by Wesley Ellis
Jessie laughed. “Some other time, Archie. This is one stage that will be booked solid. Besides me and Ki, both Billy and Roxy Bonaday are coming.”
The geologist’s lined old face grew very serious.
“You make it much too tempting for your enemies. One stick of dynamite, one bullet into the driver’s head as he rounds a sharp curve, one of a lot of things and they have finished all of you off in the same murderous stroke. Wouldn’t it be much wiser if two of you remained in Reno?”
“Maybe.” Jessie winked. “But you don’t lure an entire pack of wolves into your trap with a couple of measly spareribs, Archie. You send them the whole beef.”
Billy Bonaday held the lines between the fingers of his left hand just the way he had been taught by his father. Dan Bonaday had never claimed to be a true reinsman, but he had been good, and Billy had tried to learn all he could from the man. Part of the skill of handling a six-horse team was in hitching them up properly. In Europe and back East, they hitched their horses up snug to the tongue of the coach or wagon. Farmers did it that way, too. But a reinsman knew better. He left his team hitched loose so that the breast straps and traces dangled and there was a lot of slack to play with between the driver and the horses. This allowed the driver to direct his team as a maestro guided his orchestra. Undaunted, he could send his lead horses racing into a hairpin turn while the wheel horses were still galloping straight ahead. This daring technique had been demonstrated to Billy when he was young enough to feel certain the coach would overturn and they’d all die. But the solid Concord coaches skidded around a turn and then straightened out to run true.
Billy could feel the tension among them all. He felt responsible for getting the coach through. The fact that they were carrying the Candelaria payroll of almost twelve thousand dollars made his mouth dry. Billy wondered why in God’s name a smart businessman like Archibald Potter had ever entrusted so much cash to them. It never occurred to him that Jessica Starbuck might have actually guaranteed against the loss.
“Is everyone ready?” Billy asked.
Ki finished helping Roxy into the coach, though she needed no help. She smiled with appreciation for his thoughtfulness and she even blushed a little when Ki’s hand strayed to the calf of her shapely leg. That was good, Ki thought; Roxy needed to know she was very desirable. Orin Grayson might have shown her how a woman could respond in bed, but he had done nothing to improve her self-image. Ki meant to change that as quickly as possible.
“Are you ready to roll, Jessie?”
She nodded. “Once we get out on the road, I might just join you and Billy up on top. Best seat on the coach, you know.”
“I know,” Ki said, closing the door and hopping up to take his place as shotgun guard. “Roll it, Billy. We have a long, hard road to travel.”
“You don’t know how hard,” the young man said, snapping the whip with his right hand. A real driver could pulverize a fly on the lead horse’s head, but not Billy. He was content just to use the long, braided whip to keep the horses’ attention.
As they rolled out of the Bonaday stage yard, Billy remembered a few years back when it had been a beehive of activity almost twenty-four hours a day. Back then, there had been a full crew of hostlers, drivers, and stablemen. There was a man to do nothing but unload the baggage and another to hitch and unhitch the teams. And over in the pole corrals, there’d always been fifteen or twenty fine horses ready and waiting.
Now the Bonaday stage yard was empty, run-down, and quiet. As they entered the street, people looked with surprise at Billy and the shiny coach he drove. Bonaday coaches hadn’t been seen for a while and Billy guessed most folks figured the firm was busted. Well, he thought grimly, not quite. This is our last chance to prove we can cut it and play to win.
He drove down Virginia Street because it was busy and he wanted everyone in Reno to see Billy Bonaday driving his father’s coach. A few people waved, and one even shouted to him, “Good luck!”
Billy tipped his hat to a pretty lady and made her blush when he stopped the coach dead in the street and blocked traffic just so the woman could cross. Someone bellowed in anger for him to get going, but Billy paid him no mind until the woman reached the far side of the street, turned, and smiled gaily at him, obviously flattered by his consideration.
Billy chuckled deep in his throat. He knew he made a handsome and rakish figure on the driver’s seat of his own coach. He tipped his hat and drove on, feeling pretty good, until he passed the Sierra Stage Line yards. He slowed the team to a crawl but did not stop outright. Grayson and Lee Ford saw him coming and so did some of their gunslingers.
