by Chuck Tyrell
“Matt?”
“Yeah?”
“Back in the cavern there, there are some gaunt horses and a big pack mule. The animals are there all right, but there ain’t no two hunnert fifty pounds of gold. Nowhere.”
“Shit.” Stryker didn’t take his eyes off the jumble of boulders across the way. “Guess we’ll have to talk to Old Man Dent, then.”
Another volley of rifle fire sent bullets at the ceiling of the cavern. Four rifles. Not impossible odds if everyone was out in the open.
“What do you know about Nate Cousins, Lige?”
“Not all that much. Some say he rode with Bloody Bill near the end of the war, but I never saw him.”
“You figure he’s got honor?”
“Honor?”
“Does he keep his word?”
“Who knows?”
“Reckon its time to find out.”
Carpenter said nothing for a long moment. Then, “How you figure to do that?”
Stryker dug a wrinkled bandana from his back britches pocket and swiped at the tears on his cheek. Rifle bullets chewed at the top of the cavern again.
“Damn,” Stryker said. “They keep doing that and someone’s liable to get hurt.”
Another volley.
Stryker quickly levered off three shots, aimed at openings in the rocks where smoke drifted skyward. “Just to let them know we’re alive and well,” he said.
“Yeah,” Carpenter said, more that a little dryly. Then he, too, sent three shots back across the canyon. “Now they know at least two of us are alive and kicking.”
Rifle fire from across the canyon took on a sporadic quality. Random. Sometimes several shots one after the other, then a long space followed by a volley of four rifles firing at once.
A shot came from Cousins’ position, followed by a grunt from inside the cavern. “Somebody hit?” Stryker said.
Carpenter slithered into the cave to check. He returned with a scowl on his face. “Old Man Dent,” he said.
“Bad?”
“He ain’t dead. Yet.”
Stryker raised his voice. “Nate! Nate Cousins. You hear me?”
Silence. A redtail hawk dipped closer to survey the situation. Two zopilote buzzards appeared over the canyon wall. They rode the thermals and circled above the hawk. They could wait.
“Whaddaya want?”
“This is Matt Stryker, Cousins. I figure it’s time we talked.”
“Talkin’s free.”
“Meet me down on the canyon floor?”
“Who’s to say someone won’t shoot me?” That old man with the buffalo gun, say.”
“I say no one will shoot from this side. Can you say the same?”
“I can.”
“Then I’m coming out.” Stryker stood and scrambled over the breastwork-like pile of red sandstone where he’d taken refuge. He leaned his ’76 against a boulder and walked toward the center of the canyon bottom. The sun did its best to dry Stryker out and fry him up solid. He ignored it.
The man who came from the jumble of rocks opposite the cave lacked a good four inches of Stryker’s six feet, and he was dressed more like a San Fran Dandy that a desert warrior. His dark bowler sat low over his eyes, and his frock coat would have been well received at any ball, were it not for the thick layer of desert dust that covered it. A thin scar slashed across his left cheek. Perhaps a memento of dueling days. He, too, leaned a lever-action rifle against a convenient boulder before he ventured across the canyon floor.
Stryker swiped at his cheek with the balled up bandana.
“Matt Stryker, are you?” Cousins said.
“I am.”
“What should we talk about?”
“Gold, I reckon. That’s what brought you into Hell’s Trail, ain’t it?”
Cousins gave a curt nod.
“I’ll put it right out in front. The gold ain’t in that cavern you all’ve been shooting at.”
Cousins looked up. His hard eyes searched Stryker’s face. “Not in there?”
Stryker shook his head.
“Where’s it at?”
“Wish I knew. Only one who does is Old Man Dent, back in the cave you boys’ve been shooting at. One of your ricochets caught him, too.”
Carpenter stepped off the rocks onto the canyon floor. He leaned his rifle next to Stryker’s and walked toward Stryker and Cousins with his hands up shoulder high, palms out.
“Who’s that?” Cousins asked.
Stryker turned to look. “Lige Carpenter,” he said.
“No guff?”
“That’s him.”
“Be damned.”
“Good man. Does what he says he’s gonna do.”
Carpenter came to a stop about three steps to Stryker’s left. “You’ll be Nate Cousins, then,” he said.
