But Whitfield knew that he was, and Gilmore confirmed that by saying, “So long,” and thumbing back the hammer of his gun.
Whitfield heard the roar of the shot that sent a bullet smashing through his brain, but that was all.
* * *
“Billy Ray, this is too damn much like work,” Duke Rudd said as he and the other men loaded bullion into pouches slung over the backs of the pack mules they had brought down the trail. “First, some of us have to sweat like field hands leverin’ those boulders off the rim up there, and now we got to tote all this heavy gold. If the team hadn’t got squashed, we could’ve just turned the wagon around and hauled the loot away in it.”
“Unfortunately, you can’t really aim a boulder too well,” Gilmore said as he sat on the wagon’s lowered tailgate, supervising the operation. Flies had started to buzz around the bodies of the dead men and mules, and they were getting on his nerves. He went on, “We knew we’d probably have to pack the bullion out. That’s why we were ready.”
“I know, I know,” Rudd said. “And I reckon I shouldn’t complain about havin’ to tote gold.” A familiar cocky grin creased his face. “It’s just that we’re outlaws. The idea is, we take what we want from other folks so we don’t have to work for it ourselves.”
Gilmore chuckled instead of letting himself get annoyed with Rudd.
“That’s true, but there’s one thing you’ve got to remember, Duke,” he said. “Nothin’s free in this world. You may think you’ve had a fortune fall right in your lap and it’s all due to good luck, but somehow, sometime, you’ve still got to pay a price for it. We’re payin’ that price today, by havin’ to load up this gold.”
“Well . . . some of us are payin’ it,” Rudd said. His grin took any sting out of the words.
“My part of the payin’ was comin’ up with the idea in the first place,” Gilmore bantered back at him.
“How much you reckon this bullion’s worth?” Sam Logan, another of the outlaws, asked as he took off his hat and mopped his forehead with his bandanna.
“Plenty,” Gilmore answered. “It was worth the lives of five men, I know that much.” He squinted up at the peaks of the San Francisco range, where the mines were located. “And here’s the best part . . . there’s more where that came from.”
Chapter Three
The Barrymore House was the best hotel in Purgatory. It was also the only real hotel, since the other places in town that rented rooms were attached to saloons and the men who stayed there were just as interested in whiskey and whores as they were in a place to sleep.
Jason True had a home in Santa Fe, but he kept a suite in the hotel in Purgatory, too, because he was here quite a bit of the time tending to the business of the San Francisco Mining Company, of which he was the president and chief stockholder. Sometimes when people heard the name, they assumed that his mine must be in California, and he had to explain that San Francisco was also the name of the mountain range that ran just east of the border between New Mexico and Arizona Territories.
This evening, his hand shook a little as he poured brandy from a crystal decanter into three heavy tumblers. True was a man with a stiff-backed stance—a holdover from his days as a colonel in the army—iron-gray hair, and a neatly clipped mustache.
Back home in Santa Fe, if he was going to serve brandy to his guests his wife, Laurinda, would insist that he use the expensive snifters, he thought. In a rough mining town like Purgatory, nobody really cared what a man drank his booze out of. They just held out their glasses or cups or canteens for more.
He handed one of the tumblers to Arnold Goodman, another to Dan Lacey, and kept the third one for himself. As he raised the drink, he said, “I’d say cheers, but there’s nothing to celebrate tonight. Absolutely nothing.”
“You’re right about that,” Goodman said.
He was short and wide, built like a tree stump, and his face was about as blunt and hard as a stump, too. He was from back East someplace, True didn’t know exactly where, and a few years earlier he had bought the struggling El Halcón Mine from the Mexican ranchero who’d originally owned it as part of a land grant legacy.
The gamble had paid off for Goodman, not so much for the ranchero. A couple of months later, workers in El Halcón had come across a previously undiscovered vein of ore that had made the mine quite successful.
