call himself the Black Knight instead. I reckon he thinks it sounds sorta spooky.”
The old-timer was a good storyteller. Luke had been able to visualize the tale as Badger spun it. The whole thing seemed rather far-fetched to him, but he had to admit it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. A man would have to have a mighty fanciful imagination to build a western version of an old English castle, declare himself to be the Black Knight, and set up an outlaw empire with the castle as its centerpiece . . . but it could have happened that way.
“When did all this happen?”
Badger dug a finger into his whiskers and scratched. “Best I can tell, it was about ten years ago when Henry Stockbridge come out here. Maybe eight since he run across the Black Castle. But that’s just a guess.”
“I suppose after a while he stopped venturing out and pulling robberies himself, preferring to stay there and live as the lord of the manor, taking a cut from those to whom he provided sanctuary?”
“That’s it, all right. Now he just swaggers around like he’s the boss of all creation. And as long as he stays in these hills, I reckon he pretty much is.”
Luke had finished his breakfast. He drained the last of the coffee in his cup and sat back to digest not only the meal but also the story Badger had told him.
“Since you know all this, I suppose that means you’ve spent some time at the Black Castle yourself.”
Badger scowled. “Don’t go thinkin’ that makes me an outlaw. Sure enough, I’ve done some things in my life I ain’t all that proud of, but I ain’t never been what you’d call an out-an’-out desperado. I might’ve, uh, let some folks think I was, though, from time to time.”
“So you could visit the Black Castle.”
“Prospectin’ can be a mighty lonely life,” Badger protested. “It was good to see other folks now and then, drink some good liquor, hear a woman laugh—”
“Stockbridge has women there?”
“Yep. He makes sure the fellas who stop over there get their money’s worth. I hear tell he pays pretty well, and nobody dares treat the gals rough. For soiled doves, it ain’t a bad life, I suppose, except . . .”
“Except what?” Luke asked when the old-timer’s voice trailed off.
“I’ve heard that nobody who works at the Black Castle ever leaves the place. Stockbridge must be afraid they’ll sell out to the law and tell them where it is. I don’t know what happens to ’em.”
“Well, that certainly sounds sinister,” Luke said.
Badger shrugged. “I’m just tellin’ you what I’ve heard. I don’t know none of it for a fact, based on what I seen with my own two eyes.”
“We’ll assume for now that you’re telling the truth.”
“I am, as far as I know,” Badger insisted. “Are you still gonna make me take you there?”
“I’d like to see the place for myself. It sounds quite impressive.”
“It ain’t safe,” Badger said as he shuddered. “It’s full of killers and owlhoots and men who’d carve you from gizzard to gullet without even thinkin’ twice about it.”
“I’m surprised that Stockbridge doesn’t have rules about no violence while anyone is within the confines of his domain.”
“Oh, he’s got rules, and you’d best follow ’em. But that just means if you’ve got a problem with some fella, you and him got to fight a duel. The Black Knight’s big on duelin’.” Something occurred to Badger. “Say, is that like that joustin’ you was talkin’ about earlier?”
“They’re related, I suppose,” Luke said. “They spring from the same codes of honor and chivalry.”
“I don’t know about that, but hombres die there all the time. As long as it happens accordin’ to the rules Stockbridge lays out, nobody gets in trouble for it.”
“Did you get in trouble the last time you were there, Badger?” Luke asked. “Is that why you don’t want to go back?”
“Me?” Badger’s bushy gray eyebrows rose. “Hell, no. I’m the quiet sort. Nobody even knows I’m around most o’ the time. I just don’t believe in pushin’ my luck, that’s all.”
“Show me where it is, and maybe you won’t have to go inside. If we can find your mule, we can go our separate ways once we get there.”
“I’m low on supplies,” Badger said with a frown.
“I can proba
bly spare a few. And I have an extra Colt you can have . . . if you take me where I want to go.”
“Well . . . you did save my life. I ain’t overfond o’ the idea, ’cause I think you’re liable to wind up gettin’ yourself killed . . . but if you’re dead set on it, I’ll take you close enough to point out the place. You’ll have to find your own way from there.”
“That’s a deal,” Luke said.
* * *
A short time later, Luke saddled his horse, swung up, and then helped Badger climb on behind him.
“Be careful,” he told the old-timer. “You don’t want to start that wound bleeding again.”
“I sure don’t. I already lost so much blood I feel like I’ll be runnin’ low the rest o’ my borned days.”
Badger had no idea where he had fallen off his mule or in which direction the animal might have wandered off. The whole experience was fuzzy in his head, so Luke decided they might as well head north. They stood just as good a chance of finding the mule that way as any other.
“Why do you have your head set on goin’ to the Black Castle, anyway?” Badger asked as they rode along at a deliberate easy pace.
“Maybe I’m just curious,” Luke said.
“There’s an old sayin’ about curiosity and cats.”
He actually was curious. The tale Badger had told was bizarre enough that Luke wanted to know if there was any truth to it. But also, he hoped that he would be able to get a lead on Three-fingered Jack McKinney’s whereabouts.
That prompted him to ask the old-timer, “Do you happen to know a fellow named Jack McKinney?”
“Is he an outlaw?”
“So I’ve been told.”
“I don’t run with outlaws, and the only times I’ve been to the Black Castle, I’ve minded my own business and kept my head down. Now, havin’ said that, if this Jack hombre rides the dark trails and operates in these parts, there’s a good chance he’s been there. Are you lookin’ for him?”
“I might be,” Luke answered noncommittally. “Sometimes he’s called Three-fingered Jack.”
“How come?”
Luke laughed. “Actually, I don’t know. I’ve never met the man myself, and no one ever explained that to me. But I imagine he has only three fingers on one hand, whatever the reason.”
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