“Yep.”
“Lige Carpenter.”
“Heard about the Higgins Bottom fight. About Danby, too.”
“Yeah.” Carpenter turned his attention to Stryker. “Matt. We got another problem.”
Stryker nodded, and wiped his face.
“The Old Man’s dead. One of Cousin’s ricochets got him in a lung. Dead lucky shot, a long shooter couldn’t a done no better.”
Stryker shook his head and scrubbed a moccasin in the said. “Damn.” He swabbed his face again.
Cousins wasn’t quite sure he heard right. “Old Man Dent’s dead?”
“Yep.”
“And there ain’t no gold in the cave?”
“Nope.”
Cousins chewed on his lip while scuffing at the sand with the toe of his boot.
“Wondering why you did away with Elrowe Hershey?” Stryker said.
Cousins shook his head. “Weren’t me,” he said.
“You stayed on the second floor at the Royal, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but I was supposed to keep anything from happening to Elrowe.”
Stryker raised an eyebrow.
“True,” Cousins said.
Stryker indicated the rocks where Cousins came from. “Why the gunmen?”
“Who knows what a man will meet up with when he’s tracking a big lump of gold?”
“That gold ain’t around any more,” Stryker said.
“Mind if I look for myself?”
Stryker stepped back and waved Cousins toward the cave. “Help yourself,” he said.
“Hey Rennick!” Cousins shouted.
“Yeah?” The answer came from far to the left.
“Gotta go see about something. Hold tight, will ya?”
“Don’t take too long,” Rennick replied.
Cousins raised a hand. He left his rifle where it leaned against the red rocks of Hell’s Trail.
Chapter Eleven
The cavern stretched back under the cliff for at least a dozen yards, then slanted down for several more before ending in a wall with a round hole surrounded with wrinkled limestone that gave it a puckered look.
Old Man Dent’s body lay against the back of the cavern. The ricochet had taken him from the side and ripped through at least one lung. No exit wound showed. Lee Roy lay next to his pa, throat torn open by flattened and jagged lead. The vast amount of blood on his clothes said he’d bled to death.
Molly Miller, her clothes tattered to the point they hardly obscured anything, sat with her back to the stone wall of the cavern. Finn Dent lay crosswise of her, his head in her lap. She wiped his sweating face periodically with a rag. She gave Carpenter and Stryker a nod of recognition.
“How’s Finn?” Carpenter said.
“Can’t believe it’s just rotgut,” she said. “He’s too low and the blood won’t stop.”
Nate Cousins took the scene in at a glance. He didn’t stop to talk, he just strode around the bend in the cavern and surveyed the horses and mule. Nothing among the loads and gear strewn along the cavern wall even hinted of gold.
“Damn,” he said as he returned to the main cave. “Oh, ‘scuse me, ma’am,” he said to Molly.
“I’ve heard
worse, Nate Cousins,” she said. “But why would you swear?”
“When you left Miller’s well, missus, that big old mule had a heavy pack a gold. Dunno what it was in, but no one man’s gonna lift that much. Did you see it?”
“Listen, Nate, I was hardly in a position to take stock of everything Lester Bent tied on the mule.” She wiped cold sweat from Finn’s brow. “But there was something heavy. It always took three of them to lift stuff up on the pack mule, now that you mention it.”
“When’d you get here?”
“Just after sundown yesterday.”
“Heavy stuff there then?”
“I didn’t notice.”
“You unload the mule?”
“No. Lester and Lee Roy did that.”
“Heavy when they loaded yesterday?”
“Didn’t notice.”
“Mule look light?”
“Didn’t notice.”
“Damn, missus. Don’t you watch what’s going on around you?” Cousins’ voice started getting a hard edge on it.
“Nate Cousins. Don’t you talk to me like that. I’m here with three man-animals, and Wee Willy, and you expect me to keep minute watch on everything that goes on? How do you think I got this broken nose?”
“Old Dominion bought Elrowe Hershey out, missus. They hired me to guard him as far as San Fran. We was supposed to meet up in Tucson. I got in before him, and caught a little shuteye in the hotel. Next thing I know, Elrowe is dead, the Old Dominion man delivering the gold is burned to a stiff, and you’re riding toward Hell’s Trail with a bunch of bushwhackers. What in Lucifer’s name am I supposed to think?”
