"Time to go back to town, Sommers."
The mine owner shook his head. "Not going. I couldn't stand a trial and all the people staring at me and knowing what happened. I couldn't stand that."
"You don't have much choice. Stand up and start walking."
Sommers remained in the dust. "I have a choice. You have three shots left in that pistol." He raised a derringer from where it had been in his hand at his side. "I have two shots. Now the choice is yours, McCoy. Either eat birdshot for breakfast for the next ten years, or shoot me. If you don't do the job right, I still have those two shots to make sure. I'm going to try to kill you when I count three. So you see, Federal Secret Service man, the choice is yours."
Sommers lifted the deadly derringer. It might not kill him at the fifteen foot range, but it would put a lot of holes in Spur's hide. He lifted his gun, aiming for the mine owner.
"One ...you still have time, McCoy. Gun me down."
Spur shook his head.
"Two ...one last chance, McCoy. You'll be a hero. Damn smart you finding that scratch mark. I sure as hell never saw it. Get ready to hurt like hell, McCoy."
Spur watched the man, stared at his trigger finger. He saw it start to tighten.
McCoy had trained himself in split second decisions. Now he made one. He would fire after Sommers did.
The little derringer spoke sharply. Spur had seen the hammer falling and squeezed the .45's hair trigger. The agent tensed for the rain of buckshot but it never came. He saw the derringer pointing in the air and the first shot from his .45 tearing through Sommers' left eye.
The mine owner slammed backwards, his life snuffed out in a hundredth of a second as the lead plowed into his brain tissue, mashing vital nerve centers.
Spur stepped off the horse, and slid his six-gun into his holster. He picked up Sommers and laid him over the saddle. Spur checked the black. It had died from being ridden to death. Slowly Spur walked his gray back toward town.
Each step now sent a jagged chorus of pain signals to his brain. A quarter of a mile had never seemed longer.
Three horses raced toward him from town. Sheriff Gilpin led the men. Spur stopped and waited, leaning against the black.
Ten minutes later Spur rode back to the Consolidated California Mine. Sommers' body was laid out on the board porch of the mine office, and already a dozen curious gawkers gathered around.
"Did you look?" Spur asked.
"Nope. Figured that was your right to see it first."
They went down to the vault. A sledge and prybar lay on the floor. The sheriff looked at the scratch mark again.
Spur held the prybar pointed end on the small crack between the boards and a deputy gave the other end two whacks. The bar penetrated two inches and Spur pried to the side putting all of his weight behind the three foot bar.
A screeching of wood against wood came, then the door popped open and swung wide.
Spur looked into a three foot space in back of the wall. He saw a jumble of gold bars on the floor and the old wall.
Spur leaned out and waved. "There is your missing gold, Sheriff, all safe and sound."
Spur sat on the steps and rested. The sheriff sat down beside him and offered a flask from his hip pocket.
"A little medicinal spirits?"
Spur sniffed the whisky, nodded and tipped the flask. He wiped his lips and winced as the leg thundered its discomfort.
"One more problem. You've got a traitor in your outfit. Know who he is?"
The sheriff shook his head.
"Let's get down to your office. I've got an idea that might smoke out the son of a bitch."
TWELVE DEPUTY SHERIFFS on the night shift from six p.m. to six a.m. sat in chairs in the small meeting room at the jail and listened to Spur McCoy. They had been told who he was and why he came to town. This was what the sheriff told them was a "wrapping up of the Great Train Robbery Case." Spur took over.
"Men, the Sheriff said we had wrapped up this case. With Rush Sommers and Tony Giardello dead, and the other participants in the actual takeover of the train all dead, he's right in one sense. But then we come back to the conspiracy... to the idea and plots and plans to do the deed. I'm sure that as law officers you know this too is a felony and punishable by a stiff jail term. What we're now starting to investigate are those others in town who we feel were participants in the robbery as conspirators."
He looked around the room. Nobody blanched or jittered nervously on a chair.
