Valley of the Gun (9781101607480)

by Cotton, Ralph W.

  “We didn’t bring you in here to prove anything, Ranger,” Orwick said, overlooking Jumpe. “We know the truth. You killed him. We didn’t bring you here to hear your side of anything. We brought you here to charge and punish you. We don’t live by your laws or your reasoning, or your principles. God provides our moral reasoning and our law as He sees fit. We only follow.”

  “Then I’ve got nothing for you, Dad,” Sam said. “I won’t waste time saying how you’ve taken your own twisted morals and laws and justified them by calling them God’s.” He had already laid out his plan for what move to make when the time was right. For now he wanted to play this out.

  “If you’ve gone so far that you no longer even have the human curiosity for the truth, let alone the spiritual need for it, then have your fool move this rope up around my neck and let’s get on with it. You can wax righteous the rest of your life, but you’ll die never knowing who pulled that trigger.”

  The cavern fell silent; Dad Orwick stared into the candle’s flame.

  “Yes,” he finally said in a whisper, “raise the rope around his neck, and let’s get on with it.”

  Sam braced himself, ready to make his strike, first to his left, then his right, then straight ahead.

  Here goes, he thought, seeing Jumpe step up in front of him, ready to loosen the rope and raise it to his neck.

  “Wait,” Dad Orwick said, just as Sam started to lift his left foot from the stone floor.

  Sam stopped. He managed to check himself down and take a deep breath.

  Easy, he told himself. This situation’s getting better every minute. He glanced back and forth, seeing the boot toes of the riflemen on either side of him. Then he tried to look up at Dad Orwick’s face, still hidden inside his hood. Behind Orwick he saw a broad-shouldered trail duster draped on the tall chairback. In the center of the chairback he saw a wide-brimmed hat. Yet something about Dad Orwick didn’t seem right. He wasn’t sure what. . . .

  “Wait?” said Uncle Henry, speaking to Barcinder in a lowered voice, not about to speak that way to Dad himself.

  Elder Barcinder raised a hand to calm Jumpe, Barcinder himself not worried about a thing. After all, he had gunmen poised to do his bidding. He gave Jumpe a secretive nod. Everything was all right. He folded his hands behind his back and gazed up at Orwick.

  “Dad,” he said quietly, “would you like us to take the Ranger back to the stockade building for now, perhaps bring him back later?”

  “No,” said Orwick, “I want to hear what he has to say. If I don’t like it, I can have his tongue cut out and nailed to the outhouse door.” He looked from Barcinder to the Ranger. “Share this truth you have with me, Ranger. Who in this room killed my son, and what proof do you have?”

  Sam had Orwick’s attention. He was certain Uncle Henry Jumpe had killed the young man, but he would have to time this conversation just right in order to prove it. With his forearms held to his sides by the rope, he pointed at Jumpe.

  “There’s the man who killed your son, Dad,” the Ranger said. “I saw him ride away while your son’s body was still warm.”

  “That’s a lie!” shouted Jumpe, who had stepped away from Sam a moment earlier. Now he moved back in close, his hand wrapped around the revolver holstered on his hip. He fumed, “You, Ranger, are a blackguard, a liar and a poltroon!”

  “I saw you there,” the Ranger insisted, lying.

  “You never saw me there. I was never there!” Jumpe bellowed. He started to draw the gun.

  “Take your hand off that gun, Uncle Henry,” Orwick said in a firm tone. He saw something unsettling in the way Jumpe was reacting to the Ranger’s calm allegation. “Better yet, bring the gun up here and give it to me,” he added.

  “Dad!” said Jumpe. “You can’t believe this man! I was not there, nowhere near there!”

  “Take the gun from him, Elder Barcinder,” Orwick said.

  Barcinder stepped over quickly and jerked the revolver from Jumpe’s holster. Jumpe stood with a look of disbelief on his face.

  “Dad, please!” said Jumpe, as Barcinder stepped over and laid the gun on the table beside the burning candle.