“Do you know how much you lost, Jason?” Lacey asked. Like True, he was originally from the Midwest, a wiry, balding man who ran the Bonita Mining Corporation with an iron fist despite his mild appearance.
True shook his head and said, “The bullion hadn’t been weighed and assayed yet, of course. Eight thousand dollars, perhaps. A significant amount, certainly.”
“But not as much as you stood to lose if you’d sent down all the bullion you have on hand,” Goodman pointed out.
“That’s right. But the bullion doesn’t do me a damned bit of good sitting up there at my mine, either.”
The three men had gathered here in the sitting room of True’s suite at the Barrymore House. True had sent for his fellow mine owners as soon as he received word of the attack on his gold wagon that afternoon. The surviving outrider had reached town and reported the holdup to the local lawman, Marshal Henry Hinkle, who had made noises about getting a posse together, but in the end hadn’t done anything about going after the outlaws . . . as usual.
Today’s violence had Jason True at the end of his patience. He was about to do something he didn’t particularly want to do, but he didn’t see that he had any choice.
“I think it’s time we go ahead with what we talked about before,” he continued. “The three of us have always been rivals, but we’re going to have to put that aside.”
“We’ve been rivals,” Lacey said, “but not enemies. There’s a big difference. I’m perfectly willing to work together on this matter.”
Goodman frowned but didn’t say anything. After a moment, True said, “How about it, Arnold? What do you think?”
“It goes against the grain to help the competition,” Goodman said. “That’s not the way I’ve done business all these years. But it’s obvious none of us can handle this by ourselves. Maybe if we throw in together we can stop those damned outlaws from bankrupting us!”
Lacey smiled and lifted his glass.
“Maybe that’s worth saying cheers to,” he suggested. “Arnold Goodman actually being reasonable.”
Goodman didn’t seem to take offense at the words. In fact, a curt bark of laughter came from him. He threw back the rest of his drink.
“All right,” True said as he placed his empty glass next to the decanter on the sideboard. “We each have approximately $25,000 worth of gold bullion at our mines in the mountains. If the three of us go in together, we can hire enough guards to transport that bullion safely down here to Purgatory, one mine at a time.”
“Where it’ll have to sit and wait until the gold from the other mines is brought down,” Goodman said. “I don’t like that part of it very much.”
Lacey said, “That worries me a little, too, Jason.”
“The bullion will be locked up securely in the bank,” True said. “It’ll be guarded around the clock. Gilmore won’t try for it right here in the middle of town.”
“Are you sure about that?” Goodman asked. “He and his men don’t seem to mind coming into town and running roughshod over the citizens any time they want.” His tone became even more scornful as he added, “You can be sure that Hinkle’s not going to do anything about it. How did a man like that ever become marshal, anyway? He’s nothing but a blasted coward!”
“Nobody else wanted the job,” Lacey said. His mining operation had been here in Purgatory longer than the other two. “Gilmore and his bunch hadn’t shown up yet to make our lives miserable, of course, but Purgatory was still a pretty wild place. How do you think it got its name? The respectable citizens insisted that the town had to have a marshal, but they couldn’t find anybody who’d take the badge until H
enry Hinkle did it.”
“Not exactly a town tamer, is he?” True said.
“Maybe not, but things did improve a little. My personal feeling is that all the folks who’d been raising hell looked at Hinkle and realized they’d be embarrassed to shoot down such a . . . well, such a craven coward. I sometimes think that’s all that’s kept Hinkle alive.”
True shook his head in disgust.
“And that’s what we have to rely on for law and order around here. No wonder it’s become clear that we’re going to have to take things into our own hands. It’s agreed, then, gentlemen? We pool our resources, do whatever is necessary to get our gold down here, and then ship it out at the same time with Wells Fargo?”
“Agreed,” Lacey said. Goodman just jerked his blocky head in a nod.
“All right,” True said. He reached for the brandy again. “I think we ought to have another drink on that.”
