Hell's Gate

by William W. Johnstone

  Flintlock frowned in thought for a moment and then said, “O’Hara, are you saying Lucy murdered Roderick Chanley?”

  “Chanley wanted to marry her, but she didn’t want to marry him. He wanted to sell the house to Tobias Fynes and she didn’t. He planned to take Lucy back East but she wanted to live here in the West. Sam, a passel of men have been gunned for less.”

  Flintlock looked over O’Hara’s shoulder. “Rory O’Neill is here,” he said.

  The big prizefighter stopped beside Flintlock and looked at Chanley’s body. “He’s dead?” he said.

  “As hell in a preacher’s backyard,” Flintlock said.

  O’Neill shook his head. “No man can survive a fall like that.”

  “It’s not the fall that killed him,” Flintlock said. “It was hitting the rocks that done for him.”

  “He might have been dead before he fell,” O’Hara said. “He took two bullets to his chest.”

  “That’s strange, Mr. Whitman and me heard only one shot,” O’Neill said.

  “There were two,” O’Hara said. Then, his face expressionless, “Lucy Cully is fast with a gun.”

  “I’ll help you bury him,” O’Neill said. “And afterward we must keep this quiet. The law must not be involved.”

  “The death of a well-known Yankee poet is hard to explain away,” Flintlock said. “Folks back in Philadelphia are bound to ask questions.”

  “A letter from the Arizona Territory will tell how promising young poet Roderick Chanley got tipsy and fell off a crag to his death,” O’Neill said. “‘He’ll be sadly missed,’ says poet Walt Whitman. That’s what folks in Philadelphia will read and that’s what they will believe.”

  “O’Hara thinks Chanley was murdered,” Flintlock said.

  O’Neill had a good smile, an ear-to-ear grin that lit up his battered face. He said, “Sam, at heart you and O’Hara are just a couple of gullible country boys. Of course Lucy killed Roderick Chanley. She had no other recourse.”

  Flintlock and O’Hara exchanged glances, too shocked to answer.

  “One way or another Roderick was going to sell the house to Tobias Fynes and, believe it or not, marrying Lucy by force was still an option,” O’Neill said. “In any case, all Fynes had to do was wait. Sam, you and O’Hara will ride on soon and Mr. Whitman and me are hopefully leaving today or tomorrow, so there would be nothing to stop Fynes and Chanley from taking possession of the Cully mansion and selling it out from under Lucy.”

  “I reckon Chanley would force Lucy to marry him to keep things nice and legal,” O’Hara said.

  “Yes, or if that failed, they would kill her,” O’Neill said. “Chanley told Mr. Whitman that Fynes was offering ten thousand dollars for the house. With that kind of money he could return to Philadelphia and live comfortably while he wrote his poems and became famous.”

  Flintlock said, “So Lucy took care of Chanley, but that leaves Tobias Fynes. She’d find him harder to kill.”

  “Lucy will do anything to keep this house,” O’Neill said. “If that means inviting Fynes into her bed and while he’s in the throes of passion using her derringer to blow his brains out, then so be it.”

  “She told you this?” Flintlock said.

  “No, she didn’t. But she knows what Fynes wants and she’ll use that to destroy him. Lucy is not the wide-eyed innocent she appears, Sam. Behind that pretty face is a cold, calculating mind.”

  O’Neill took a knee beside Chanley’s broken body and then looked up at Flintlock. “We keep it quiet, Sam, because there’s no good reason for Lucy Cully to hang. What’s done is done and we forget about it.”

  “Sam, there’s no law in Mansion Creek,” O’Hara said. “No law anywhere in this part of the Territory, unless we can find us a U.S. Marshal.”

  “And that ain’t likely,” Flintlock said.

  “Let it go, Sam,” O’Neill said. “Ride away from it and don’t look back.”

  His face like stone, Flintlock said, “Will Lucy Cully attend the funeral?”

  O’Neill shook his head. “No, she won’t.”

  “She should bury her own dead,” Flintlock said.

  Rory O’Neill made no comment on that and O’Hara looked disturbed.

  “Then we’ll lay Chanley close to her, over there in the open space at the foot of the crag,” Flintlock said.

  “I think there’s a couple of shovels in the house,” O’Neill said.