  “Shut up, Uncle Henry,” Orwick demanded. He looked back at Sam and said, “Go on, Ranger . . . tell me more of your truth. Keep in mind you’re still the enemy here, no matter what.”

  Sam stared at him, his hands gripping the chair arms.

  “The truth is, I was lying, Dad,” he said. “I didn’t see him there.”

  “You see!” said Jumpe. “He was lying! Let me kill him, Dad. Put a stop to all this!”

  “I had to lie to get to the truth. I had to tell you he was there to get him to deny it,” Sam said. “Now that he’s denied it, I’ll prove he was there. Once I prove he was there, he can’t deny it again.”

  “Ha, you’re crazy as hell, Ranger,” said Jumpe. “I was not there, and you cannot prove otherwise.”

  “Don’t use that language here in this place, Uncle Henry!” shouted Orwick. “Or it will be your tongue nailed to an outhouse door.”

  “I’m sorry, Dad. Please forgive me,” said Jumpe, trying to calm himself. “This blasted Ranger has me at my boiling point.”

  You haven’t heard anything yet. . . .

  The Ranger reached out slowly, loosened the rope with both hands and lifted it over his shoulders. It fell to the floor at his feet.

  “I saw his peg leg print all over the ground,” Sam said as he reached inside his vest pocket. “But I know telling you that is a waste of time without you seeing proof for yourself.”

  Orwick, Barcinder and Jumpe watched intently.

  From his vest pocket, Sam fished out the small silver wheel with broken remnants of the horsehair watch fob attached to it. He pitched it up toward Dad Orwick. It landed on the table and started to roll, but Orwick clamped a hand down in it. Then he raised his hand and looked at it closely, recognizing it right away. He lifted his head and stared at Jumpe from inside the dark hood. Jumpe fidgeted in place.

  “I found this near your son’s body,” Sam said, “lying in the dirt where it fell. That is the truth, so help me God.”

  “It’s yours, Jumpe,” said Orwick in a flat, dry tone. “I’ve seen it thousands of times.” He picked up the big revolver and cocked it adamantly.

  Barcinder had edged up closer. He craned his neck, took a close look and nodded in agreement.

  “It’s his, no doubt about it, Dad,” he said quietly. Noting the big gun in Dad’s hand, ready to fire, Barcinder figured it was time he put some distance between himself and Jumpe, at least for the moment. “Now that I see this, some other things I’ve suspected him of are starting to fall into place.”

  “Oh?” Dad said, without taking his eyes off Uncle Henry Jumpe.

  “I have reason to believe his plans were to first kill Young Ezekiel. Then kill you and take over. All he has talked about lately is becoming one of our saints, taking his own wives, overseeing our mercenaries, getting his hands on our money, is what I’m thinking.”

  Jumpe stared, dumbfounded. What the hell . . . ?

  “Uncle Henry, you dirty rotten son of a you-know-what!” said Orwick.

  Son of a you-know-what?

  Sam stared at Orwick. Unbelievable.

  “Wait, Dad!” Jumpe shouted. “Barcinder’s lying too!”

  But Orwick didn’t wait. The big pistol began to buck in his hand. Bullets flew. The first shot nailed Jumpe in his chest, spun him around and slammed him backward into the guard on Sam’s right. The second shot whistled past the Ranger’s shoulder.

  Sam, knowing he was still the enemy, raised his bootheel as he had planned to earlier and drove it down on the boot toe of Brother Shelby on his left.

  Brother Shelby bellowed in pain and jackknifed forward; Sam grabbed the rifle from his hands, sto
od up just as Jumpe’s body fell to the stone floor and slammed the rifle butt full force into the other guard’s face. Another bullet sliced through the air as the guard flew backward, knocked out cold.

  Sam swung the guard’s rifle toward Dad Orwick, but only caught a glimpse of him as Orwick vanished, candlelight and all, into the blackness behind the smaller cave. The glow of the candle diminished as his boots resounded down a long stone tunnel. Sam raised his rifle for a shot, but had to swing the barrel toward Barcinder, who stood to the side of a smaller cave, the pistol raised from his waist, firing repeatedly in blazes of blue-orange flame.

