‘Oceanville?’
Now Harrow looked long and hard into the inscrutable face of his young passenger. ‘You know, I don’t think you know where we’re headed, do you?’
‘I can get a horse in Oceanville?’
‘And you ain’t what you look like, are you?’
Barnaby Gold clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. ‘You didn’t answer my question about the horse.’
‘That’ll be up to Hal Delroy, son. But if you ain’t what you seem to be, it’d be better if you went someplace else for a mount.’
‘Where?’
Harrow sighed and spat some more tobacco juice off the side of the wagon. Said with a sigh, ‘That sure is a problem, son. Seein’ as how this trail don’t go no place else except Oceanville. And there ain’t no side trails off. On account of there ain’t no point, because there ain’t no other towns but Oceanville in this piece of country.’
‘Mr. Delroy’s a tough horse trader, uh?’
‘He’s a tough everythin’, son. But seein’ as how you’re in a tough spot already, guess there ain’t nothin’ else for you to do except take your chance in Oceanville.’
‘Appreciate your concern, Mr. Harrow,’
Another shake of the head. ‘I ain’t concerned for you, son. Just tellin’ you like it is. So you won’t have no cause to blame me if there’s trouble in town.’
‘Strangers aren’t welcome there?’
For his answer, Harrow spat and accompanied it with a scowl. Then asked, ‘Tell me something, son. How come you were ridin’ a trail with no idea of what was at the end of it?’
‘I figured the ocean was.’
‘The ocean? Well, there ain’t no doubt but that it’s there. And if you ain’t never seen it before, it sure is somethin’ to see. But you sure as hell don’t look like some hick tourist.’
‘It’s what I aim to be, sir.’
‘Uh?’
‘When I get to Europe, Mr. Harrow.’
‘Europe?’
‘Started out to head north-west, but the trail took a curve through the mountains. Not in any great hurry. Figured to reach the ocean and then swing north. Follow the coast until I reach San Francisco. Some of the clippers from there go to Europe.’
The old-timer gave the young man another long, hard look at close quarters. And blurted, ‘Shit, I believe that’s what you fully intend to do.’
‘Doesn’t matter to me what you believe, Mr. Harrow.’
The quietly spoken statement and the seemingly arrogant gaze of the green eyes acted to antagonize the driver. ‘And let me tell you somethin’, son. It don’t matter to me that you probably won’t get closer to Europe than Oceanville! Way you are!’
‘What way’s that, sir?’
‘Damnit, maybe you’re short on marbles or somethin’! You got the manners of some highborn, snotnose dandy yet you’re dressed and pack the kind of shootin’ rig that makes you look like a gun for hire. Headin’ wide-eyed and innocent into the toughest town in the whole of California. Maybe the whole damn country!’
Barnaby Gold clicked his tongue. ‘Tell you what I’ll do for you, Mr. Harrow.’
‘Do for me?’
‘You drop me a mile or so outside of Oceanville and I’ll walk on in the rest of the way. I won’t let it be known you gave me a ride.’
The old-timer vented a raucous laugh. And slapped his solid thigh. ‘Shit, son, I wouldn’t like for you to do that! You bein’ the way you are, I reckon I’ll be able to drink a whole day in the cantina and it won’t cost me a cent. Hal Delroy and his boys bein’ so grateful to me for bringin’ you in. Can get to be pretty damn dull in Oceanville so I’ve heard.’
There was a long silence between the two men after this, as the wagon rolled across the strip of country that divided the barren terrain from the pine forest, just the creak of timbers and springs, the squeak of axles and the clop of hooves disturbing the mountain peace. The sun was sinking and twilight was hovering on the horizon which was more clearly defined now that the heat shimmer was gone. The smell of the ocean and the stink of body odor was abruptly masked by the sweet scent of pine foliage.
Then the trail curved into the forest and this late in the afternoon the shade was not so much cool as chill. Seth Harrow reached under the seat and pulled out a sheepskin coat which he draped over his shoulders, cape-fashion.