  “We can’t dig through rock,” Flintlock said. “But we can lay rocks on top of him.” His face unsmiling he said, “I’ve recently become quite the expert at that.”

  * * *

  It took three hours of hard labor to bury Roderick Chanley under a rock cairn. And when they were done, three exhausted men admired their handiwork.

  “God rest him, he’ll sleep well there,” O’Neill said. “And may Jesus, Mary and Joseph watch over him.”

  Flintlock nodded and then said, “You feel like saying any more words?”

  “I don’t have many words to say,” O’Neill said. “But I’ll try.” He removed his plug hat, bowed his head and said, “Dear Lord, in your infinite mercy please grant this young poet Roderick Chanley eternal rest. He never should have come west of the Mississippi. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Flintlock said. “That was real purty, Rory.”

  “Thank you,” O’Neill said. “And now I have to beg a favor.”

  “Name it,” Flintlock said. “You did good work on the rock tomb today.”

  O’Neill looked apologetic as he said, “As you know I can’t ride a horse, so I need either you or O’Hara to ride to town and ask John Tanner to drive up here today or tomorrow and pick up Mr. Whitman and myself.” Then, by way of explanation, “We’ll take rooms at the hotel until the stage arrives.”

  “Does the old man know that Lucy shot Chanley?” O’Hara said.

  “Yes, of course he does. And that’s why he wants to go.” O’Neill looked up the dizzying height of the crag to the house. “Mr. Whitman locked himself in his room and won’t come out until it’s time to leave. He thought of Roderick as a son and he’s heartbroken over his death and the fact that Lucy was his killer.”

  “Then I’ll ride into Mansion Creek for you,” Flintlock said. “I want to talk with Tobias Fynes anyway.”

  “Want me to come with you, Sam, and see that you get fair play?” O’Hara said. He looked worried.

  “No, you better stay here,” Flintlock said.

  “Why?”

  “That I do not know. I just have a feeling that you should stay at the house.”

  “Then be careful, Sam,” O’Hara said. “Watch your back in that town.”

  “If I don’t return by nightfall, you’ll know I’ve fallen afoul of Tobias Fynes,” Flintlock said. “If that happens, tomorrow you’ll ride into town and gun him.”

  O’Hara nodded. “Consider it done, Sam.”

  Fifteen minutes later under a gray sky Flintlock rode away from the crag. He hadn’t seen Lucy Cully.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  The day was hot enough that Sam Flintlock had worked up a thirst by the time he rode into Mansion Creek. What to take care of first? A beer or a banker? The day was still young and Tobias Fynes could wait . . . but not the beer.

  Flintlock looped the buckskin’s reins around the hitching rail and stepped into the saloon. The day was not bright but by force of habit Flintlock stopped just inside the door to let his eyes adjust to the gloom. There were five men in the saloon, two at the bar and three sitting at a table playing penny-ante poker with an obvious lack of enthusiasm, men with nowhere to go and nothing to do just slowly killing time. The two at the bar were of a different breed, a couple of frontier toughs who looked at this new arrival with belligerent eyes and saw in him an object of fun. Both of them had killed before and were confident of their gun skills.

  The Mansion Creek Saloon was owned by Bob Pike, a man with sad blue eyes who for thirty years behind a bar had seen humanity at its worst in drinking div
es that stretched from the Oregon Territory to Galveston, Texas. In his time, he’d witnessed every one of the seven deadly sins and a couple the Bible missed. Pike had no illusions, no loyalties, and he’d seen it all . . . but nothing had prepared him for Sam Flintlock.

  A man who’d spent his life polishing liquor glasses but had never drank from one, Pike’s busy hands stilled when Flintlock stepped into the saloon. He thought he’d never be surprised again, but the fellow in the buckskin shirt with a thunderbird tattooed on his throat surprised the hell out of him. The man who’d come through the door was of medium height, broad in the chest and thick in the wide shoulders. He looked to be about forty but he could be younger or older. His lean, brown face was dominated by a great beak of a nose and the dragoon mustache that hung under it. The lines in his face were cut deep and they talked loudly of dangerous trails and hard times. But his eyes when he bellied up to the bar were good-humored and looked directly at a man and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were those of remembered laughter. Pike, who could read a man as easily as a menu, saw that the Colt in his waistband was well worn and not there for show. Withal, the tattooed man seemed relaxed, affable . . . and as dangerous as a teased rattler.