Grayson was bold. The state assemblyman strode out to the street, bowed to Jessie and Roxy, and called up to Billy, “Drive real carefully, kid. There are a lot of pitfalls between here and the end of the line. We sure don’t want anything to happen to those beautiful women. Keep your eyes open, Chinaman!”
Billy grabbed for the handbrake, but Ki clamped his fingers on the man’s arm painfully hard. “Don’t let him bait you into a fight now!” he hissed. “Don’t you see that’s exactly what he wants, with ten gunslingers standing behind him?”
“Why wait?” Billy choked. “You know that they’re coming after us anyway. Let’s settle this once and for all.”
“Keep driving,” Ki said tightly, “or I’ll throw you to them and drive on myself. There is always a right and a wrong time and place and this is the latter. Now, do as I tell you!”
Ki rarely let his temper show but when it did, it came in such a way that a man took notice. It was not Ki’s way to shout and make a fuss, he just warned a man one time and then let him choose the consequences. Looking into Ki’s eyes, Billy suddenly realized that he did not want to force a confrontation. He wanted Ki with him, not driving away from a man he considered a headstrong fool.
“All right,” Billy managed to say, pulling his arm free while he could still move his fingers. “We wait.”
“Good,” Ki said. “Patience is a virtue. You have made the first small step.”
Billy wanted to tell him to go to hell, but he decided that would not be very smart.
The coach rolled on.
“Damn it!” Lee Ford growled, watching the stage disappear. “I’d have bet my ass that Billy would have stopped and we’d have forced the showdown.”
“It was the Oriental,” Grayson said. “Didn’t you see how he controlled Billy? That man is extremely dangerous.”
Ford nodded. “I think I’d better go along with our men this time just to make sure that nothing else goes wrong.”
“Good idea.” Grayson started to turn back toward the offices, but then hesitated. He turned and walked back to Lee Ford, who was already preparing to ride. “Lee, wait until they get a hundred miles south of here, then hit them. Telegraph me as soon as it’s done. And . . .”
“Spit it out, Orin!”
“All right. I don’t care what you do to the men, but I want the two women to die cleanly. No raping, no rough stuff. Just a quick kill.”
Lee Ford cocked the hat back on his head. Once, he had been a hired killer. It was hard to believe because of his weight, but it was true. He’d been a bounty hunter and a scalp hunter as well, and he was a dead shot.
“Orin,” he drawled. “You get your tender ass back in a chair where it belongs and don’t try to tell me my business. You already had both them women and you don’t want any of us to do the same. I say horseshit to that noise. We’ll do it our way and I already promised the men that we might have us a little pleasuring before we kill them women.”
Grayson swallowed and headed back to the office without another word. Most people thought he was the ramrod of the stage line, but he wasn’t. When it came right down to who was calling the shots, Lee Ford was the top dog. Lee Ford, who would kill him in a second and never think twice about it.
Grayson stopped at the front door of his office and watched the Bonaday coach disappear around a corner. It was Roxy he felt si
ck about. She hadn’t done anything to deserve the fate that awaited her now. The other three could suffer and their souls burn in hell. But Roxy had loved him, really loved him, and Grayson wished things might have gone better. He could have married her, and he would have if it had not been for Lee Ford.
Damn Ford. Poor, trusting Roxy. She deserved a whale of a lot better end than she would receive. Lee Ford and his men had lusted after her for a long time.
Chapter 13
About ten miles below Reno they swung southeast and climbed the rugged grade up to Virginia City. The Comstock was on the decline but even so it still supported several thousand people. The Ophir and the Potossi Mines were still operating with reduced crews, but Ki thought the town had the look of death to it. Even so, Virginia City, Gold Hill, and Silver City were each grimly hanging on to their economic existence. Dan De Quill and Mark Twain no longer worked for the famous Territorial Enterprise, but the Delta and Bucket of Blood saloons were sure doing a whale of a business. Occasionally, a few passengers would climb aboard, but they were just out for a short haul. Since the Bonaday Stage Line had not maintained a regular passenger schedule for some time, the passengers seemed to have preferred either to wait for an oncoming Sierra coach or use their own sources of transportation.