The trail started to rise now, veering from side to side to reduce the steepness of the climb toward a pass between twin peaks. Harrow seemed to welcome the chore of having to steer the team around the frequent turns, while Gold continued to be totally at ease with the silence between them.
‘Once over the ridge, it’ll be downhill all the way. Oughta make Oceanville this side of midnight.’ The younger man nodded and the older one scowled. ‘If you’re hungry or need a smoke real bad, we can stop for awhile. Prefer to press on myself. There’s good Mexican food to be got at the cantina in town.’
‘Hot food sounds fine, Mr. Harrow.’
The driver got rid of the wad of chewed-out tobacco, spitting it far to the side. Then for a long time as afternoon gave way to evening he seemed to have something important on his mind - and to be searching for the right form of words with which to express it. Finally, when the darkness of night came to the pine forest with just patches of moonlight reaching down through the foliage here and there, he came right out with it. Blurting the words fast as the wagon rolled over the crest of the pass.
‘Look, son, you didn’t oughta go into Oceanville wearing that fancy gunbelt on the outside of your coat the way you do!’
‘Don’t they allow the wearing of guns in Oceanville, sir?’
‘Damnit, quit callin’ me sir and cut out that Mr. Harrow stuff! Everyone calls me Seth! I like it that way!’ He moderated his tone. ‘But I also like it when youngsters got respect for old-timers like me. Which ain’t so often these days. So, to my way of thinkin’, you deserve to get a warnin’.’
‘As I recall, you’ve done little else but warn me that Oceanville’s a tough town. You also said it’s the only place in this part of the country where I can buy a horse.’
‘But you gotta go the right way of gettin’ what you need, damnit! Hal Delroy and his bunch are outlaws, son. They don’t carve notches on their guns, because there ain’t nothin’ short of a howitzer that could take that many notches and not fall apart. Crazy killers, all of them. With enough money on their heads it would break any bank I know if they was all turned in at once.
‘Oceanville’s their bolt-hole. As good a hideout as I ever did see. Them and a bunch of Mexican fishermen is all that lives there. Plus Delroy’s sister Eve and a handful of whores.
‘Me, I’ve been haulin’ in supplies for better than five years and far as I know I’m the only outsider ever got through the ravine and into the town alive. Hear tell of lawmen and bounty hunters who tried.’
‘You’ll be able to tell Delroy I’m only along to buy a horse, Mr. Harrow.’
‘Shit! You sure as hell ain’t ridin’ a horse! But you’re up there on a mighty high one! And if you show up in Oceanville actin’ the way you are with me, you’re gonna get shot down off it!’ He shook his head slowly and sighed, as if he had exhausted his argument and now could only consign Barnaby Gold to his fate. But then asked, ‘You ain’t even no great hotshot with them Peacemakers, are you?’
‘I practice a lot.’
‘Didn’t think so. After I seen you used a shotgun to put down the horse. So why d’you wear the rig outside the coat the way you do? In a lot of towns that ain’t at all like Oceanville I figure you’re just an open invite to trouble.’
‘I haven’t been in too many towns, Mr. Harrow.’
‘And in them you have, you got lucky.’ Another sigh. Then a grunt and a gesture with a hand. ‘There’s the ocean, son.’
Gold had already seen it. A narrow strip of moon-silvered water in the far distance, providing a well-defined horizon beyond the irregular dark line of the edge of the
continental land mass. Which remained in view for a full minute before the trail dipped into a north to south valley.
‘Don’t know much about Europe.’
‘I read a lot about it when I was a kid in New York City, sir.’
‘Never did hear tell that a rep as a gunslinger counted for much over to there.’
‘Me neither.’
‘So why, son?’ the old-timer asked earnestly. ‘Why you so dead set on not takin’ my advice?’
Gold allowed a smile to spread across his handsome face as Seth Harrow stared myopically at him. ‘What I’m dead set on, sir, is getting to Europe. And to do that I have to stay alive. Way things have been since I sold the business and left Fairfax, Arizona, I need the guns to keep from being killed.’
‘You were in business for yourself?’
‘Just for a few days. After my father died.’
‘What kinda business was that?’