  Pike would later say, “It was a real pity the hard cases standing at the bar didn’t see what I saw.”

  “What’s your pleasure, stranger?” the bartender asked.

  “Beer, on account of I’m just off a dusty trail and thirsty,” Flintlock said.

  A snort of laughter, and Mustang Dave Miner said, “You mean an owl-hoot trail.”

  Flintlock drained his mug, laid it on the bar, smiled and said, “I’ll have another.” He turned to the big, unshaven man at the bar and said, “I rode a few of them back in the day. Never cared for night riding much.”

  “Yeah, I knew I was right on the money,” Miner said. “I took you fer some kind of low-life chicken thief.”

  Flintlock picked up his refilled glass and said, “No, you’re wrong, I never stole a chicken in my life.”

  “Are you calling me a liar, mister?” Miner said, pushing off the bar. He turned and faced Flintlock, his hand close to his gun. “I don’t like to be called a liar in front of other men.”

  “No, not calling you a liar, just saying you’re mistaken, is all,” Flintlock said.

  That should have defused a tense situation but Miner, who in the past had killed his man, would not let it rest. A man of violence certainly, and as game as he needed to be, Miner had a reputation of being hard to handle. But he was not a draw fighter. Trying for speed on a draw and shoot was alien to him. He believed Flintlock was of the same breed, big and tough but unhandy with the Colt stuck in his waistband. Miner had sized up the opposition and come to the decision that he could take the tattooed man any hour of the day, any day of the week.

  “Mister, I say you called me a liar, and I take that from no man,” Miner said. The small man standing behind him, a weasel named Chad Lawson, said, “That’s right, Dave, you take that from no man, right enough.”

  Flintlock finished his beer and said, “How much do I owe you, bartender? I’m down to my last dime so I hope it covers it.”

  Bob Pike looked worried and glanced at Miner out of the corner of his eye. “Five cents a beer, so a dime covers it,” he said.

  Flintlock laid the coin on the bar. “I’m obliged,” he said.

  He stepped away from the bar and headed for the door.

  “Hey, you! You leave when I say you can leave.”

  Miner was in the middle of the floor and ready, eager to make the kill.

  Beside him the weasel said, “Leave when Dave says you can leave.”

  “Damn you, draw,” Miner said, “Or by God, I’ll shoot you in the back.”

  By times Sam Flintlock could be an irritable man and on any given day he’d only be pushed so far. It annoyed him that this hombre wanted to kill him for no other reason than to put another notch on his gun. Only the lowest piece of trash would do such a thing.

  Flintlock sighed. He was trapped. If he tried to walk out the door he’d get shot in the back, there was no doubt of that. He faced Miner and said, “I’m at your service.”

  Miner, ignorant and brutish though he was, recognized that as duel talk, more likely to be uttered by a gentleman facing an opponent on a Louisiana meadow than a two-bottle bar in the Arizona Territory. He heard the wind rise and a rattle of rain on the saloon’s tin roof. It was going to be an inclement afternoon in Mansion Creek.

  Miner looked into Flintlock’s steady eyes, at the confident, relaxed way he waited on him to make his move. “I’m at your service.” This man was no bargain and suddenly Miner knew it. He was aware of the puzzled look on Lawson’s rodent face, the intent, expectant stare of the card players. If he backed down now he was finished in this town, this territory.

  Knowing he might be only seconds away from death, Miner roared his desperation and made his draw.

  * * *

  “Hell, Sam, did you have to gun both of them?” Hogan Lord said. “I’d just hired those two. The big one is Dave Miner, the other is Chad Lawson, and they came highly recommended.” Lord peered at the sprawled bodies. “Two each in the center of the chest. By any standard, that’s good shooting, Sam.”

  “They didn’t need to die today,” Flintlock said. “They brought it on themselves.”

  Lord nodded. “Looks like they sure made a big mistake.”

  “Yeah,” Flintlock said. “From the git-go mistakes were made.” He watched the undertaker measure Miner for a pine box. “Hogan, you said you’d hired these men? Why?”