Ki had never seen a harder country or people. The country itself was nothing but harsh, rocky mountains that had been completely denuded by the miners, who used every bit of timber either as underground shoring or firewood. Everywhere Ki looked he saw small mine tailings that gave evidence of where some luckless miner had busted his back in the vain hope of striking paydirt. The tailings were abandoned now, and even the big mines mostly stood empty with their huge gallows-like hoisting works and steam engines rusting in the sun.
“There’s nothing sadder than a dying town,” Billy said, reading Ki’s thoughts. “Ten, twenty years ago you’d have had to pay thousands of dollars for each running foot of mining claim here in Six Mile Canyon. Why, my father said that men came from around the world to work these ugly hills. Well, they worked them, but old Sun Mountain yonder is still standing and the men are mostly gone now. ‘Cept those buried here. A whole lot of them way down in mines so deep that the earth got hotter than hell to work in.”
“Hold up there!” a man shouted as they approached a towering cut in the rock that the road passed through.
“Damn it!” Billy swore. “I’d a thought he would have given up on Devil’s Gate Toll by now, what with everybody so poor they can barely feed themselves. But he hasn’t. The greedy sonofabitch is still robbing anybody who’ll let them.”
Ki frowned. “You mean everyone who passes through this cleft in the rocks is supposed to pay him?”
“For a fact. He bought the rights to it ten, maybe twelve years ago. He’s been bleeding people ever since. My father hated him. Everyone does. His name is Isaac Waltrop and he’s tetchy as a teased snake. He’s never been whipped and you can see from the size of him he’s an ox.”
“Then you’d better pay him and be done with it,” Ki said. “We are transporting twelve thousand dollars in cash. This is not the time or the place to get into a squabble over a dollar or two.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Billy drawled. “Last time I was through here he charged a poor widow and her three kids a dollar each. They didn’t have it, so I paid their way. They were much too weak to climb far up into this mountain like you have to do to go around. I swore at the time I’d not pay Waltrop and his guards another penny as long as I live.”
Ki lifted his glance upward and saw the pair of guards with their rifles in their hands. They stood on opposiste sides of the cleft and each had a perfect firing angle down onto the narrow roadway. Between the huge, bearded Waltrop and his guards standing high overhead, Ki could certainly understand why people had little choice but to pay the toll. Still, it also grated Ki to have to submit to highway robbery. This was obviously a natural defile in the rocks, not some cut that Waltrop or any other human being had sweated and toiled to open for traffic and a reasonable return for their time and labor.
Waltrop was carrying a shotgun of his own and it looked like a toy in his fists. “Hold that stage up there, damn you!”
Billy pulled on the reins and the stage came to a halt. Ki could see that Billy was measuring the chances he had of getting through without paying. They weren’t good at all.
“We’ll pay him,” Ki said. “I’ve got the money.”
“Sure,” Billy gritted. He reached out for the money and snatched it from Ki without thanks. “Waltrop, how much do you think you can rob me of this time?”
“Billy Bonaday, I guess you ain’t learned any manners since the last time you was through, have you, boy?”
“Not a single damned one I can think of when dealing with a greedy pig like you.”
Waltrop snarled and his deep-set eyes pinned Ki. “What’s the matter, your stage line so poor you can’t even pay a white man to be your shotgun?”
Billy flushed with anger.
“Easy,” Ki whispered.
“Chinaman, put that shotgun down in the boot nice and slow before you accidentally shoot yourself. You yellow bastards ain’t allowed to carry a man’s weapon through Devil’s Gate Toll.”