‘We were undertakers.’
‘Well, I’ll be...’ Now Harrow ran his shortsighted gaze over the entire length of the young man seated beside him. ‘Take away the gunbelt and you’d look like you was still in that business, son.’
‘Part-time, is all, sir.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Just bury the men I have to kill.’
CHAPTER THREE
THE elderly driver gave up on his younger passenger after this exchange. And spoke to him just twice more. The first time when there was a halt to water the horses at a stream forded by the trail, when he growled at Gold to move further away from the wagon before lighting the cheroot. Five minutes later he climbed back up on to the seat and waited silently for Gold to pinch out the glowing end of the cheroot and join him.
The second time was much later. When the trail ran into a wooded ravine and the ocean was close enough for its smell to penetrate strongly through the pervading scent of pine.
‘We’re gonna be seen any moment now, son,’ he rasped softly. ‘Be much obliged if you didn’t do nothin’ to rile nobody if there’s a chance I’ll get caught in the crossfire.’
Barnaby Gold clicked his tongue and swept his green-eyed gaze over the ravine as he replied, ‘Told you I was ready to walk in, sir.’
The forty-foot-high rock faces were just the trail width apart at the start, but they splayed immediately and became less steep, pocked with many earthy hollows in which windblown trees and thick brush grew. The ground sloped gently for perhaps two hundred yards to where a great slab of bare rock, nearly a hundred feet high, seemed to block the way to the ocean - which could be heard as the breakers slapped rhythmically upon a beach.
‘And you’d likely have been dead before you got this close,’ the driver murmured, fear sounding in his voice and visible in his attitude as he strained to pick out human forms among the timber or on the skylines to the left and right.
‘Hey, Seth, that you!’
They were midway along the ravine and the voice yelled the demand from halfway up the slope on the left.
Barnaby Gold continued to sit erect on the seat, his splayed hands resting lightly on his thighs.
‘Who the frig else would it be, Kent?’
This man snarled the words from the other side of the ravine, directly opposite the position of the first sentry to make his presence known.
‘I thought I saw . . . Hot damn, I was right! There’s two of them aboard, Bud!’
The moon was low in the southeast, its light angling into the ravine in such a way that it threw bright light only along the higher areas of the slope to the right. But a peripheral glow shed a low level of illumination elsewhere, except for the deeply shadowed places where the timber grew thickest.
Seth Harrow hauled on the reins and yelled at the team to halt. Then shouted, ‘I got a young feller with me, you guys! He had to shoot his lame horse and wants to buy a new mount! I told him it’d be better if...’
‘Shuddup, Seth!’ Bud cut in.
And he and Kent started down toward the trail where the wagon was stalled. The sounds of their approach could be clearly heard against the regular beat of the Pacific waves on the beach, but the men could not be seen until they emerged from the timber and came across the turf that covered the lower slopes flanking the trail.
Big-built men wearing Stetsons and sheepskin coats that bulged where they covered bolstered handguns. Both carrying Winchester rifles with their hammers cocked and the muzzles aimed at the driver and passenger up on the wagon seat.
They closed in slowly, spurs making small, metallic sounds; rifle barrels angling higher as they neared the wagon. Their teeth and eyes gleamed menacingly against the dark tones of their skin.
‘Evening to you,’ Barnaby Gold greeted, nodding to each man in turn as they came to a halt six feet to either side of the wagon. ‘Mr. Harrow told you why I’m...’
‘What d’you think, Bud?’ Kent growled.
‘About what?’
‘We kill just him? Or Seth as well? For tryin’ to sneak him into town.’
‘Sneak nothin’!’ the old-timer blurted, his voice high-pitched with fear. ‘He’s ridin’ up here on the seat plain for anybody to see!’
‘You know the way it is, old man,’ Bud growled. ‘Ain’t nobody allowed through here except you. Unless Hal gives the okay first.’
Barnaby Gold clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Said, ‘Sorry I’m causing you trouble, sir.’
‘Figure Hal wouldn’t like for us to blast Seth unless we really had to, Bud.’
‘Go along with that, Kent. You, stranger. Get down from there.’