  “Tobias Fynes wanted them and more like them,” Lord said. “If Chanley can’t make Lucy Cully see reason, he says he’ll go to the gun.” Hogan looked into Flintlock’s eyes. “Where do you stand on this, Sam?”

  “Chanley is dead,” Flintlock said.

  Lord was shocked. “Dead? But how?”

  “We’ll go outside. I don’t want to talk in here,” Flintlock said.

  Lord nodded and then said to the undertaker, “Send your bill to Tobias Fynes.”

  “Then I’ll just plant them, no frills,” the man said. “Fynes doesn’t like bills.”

  Flintlock and Lord stepped onto the sidewalk. “I have to speak with John Tanner,” Flintlock said. “Walt Whitman and his bodyguard want to leave the Cully house today if they can.”

  “I saw him walk into the restaurant a little time ago,” Lord said. “Come, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  John Tanner, sensing the urgency of Flintlock’s request, quickly finished his lunch and agreed to pick up Walt Whitman and Rory O’Neill.

  “You don’t need to worry about Jasper Orlov any longer,” Flintlock said. “He’s dead.”

  Tanner’s face lit up. “Do tell, Mr. Flintlock. What happened?”

  “It’s a long story,” Flintlock said. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

  A delighted Tanner had a spring in his step and he walked to the restaurant door and passed Marshal Slim Hart on the way in. Hart’s long face bore a sad expression, like a bloodhound that had lost its bone.

  He stood at the table and said, “Sam Flintlock, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Marshal, that’s my name.”

  “I got it from one of Tobias Fynes’s clerks,” the lawman said. He paused and then said, “Bob Pike and three other men say it was self-defense, Flintlock. What do you say?”

  “They pushed it, Marshal. I had to defend myself.”

  Hart nodded. “That’s the way Pike and the others see it.” He looked at Lord. “Did you witness the scrape?”

  “Only the aftermath, Marshal, gunsmoke and perforated bodies,” Lord said.

  Hart turned his attention to Flintlock again and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’d lock you up until I completed my inquiries, if I had a lockup,” Hart said. “So stay in town until I tell you it’s all right to leave.”

  “When will that be?” Flintlock said.<
br />
  “Once I have studied on the shooting scrape and ascertained to my satisfaction that the witnesses are telling the truth,” Hart said.

  “How long will that take?” Lord said.

  “As long as it takes, Mr. Lord,” Hart said. He touched his hat. “Now I will bid you gentlemen good day until later.”

  After the marshal left, Lord said, “Roderick Chanley is dead? How did it happen?”

  “Lucy killed him,” Flintlock said. Then, talking into the stunned silence that followed, “Put two bullets into his chest and he either fell or was pushed off the crag. Me and O’Hara buried what was left of him earlier.”

  Lord’s handsome face revealed his confusion. “I just can’t believe it. Why? Is it because she didn’t want to marry him?”

  “No, because she didn’t want him to sell her house to Tobias Fynes,” Flintlock said.

  Hogan Lord bowed his head in thought, staring into the inky depths of his coffee cup. Finally, he looked up and said, “Walt Whitman and his bodyguard are leaving. You and O’Hara will ride on and then Lucy will be left alone in that huge house.”

  “I think she wants it that way, Hogan. What about Fynes? What will he do? Gun her and take the house by force?”

  “No. Now that Chanley is dead Tobias will try to charm the girl. He won’t use force unless he has to.” Lord looked into Flintlock’s eyes and held them. “Sam, you’ll ride away from this? You’ll leave Lucy alone and defenseless?”

  “Hogan, she’s a murderer, no better than Fynes himself. Yeah, I’m calling it quits and I’ll do some long-riding and put some git between me and here.”

  “What about O’Hara?”

  “I don’t know what O’Hara will do. I have no idea what part of him will make his decision, the Irish or the Apache half. O’Hara has some fierce loyalties and maybe Lucy Cully is one of them.” Flintlock got to his feet. “Thanks for the coffee, Hogan. Now I got to speak to Tobias Fynes and get my five hundred dollars from him.”

  Lord nodded and said, “Sam, just remember that I work for Fynes and I ride for the brand.”