Ki laid the weapon down. Between his legs and hidden in the front boot of the stage was his samurai bow. It was unusually shaped, and made of light-colored wood sandwiched between layers of dark. The wood had been fire-tempered until its flexibility, lightness, and strength were superior to any bow that could be found in the world, including those of the American Indian. Ki was an expert with the weapon and had often demonstrated that he could fire it with incredible speed and accuracy. A quiver filled with arrows lay within easy reach. Still, Ki did not believe he would use force unless it was required. He tolerated insults no better than any other man, but he had the self-discipline to know that getting the Jumbo Mine Company payroll through was all-important.
Waltrop stuck his fist up toward Billy. “Ten dollars because you got such a smart mouth.”
“Ten dollars! You only charged me three the last time. I won’t pay it!”
“Sure you will. ‘Course, if you ain’t got the toll, maybe one of your pretty lady passengers inside will help you out.” Waltrop swung around and grabbed the door handle of the coach with a leer on his face. “Ladies, step down here and—”
Ki heard the familiar cocking sound of Jessie’s gun and her whisper that carried a deadly warning: “Drop your shotgun, mister, and do it right now.”
Waltrop dropped it and started to yell for help, but Billy sprang from his seat, landed on the giant, and knocked him flat. Ki grabbed his bow and an arrow, knowing that his shotgun would not be effective if the guards above began to fire their Winchesters.
A guard did lever a shell into his rifle and try to take aim, but the other one yelled, “Let ‘em fight, you goddamn fool, you might hit the boss!”
The man lowered his rifle and waited for a clear shot at Billy.
“The boss will tear his head off anyway,” the other guard said.
Ki had pulled his bowstring back to his ear and would have shot the guard if he had not lowered his weapon. Now, Ki turned his attention to Billy and winced as the young man took a roundhouse punch that lifted him clear off the ground and sent him smashing into the rock wall. Their team of stage horses began to prance around and Ki grabbed the reins.
Billy didn’t have time to notice. He had thrown his arms around Waltrop, trying to clear his head. The big man broke his locked arms and hurled him back against the rock wall. He grabbed Billy by the collar and measured him with his cocked right fist. But when he drove it at Billy’s handsome face, Billy ducked.
“Owwwh!” Waltrop bellowed as his massive fist broke itself against the rock wall.
Billy was on him like a cat. Taking advantage of the blinding pain Waltrop had caused himself, Billy drove three punches to the giant’s face and then made his cheeks billow out with a murderous uppercut to
the heart.
Waltrop staggered, then charged Billy, but he was too slow and missed. As he passed, Billy punched him in the kidneys and Waltrop collapsed on one side. Billy smashed the giant twice more with solid blows that sent Waltrop backpedaling.
Ki was impressed. Billy had gained the advantage as much because of his cool thinking as he had his speed and fighting skills. A man who could fight with cool precision instead of just windmilling his punches and kicking and gouging was a man who could be counted on to maintain his composure under fire.
“Damn you!” Waltrop cried. He kicked out and Billy grabbed his foot and twisted it hard. The giant dropped in the dirt and rolled onto his back.
“Get up,” Billy said, his face unmarked and his breathing still almost normal.
But Waltrop had taken all the punishment he intended to receive. Cradling his broken hand, he looked up to his guards and shouted, “Kill him!”
Ki drew his bowstring and fired in one smooth motion. Even before his arrow sped to its target, he was notching another in the desperate hope that he could take the second guard before the man killed Billy.
But there was no time and, when Ki heard the sharp bark of Jessie’s .38, he knew that he would not need another arrow.
The two guards were down. Ki could see neither of them, but he knew that both were writhing in agony from their wounds. His arrow had not been meant to kill, and he was sure that Jessie had not intended her shot to either.
Waltrop lay sprawled out on the dirt looking stunned at this sudden turn of events. In all of his years as tollgate owner, he had believed that his natural rock tollgate was invulnerable given the two guards he paid to stand watch from above.
In a fit of rage, he threw himself toward the shotgun he’d dropped in the dirt. Billy waited until he grabbed it and then stomped with the heel of his boot. Waltrop screamed and Billy pried the shotgun from his smashed fingers. Now the man had both hands out of commission. Billy pitched the shotgun up to Ki and said, “After the way you handled that bow and arrow, I know you won’t need an extra, but I might before this trip is finished.”