"Some of you men may be involved in carrying out this investigation. We'll have ten or fifteen leads to track down, and a lot of questions to ask. But what we thought would be a massive job is suddenly much easier." Spur took from the small table beside him a weathered and worn notebook with removable pages. He held it up.
"This came into our hands late today. It looks like a total and complete record of all of the fringe participants in the conspiracy from the very first. One thing you can say for Rush Sommers, he kept accurate records. He has everything down in black and white, listing dates, everyone present, all those spoken to about the idea, those who were shut out, and of course everyone who participated.
"This notebook could be very bad news for a few citizens of Virginia City."
He paused and took a drink. Two or three of the men stirred in their chairs. It could be just the long speech he was giving.
"I don't want to keep you away from your duties, and I've used up more than my allotted time now, so let me say that you'll be hearing from us again about this book, and we may ask some of you to help us track down some clues.
"In about half an hour the sheriff and I are going to take some big pads of writing paper and start making lists of every name mentioned in this log book. Incidentally, it continues, day by day right up to late this afternoon. That Rush Sommers was a stickler for putting down facts, and especially who he paid.
"We have a record that he gave Guy Pritchard three hundred dollars just two days ago. That was the day before Pritchard was found shot to death in an alley, and we have a witness who saw Pritchard go into Sommers' house about two a.m. the day he was found dead.
"Well, thanks for your time, and you'll be hearing from us."
Spur left the room and the men filed out. He went into the sheriffs office and they talked in low tones for a few minutes. Then they left his door open and began going through the pages of the old book.
"This better work, McCoy. If it produces nothing in the first three hours, our bluff comes up a cropper."
Spur shifted his hurting leg to relieve the pain. "It's got to work because before midnight I'm going to get some laudanum and conk off for about three days."
Spur turned the blank pages of the old notebook. It was tattered and worn, one that the sheriff had used in Texas more than twenty years before. They wrote names on a list, any names they could think of.
Sgt. Anders came in, and Spur picked up the book so that Anders was unable to see that the pages were blank.
"We've got a disturbance in the Golden Nugget saloon, Sheriff. Do you want to be down there?"
"No time right now, Anders. Take care of it the best you can."
The sergeant looked at the list of names, nodded and went out. He walked to the last cell in the jail. It was empty as were the other three cells. He stared at it for a long time, then went back to his desk just inside the front door. For a moment he thought about his ancient .44 hanging on his hip.
Then he sat down at his desk and began to write on a piece of paper with a pencil.
"To Sheriff Gilpin and All Others Concerned:
"This being the 22nd day of October, in the year of our Lord 1874, I take pencil in hand to do hereby detail, write, and affirm that the following statement is true.
"My real name is Albert Anderson. While in Virginia City I have been using the name of Bert Anders. I am from the city of St. Louis, Missouri where for six years I was on the police force. I did leave that city after committing an illegal act, and have since then c
hanged my name, and my life. For the past seven years I have served as a deputy sheriff in this county in an honorable, truthful and upright manner.
"Six months ago I was approached by certain parties who suggested that I might be able to help them with information from the sheriffs office. They made it known that they knew of my past, and if I did not cooperate they would telegraph St. Louis with my whereabouts, and notify Sheriff Gilpin to hold me for transport to Missouri as a captured fugitive.
"I was forced to cooperate with them in every way. The main purpose of this cooperation was to reveal to them any and all facts that might affect the proposed robbery of the Treasury Department train of gold and silver bars leaving next in October of 1874.
"I have told them everything they wanted to know about the plans, the safeguards and the protection designed by this office.
"This therefore is my confession for violating the public trust, for violating my oath of office, and for being a traitor to the sheriffs office and my good friend, Clete Gilpin.
"May God have mercy on my soul."
He signed the paper, folded it and put it in his pocket, then walked back to the last jail cell and closed the door. He sat on the floor in the corner of the cell, took his .44 and blew a hole through the side of his head.