The old-timer’s sigh was part relief and the rest philosophical as his passenger eased up from the seat. ‘You can’t say I didn’t give you warnin’ enough, son.’
‘Sure, sir.’
He kept his hands clear of the Peacemakers as he climbed down from the wagon, using both of them to steady himself until he was on the ground, his back to Bud.
Seth Harrow looked sadly down at him and shook his head as he muttered, ‘Real polite. Damn shame you’re so stupid.’
He made to reach for the brake lever, but halted the move and peered hard down the ravine when a woman called his name.
‘Seth!’
There was pleasure in her voice and Barnaby Gold experienced a degree of the same emotion as he swung his head to look toward her, the fact that the interruption might not influence the outcome of this situation limiting the extent to which he could share her feelings behind the blank mask of his face.
‘Seth! Did you get it for me?’
She was on foot. A tall, slender woman with long dark hair. Hatless and wearing a dark-colored dress that fitted snugly to her torso and flared slightly from waist to ankles. Carrying something in each hand and keeping her arms down straight at her sides as she hurried up the gentle slope of the trail.
‘Sure did, Miss Eve!’ Harrow yelled and now there was excitement in his voice. As if he had more hope than Gold that the intervention of Eve Delroy would augur well for the stranger to Oceanville. ‘It’s exactly like the one in the picture you give me!’
Gold still had his back to Bud, who rasped softly, ‘Shit!’ then raised his voice to yell, ‘He’s brought somethin’ else, Miss Eve! That Hal won’t like near as much as you figure to like the new dress!’
‘Why, what do you mean...?’
She was close enough now for Gold to see that she was carrying a coffee pot in each hand, and to smell the aromatic steam that escaped from their spouts. Then, when she came level with the lead horses of the team, she stopped. And peered hard at the shadowed wagon, an intrigued expression on her strong-featured but not quite pretty face.
‘Barnaby Gold, Miss Delroy,’ the black-clad young man announced and raised a hand to touch the front of his hat brim as he turned toward her. ‘Guess you don’t have a horse I could buy?’
‘He talks and dresses real fancy, Miss Eve,’ Bud growled. ‘But he packs a couple of real mean guns.’
‘I told him
the kinda welcome he was likely to get here, Miss Eve,’ Seth Harrow added quickly.
Eve Delroy, who appeared to be about thirty years old, continued to survey the stranger and seemed not to hear what was said to her. The excitement at the prospect of seeing a new dress was gone now and she held her head cocked to one side, expression thoughtful, like somebody appraising a potential purchase and unsure of whether it was value for money. Then she firmed up her mouth line and ordered,
‘Come over here, Kent.’
The sentry from the far side of the wagon hurried to comply and when he joined her she thrust the coffee pots at him.
‘Coffee break,’ she said absently as he took them, lodging the Winchester into the crock of an elbow. ‘Bud, you keep him well covered now. Gold, you take off that gunbelt and hand it up to Seth.’
‘Okay, lady.’
Gold unfastened the buckle very slowly and eased the belt from around his waist.
‘You sure you know what you’re doin’, Miss Eve?’ Bud asked sourly.
‘I’m acceptin’ responsibility for him,’ the woman answered, again absently. Still concentrating her attention on Gold, but with nothing in her attitude to suggest she was anxious about him.
Seth Harrow reached down to accept the gunbelt and two Peacemakers that were handed up to him.
‘Looks like you got lucky again, son.’
Gold clicked his tongue.
‘All right, you men. Take your coffee and get back to your positions. Seth, take the wagon on into town. You can walk me home, Barnaby Gold.’
The old-timer set the team moving and Kent came over to where Bud continued to keep his rifle leveled at Gold.
‘Here.’
Bud accepted one of the coffee pots.
Eve Delroy crooked a finger and Gold responded.
‘Appreciate your help, lady.’
She had swung around to start in the wake of the wagon and he came up alongside her, feeling the angry gazes of the two sentries on his back like physical pressure.
‘I never do anything unless it’s for myself, Gold.’
Funeral By The Sea Page 2