What he didn’t mention to either of the others as he poured the brandy into their tumblers was that he had another idea to go along with the one he had just proposed and they had agreed to. True didn’t know if it would work out or not, but after losing another gold shipment today he was willing to try anything.
Nor was he going to reveal his plan to his new allies. They might be working together for the moment, but sooner or later they would all be rivals again.
And when that day arrived, Jason True intended to be the one who came out on top.
* * *
Billy Ray Gilmore downed the shot of whiskey, set the empty glass on the hardwood in front of him, and patted the shapely rump of the bar girl called Della, who was leaning close beside him, trying to convince him to take her upstairs.
“I’m afraid I don’t have the time right now, darlin’,” he told her. “I got to see a man about a horse.”
Della pouted prettily. She was a honey blonde about twenty years old, and she’d been working in saloons for a short enough time that she still had her looks. Her fresh-faced beauty made her popular and, normally, Gilmore would have been glad to go upstairs with her, but he was in Purgatory tonight on business.
“I’m disappointed, Billy Ray,” she said. “I had my heart set on spending some time with you tonight.”
“No need to feel like that,” he told her. “You know there’s a dozen men in here who’d fall all over their boots for a chance to take you upstairs.”
“Yeah, but none of them is Billy Ray Gilmore.”
He grinned and said, “I am a notorious individual, aren’t I?”
It was an odd situation. The first few jobs Gilmore and his gang had pulled in this part of the territory, they had always worn masks. People had a pretty good idea who was responsible for those holdups, but nobody could stand up in court and testify beyond a doubt that Billy Ray and his boys were the culprits.
They weren’t as careful about concealing their identities these days, but they didn’t leave many witnesses alive, either. And by now folks were too scared to identify them, afraid that would mean a bullet in the back some dark night, or a house burned down around them.
So the county sheriff, Elmer Stone, had no real evidence to go on, and Purgatory’s marshal, Henry Hinkle . . . well, Hinkle was worthless no matter how you looked at it. Anyway, Gilmore and his men hadn’t committed any serious crimes inside the town limits.
So for now they came and went as they pleased, enjoying the comforts and entertainment the town had to offer, such as the Silver Spur Saloon where Gilmore was at the moment. He told Della that maybe he would see her later and sauntered out of the place.
“I’ll probably be busy!” she called after him as he pushed though the bat wings. That drew a chuckle from him. He didn’t doubt that she would be busy, but if he wanted the pleasure of her company, whoever she was with wouldn’t waste any time lighting a shuck and leaving her to him.
Gilmore walked a block or so and then turned down a dark alley. He followed it to the rear of a building and stood there waiting until a door opened somewhere nearby and let a shaft of light spill out. Whoever was inside blew out the lamp in the room. Gilmore heard the puff of air.
Then a moment later a man’s voice asked softly, “Are you out there?”
“I’m here,” Gilmore said. “Everything go as planned?”
“Exactly as planned. Give it a few weeks and we’re both going to be very rich men, my friend.”
“I like the sound of that.”
Not the part about being friends, Gilmore thought. He wasn’t this man’s friend and never would be.
But the part about being very rich . . .
That was sweet, sweet music to Billy Ray Gilmore’s ears.
Chapter Four
Fort Smith, Arkansas
The town of Fort Smith perched on a bluff overlooking the winding course of the Arkansas River. It was the gateway to Indian Territory, which to some people meant that it was the last outpost of civilization.
Those people were somewhat ignorant, because the Indians who made their homes over there in the Territory weren’t called the Five Civilized Tribes for no reason. In many ways, the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole were just as civilized as their white brethren. They had schools, churches, businesses, farms, and ranches. They had their own written language and their own newspaper. They lived in towns and dressed much like the white man dressed.
And in some ways, John Henry Sixkiller mused as he rode into Fort Smith, the tribes were more civilized than the whites. After all, they had never forced their peaceful neighbors to pick up and move for no good reason, never driven an entire people into a pilgrimage over a route that took so many lives it came to be known as the Trail of Tears, as the whites had done with their Indian Removal Act.