Molly ducked her head. “I’m sorry. But it’s only been a few days since the Dents killed my husband and the stage driver and the shotgun guard and the people on the stage. The only reason they didn’t kill me is because Finn and Lee Roy wanted me for carnal pleasures. ‘Humping,’ they called it.”
“You didn’t tell her?” Stryker said to Carpenter.
“Didn’t get a chance,” Carpenter replied.
“Molly,” Stryker said. “Molly. Listen to me. Dodge is all right. He’s got a bullet hole or two in him, but the doc says he’ll be fine.”
Molly put here hands over her mouth, her eyebrows arched in surprise. “O-o-o-ooh,” she moaned. “Poor Dodge. Poor, poor Dodge.”
“He’ll recover,” Stryker said.
Molly shook her head. Tears streamed past her broken nose. “No. No,” she said in a tiny voice. “Oh, no.”
“He’s looking forward to seeing you, Molly,” Stryker said.
“No,” she said. “I can’t go back to Dodge. Can’t you see? These men used me day and night. I’m not fit to be Dodge Miller’s wife any longer.”
Stryker removed the roll he’d made of his extra shirt and pair of trousers. He held the clothing out to Molly. “Men’s stuff, Molly, but a sight better’n what you’ve got on.”
The tears never stopped, and Molly’s breast heaved with her effort to stop crying. She reached for the bundle, and then buried her face in it.
“Molly,” Carpenter said. “This is your cousin Lige talking. Dodge Miller’s a good man, Molly. And I figure he’ll welcome you back. Now get over behind that wall and change your clothes. Traveling’s been kinda hard on what you’ve got on.”
Snuffling, Molly nodded. She shuffled away, going out of sight behind the curve in the cavern wall.
Finn Dent lay face up, mouth open, eyes shut, breath laboring, face white as if all the blood had been drained from his body. His lips were cracked as if he’d walked across the alkali flats without a sip of water. His bare shins and bony feet protruded from the ragged blanket that covered him from waist to knees.
He convulsed, his knees coming up and his face and head straining to double his body up, but he didn’t have the strength. He turned so his butt stuck out from under the blanket. “Ungh. Ungh,” he groaned, and a great wash of blood shot from his rear like it was a fire hose. His body rippled and bucked like it was voiding some kind of evil spirit. Then he fell slack. A long sigh escaped his lips. His eyelids opened. “I . . . I . . .” Finn struggled to form words.
“What is it, Finn?” Stryker said, leaning over the stricken man. “Say it. Come on.”
“I . . . I . . . Ma? Pa?” His neck flopped and his eyes lost their light. Finn Dent could see no more, and his lungs no longer sucked at the dry desert air of Hell’s Trail.
“Gone,” Stryker said. “Hell of a note. Dadblame it.” He fiercely wiped at the tears on his own face.
“Yeah. Now what’ve we got?” Cousins waved a hand at Wee Willy, who squatted near the cavern wall, tears streaming down his face. “One halfwit and a woman who don’t notice what’s going on.”
“Man’s dead, Cousins. No need to piss on him,” Stryker said.
“We’re missing more’n a dab of gold, Stryker, an’ we got no way of knowing where to look first.”
“What does it matter to you, Cousins? You were hired to protect Hershey. He’s dead. The gold was to buy Hershey’s share of Old Dominion. But, as I said, he’s dead. Ain’t your job to bring the gold in, now, is it? That ain’t why you got hired, right?” Stryker stared at Cousins with hard eyes.
Cousins stuttered. “Well . . . why . . . you see . . . someone’s gotta get the gold . . . .”
“Who for?”
“Elrowe Hershey’s dead. Whoever finds the gold, gets it. Right?”
“I’d say it belongs to Elrowe Hershey’s family, wherever it is.”
“Don’t make no difference. We don’t know where his family’s at.” Cousins aimed a kick at Finn Dent’s body.
“Cousins!” Stryker’s voice was hard as the cavern walls it echoed from. “You’ll not desecrate the dead, man.”