Spur and Sheriff Gilpin heard the blast of the gun and went racing from the room.
"In the jail!" somebody shouted. Six men ran that way. Two stood, stunned as they stared in the last cell.
Spur beat the sheriff to the scene.
"Open the door!" he said.
One of the deputies unlocked it and Spur ran in, with the sheriff right behind him.
Spur touched the vein at the side of the sergeant's throat.
"He's dead," Spur said.
The sheriff saw the folded paper extending from the sergeant's pocket. He opened it and read the first page.
"Everyone back to work," the sheriff said. "Johnson, you take over the sergeant's desk. One man go get the undertaker."
He stood and went back to his office.
"It was Anders. Sommers or Giardello was blackmailing him for some early crime in the East."
"Now it is wrapped up," Spur said. "Sometimes a bluff works better than a month of digging up the facts."
"Especially when you have twenty-six suspects. I did not consider Anders to be a suspect. But it's reasonable that Sommers would want somebody in the upper management team of the department."
Spur moved his leg and winced.
"I'd guess you need a ride back to Tracy Belcher's mansion," the sheriff said.
"If you have a spare rig."
A half hour after Spur got back to the Belcher place, the doctor arrived at Tracy's insistence to check his patient. He stitched up one part that had broken open, doused the wound with alcohol, and wrapped it with a clean bandage.
"We're not sure why alcohol does such a good job, but the idea now is that there are millions of little bugs that hurt us and make us sick, and cause infection. The alcohol can kill off a lot of them on the outside of the body, and prevent them from getting into the tissue or the bloodstream.
"You'll be good as new in a week. In the meantime keep off that leg. Make Tracy serve you night and day, and no strenuous exercise."
Tracy ushered the sawbones out the door, and Spur called for a whisky and two tablespoons of Laudanum. He knew the drug, used mostly to kill pain, was a tincture of opium and that continual use could make a person as totally dependent on it as many Chinese who became saddled with the opium habit.
Tracy came back. "You haven't eaten a thing today, have you? I know you didn't have any breakfast and no dinner, and now you've missed supper. Don't move, I'll be right back."
Before she got away Spur grabbed her arm and pulled her over to the bed. He kissed her lips and she sighed and snuggled closer. His hand closed around one of her breasts and Tracy squealed with pleasure.
"Wait, love. First you have supper, then for dessert you can just eat any part of me your little mouth desires!"
She slipped away and came back in twenty minutes with a bottle of whiskey and a small bottle of laudanum. She spooned one measure into his mouth and let him chase it with whisky.
"Can you rest easy for half an hour? Your supper will be ready then."
Spur said he could.
"Did you hear the news? The Mine Owner's Alliance has determined that there should be a reward for the breakup of the robbery attempt on the shipment. They have decided it should go to you.
"I'm a Federal employee. I can't accept a reward for doing my job. Not a chance. I'd be fired in a week."
Tracy opened her blouse and let her big breasts billow out. She sat beside Spur on the bed.
"Maybe you should wait until you find out how much the reward is."
"Doesn't matter."
"It's twenty thousand dollars! We decided it was worth it to offer a reward."
"That's most charitable of you. I have a better suggestion. Why not put that twenty thousand dollars in a fund? The family of every miner who gets killed in a mine accident gets a grant from the Virginia City Miner's Benevolent Fund of a thousand dollars. You could start with Mary Beth Franklin's mother."
"Oh." Tracy thought about it. "Yes, I like the idea. I'll talk with the Alliance. It could mean a lot of money if we have a bad accident."
"But it would be worth it for the peace of mind of the miners."
By the time they had the idea talked through, Canchuna came in with the dinner on a rolling cart.
Spur looked at the food. "I'm so hungry I could eat it all!" Spur said.
"Good, I like my men with a little meat on them," Tracy said.