John Henry felt no personal animosity toward white people because of that history. For one thing, he was half white himself. His father James Sixkiller had met his mother, Elizabeth, during the trip west and married her after the two of them fell in love. John Henry had been born in Indian Territory. It was the only real home he had ever known. And while he knew from listening to the old-timers that Indian Territory was considerably different from the lush forests of the East, it turned out to be pretty good land that would support people if they were willing to work.
And Indians, despite the reputation they had with some as lazy, were always willing to work hard when it came to taking care of their families, John Henry knew.
He rode straight to the big, redbrick federal courthouse where Judge Isaac C. Parker had his office. As a member of the Cherokee Lighthorse, John Henry’s jurisdiction had been restricted to Indian Territory, and he wasn’t allowed to arrest white criminals or even to interfere with them, a rule he had bent from time to time when the situation made it necessary.
When Judge Parker had offered to appoint him as a deputy United States marshal, John Henry had accepted with no hesitation. For one thing, that appointment had saved him from being tried for murder in the deaths of two white outlaws he’d been forced to shoot. For another, with the power of the federal government behind him, he could go after the desperadoes who plagued the frontier, whether they were red, white, black, or brown, and stay on their trail no matter where they went. That sort of freedom was very important to someone like John Henry, who was determined to bring law and order to the West.
He tied Iron Heart at the hitch rack in front of the courthouse and glanced toward the gallows that sat off to the side of the big building. It was a permanent structure and quite impressive in its grim way, because it was big enough that six men could be hanged at once there. During the years since Isaac Parker’s appointment to the bench, enough badmen had dropped through those trapdoors that Parker was starting to be called the Hanging Judge.
John Henry walked past two men who were leaving the courthouse and talking to each other in the soft, drawling accents of Texans. He climbed the steps and went inside, heading straight for Parker’s office. He took off his hat, knocked on the door, and opened it when
the judge called, “Come in.”
Parker was behind his big desk. He got to his feet. He was a compact man with a neatly trimmed beard. Wearing his habitually solemn expression, he extended a hand to his visitor.
“Marshal Sixkiller,” Parker said. “Good to see you. Did you just get here?”
“That’s right,” John Henry said.
Parker grunted and motioned him into a leather chair in front of the desk.
“Then you missed all the excitement. We had some prisoners try to escape.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here to lend a hand,” John Henry said as he balanced his hat on his knee.
“Oh, that’s all right. A couple of Texans pitched in and helped us round them up.” Parker began looking through some of the papers on his desk. “I wanted to see you on an entirely different matter. That’s why I sent a note to Captain LeFlore asking him to send you directly here if he saw you.”
“Yes, sir,” John Henry said. “I came as soon as I heard. What can I do for you?”
“Ah, here it is.” Parker picked up one of the pieces of paper. “This is a letter from an old friend of mine. His name is Jason True. Have you heard of him?”
John Henry shook his head and said, “No, sir, I don’t think so.”
“Well, no reason you should have. He owns a gold mine in New Mexico Territory, near the Arizona border. Rugged country, from what I hear, and virtually lawless.”
“I imagine so,” John Henry said, although he had no real knowledge of the area. In his lifetime he had only been to Indian Territory, Arkansas, and Kansas.
Parker went on, “It seems that Jason and the other mine owners in the area have been having trouble with a gang of outlaws stealing their gold shipments. They bring the gold down from the mountains where the mines are located to a settlement called Purgatory.”
“That doesn’t sound promising,” John Henry said with a slight smile.
“The town is well named, from what I know of it,” Parker agreed. “From Purgatory, the gold is taken to Lordsburg and shipped out by rail with Wells Fargo. Ultimately, of course, it winds up at the mint in Denver. Therefore, any interference with that gold falls under federal jurisdiction.”
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