A rifle shot sounded. Everyone froze. Another rifle shot. Then a spatter of fire.
“Shots coming from everywhere,” Stryker said.
“My rifle’s still out there,” Cousins said. “Good rifle, too.”
Stryker grabbed one from the three leaning against the cavern wall. He tossed it to Cousins. “Use that until you can get yours back,” he said. “Lige. Let’s have a look.”
Cousins checked the action of the Winchester Stryker had tossed him. “I’m coming too,” he said.
“Firing outside, Molly,” Stryker said as Molly came back, dressed in a too-big shirt and too-big trousers, but everything was covered. “Finn’s gone. Wee Willy’s too sad. You ride herd on things here. Use one of those rifles, if things come to that.”
“I’ll be here, Matthew,” she said.
The rate of fire outside increased. “Lige. Cousins. Let’s go see what’s going on.” Stryker strode for the cavern mouth, neither taking cover nor slinking.
The rate of firing outside increased. “Okay. Cousins. Lige. Let’s go see what’s happening.”
Stryker motioned Cousins to the left and Carpenter to the right. He barged straight ahead toward the breastwork of fallen stones that protected the cave entrance. His desert dust-colored clothing helped camouflage him and his years as a sharp-eyed bounty hunter helped him see at a glance what had happened.
Three horses were down, two obviously dead, one still labored, trying to heave itself off the hot canyon floor. A rifle cracked from Stryker’s right. “Don’t like to see a cayuse suffer,” Lige Carpenter said just loud enough for Striker to hear.
“You let ‘em know we’re here,” Stryker said.
“They’d a found out.”
“What do you see?” Stryker spoke so both Carpenter and Cousins could hear.
“Looks to be at least a dozen,” Cousins said. “Wonder who?”
“Riffraff from Alamo,” Stryker said.
“Alamo?”
“Word of the gold got out. They want it. I guess pickings at Alamo ain’t as good as two hunnert fifty pounds of pure stuff.”
“Well. They got my boys and they got us to go through before they find an empty pack mule back in that cavern.”
&nbs
p; “One of yours got hit, didn’t he?”
“Yeah. Old Man and his buffalo gun did it.”
“Who?”
“Marty Henshaw.”
“Done in?”
“He says he’ll live. Can fight if he has to.”
“Good.”
Taklishim slithered up to Stryker’s position so quietly that the other two may not have noticed. “John Walker is here,” he said.
“Where?”
“Here.”
Stryker turned his eyes in the direction Taklishim indicated. At first, he didn’t see Walker. Then the white Pima moved his eyes, and Stryker caught the movement. “I see you, John Walker,” he said.
“I reckon you can, Matthew Stryker. I may have chose Pima ways but I speak ‘merikan just fine.”
“Good to meet you, Walker,” Stryker said. “You got anything to do with all the rifle fire that’s going on?”
“I come to tell you to give up,” Walker said. “Ain’t no reason for you to die. No gold’s worth that much.”
“Sorry, Walker. I reckon you’re after the Old Dominion gold that the Dents stole from the Ridges & Hale stage, but we ain’t got it.”
“The hell you say.”
“Ain’t got it.”
Walker raised an arm, and then he was gone.
“I follow,” Taklishim said, and he, too, disappeared.
“Damn,” Stryker said. He stopped and stood silent for a moment. “No rifle fire,” he said. Then the whole side of the canyon wall above their heads exploded.
Stryker awoke to pain. At first he could not pinpoint where it came from. His brain seemed jumbled up inside his head. His right hand seemed crushed, held fast between two massive pieces of sandstone. His back hurt. His ribs hurt. He could faintly hear the sound of someone groaning . . . himself.
He heard scratching through the roaring in his ears. Someone tugged at his moccasins.
“Matt. Matt. Matt.”
He heard the voice as if it were chanting his name, breathless from the effort of trying to uncover him, to pull away the remnants of the cliff face that had fallen on him. Fallen? No. Explosion. Someone had blown the cliff face above the cavern.
Hands scrabbled at the sandstone debris that covered him. Breathing hurt. Thinking hurt. Lying still hurt. He didn’t try to move.
“Willy. Willy Dent. You come help me get the stones off Matt Stryker. Please.”