Spur blinked once, feeling the effects of the laudanum. The pain had eased, and he ate the fried chicken and the fresh fish that had been brought in by train from San Francisco and kept iced all the way. He had four kinds of fresh cooked vegetables and two desserts, then a bottle of wine. He sighed and leaned back against the pillows.
"You going to go to sleep on me?" Tracy asked.
"You don't know what laudanum does to me, do you?"
"You should have told me that first. You are going to bob off on me, aren't you, Spur McCoy?"
She looked at him. His eyes were closed, his breath came light and evenly.
"McCoy, you sneaky big bastard! When you wake up you are going to have to make this up to me."
But she was smiling as she cleared away the tray and rolled it into the hallway. She slipped out of her clothes and settled into the big bed beside Spur.
It had been years since she had snuggled up against a sleeping hunk of a man-and just gone to sleep. One night wouldn't hurt a bit.
By noon the next day Spur had his affairs in order. He had fired off three telegrams. Two to his office in St. Louis, reminding Fleurette Leon that he was intending on coming through there before his next case. He gave her some specific instructions. The last wire went to his boss in Washington D.C.
"To: William Wood, Capital Investigations, Washington D.C.Gold all safe, robbery went awry. Perpetrators all died in attempt. One suicide. Tracks being repaired as quickly as possible. Serious wound in leg will require a week's medical leave here. Will return to St. Louis as soon as rail link is repaired. Signed/Spur McCoy."
He showed the wire to Tracy.
"A week? Only a week? After I rescued you, saved your life, became your nurse, your housekeeper and your cook, and you're only going to stay for a week?"
Spur looked surprised and she stood beside him where he sat in a soft chair that had a view of the mountains out the window.
Tracy slipped out of her robe and shook her naked, pudgy figure at him, bending so her big breasts threatened to suffocate him.
"Hey, I was just joking. I know you're a damned fiddle-foot." She pushed one of the large brown nipples into his open mouth. "I also know a hell of a good man when I sleep with one, and I'm going to keep you warming my bed just as long as I can, and with every bump and grind and tit
and pussy that I can use. My old ma didn't get no fools!"
Spur pulled her down on his lap, favoring his sore leg. He kissed her lips tenderly, barely touching them.
"Oh, damn! Where were you ten years ago when I really needed you?"
"Probably raising hell with some sexy little redhead!"
"Be serious, you ass!" She kissed him back, just as tenderly. "I just wish that we had met ten years ago. Back before I knew Belcher. Damn! What a team we could have made!"
"You're turning me down? You mean I'm too late?"
"Be serious. Look, I've heard men say that sometimes their juices get to running and they just want to grab some willing woman and have a hot, fast fuck. No strings, no talk, just sex, quick and wonderful. I've felt that way sometimes too. But not now. Right now I want to walk you over to the bed and have a soft, gentle, much talk and loving session that I can remember for twenty years as the best lovemaking of my life. Do you understand? Do you think you could work with me on a project like that?"
Spur kissed her eyes, then lifted her off his lap and stood up. He hobbled to the bed and stretched out. She lay down beside him but not touching him.
Spur McCoy turned toward her. "About that long, slow, marvelously loving time. I sure want to try. We've got a week to see if we can get it all done, just exactly, precisely right."
"It may take a lot of practice."
"I always have been good in rehearsal. Let's give it a try."
They did.
It worked out beautifully.
Spur McCoy missed the first train for Reno a week later.
He was three days late reporting back to work.
He lost twenty-seven dollars in pay for the three days.
When he wired the story to Tracy, she fired back a wire.
"Only nine dollars a day? Wish to buy nine hundred dollars worth. Please rush the product to me by return rail transportation."
Spur laughed at the letter, but deep down in his heart, he wondered what a hundred days with Tracy Belcher would be like, say in a luxury hotel in San Francisco, with a window that overlooked the bay.
Slowly Spur McCoy looked back at his desk piled high with notices, telegrams and instructions from Washington D.C.
Spur: Nevada Hussy Page 17