  “Men! Help me!” Barcinder shouted as he fired.

  The rifle bucked in Sam’s hands. Barcinder flew backward into the darkness. As Sam levered a fresh round into the rifle chamber, a small door carved into the stone wall swung open on the right side of the room. Sam flung himself behind the large chair as bullets barked toward him from the guns of Frank Bannis, Morton Kerr and Riley Dart.

  Sam got off three shots as the outlaws scrambled for cover, seeing both Barcinder and Uncle Henry Jumpe lying dead on the floor.

  “Frank, we’re jackpotted!” Dart shouted, not knowing how many guns they were facing. He ducked behind a large stone embedded in the wall beneath a burning torch.

  “By God, I’m not!” shouted Kerr. He made a stand in the open on the stone floor, his Colt blazing toward the Ranger. Brother Shelby, who had fallen to the floor holding his toes, rose into a crouch and tried to make a dash for cover. But a shot from Kerr’s Colt stopped him cold. He hit the floor, a large Smith & Wesson sliding from a belly holster and skittering across the stones.

  Sam took aim on Kerr, and in doing so caught a glimpse of Mattie Rourke as she ran in through the open side door. She didn’t even slow down as she raced through the darkened grotto and vanished into the tunnel. Still on Orwick’s trail, Sam realized. Kerr’s shots ricocheted and whined, making long streaks of sparks in a black world of stone. Sam lifted himself from behind the thick bullet-riddled chair and sent a bullet slicing through Kerr’s chest. The gunman fell out of sight.

  From behind the large table where Orwick had stood, Frank Bannis fired three quick shots at the Ranger, the bullets kicking up more splinters for the tall-backed wooden chair. Sam ducked, then came up and pulled the rifle’s trigger on an empty chamber. Bannis heard the empty rifle click, and came running.

  Out of bullets. . . .

  Pitching the rifle aside, Sam grabbed Shelby’s Smith & Wesson and fired two shots into Bannis’ chest. The outlaw fell to his knees and wobbled there, his gun gone, his bloody hands clutched to his ribs. Hearing gunshots from deep inside the tunnel, Sam rose into a crouch and ran across the room in their direction, knowing Mattie was in there.

  Frank Bannis watched him disappear into the tunnel.

  “Isabelle,” he said as loud as he could, although it amounted to not much more than a strained whisper. Then he fell forward onto the cold stone floor.

  Chapter 24

  On his way across the body-strewn room, the Ranger jerked a burning torch from its stand on the wall. Then he picked up the rifle Frank Bannis had left lying on the floor behind the large table and ran on as two more shots echoed from deeper down the tunnel.

  “Mattie. Mattie, it’s me, Sam,” he called out loudly, knowing how quickly she would pull a trigger. “Don’t shoot. I’m on my way.”

  From thirty yards deeper down the descending tunnel, Mattie’s voice echoed back along the stone walls.

  “I’m down here, Ranger,” she said. “I’ve got him pinned. He’s going nowhere but Hades.” She lay pressed against the stone wall in a chiseled-out indention, her torch burning low on the floor beside her. The flames illuminated ancient drawings of stick figures, one group chasing another with what looked like clubs and rocks in an ancient endless battle, their rewards unrevealed.

  A few yards away, Dad Orwick lay behind a rounded pine timber that time had turned stonelike, to the color of sand. He peeped up over the timber at the Ranger’s words, his hood still hiding his face.

  “Mattie . . . did he say?” he called out, his extinguished candle standing in the dark at his side.

  “Yes! I’m Mattie Rourke!” she ranted in reply. “Remember me, Dad? Remember everything you did to me? You beat me into submission, forced yourself on me, mounted and bred me like I was a beast in season—me and my poor sister, Isabelle! Your wife who you’ve now thrown aside?”

  A silent pause fell over the darkness.

  “Oh my dear God,” Orwick said finally.

  Mattie levered a round angrily into her rifle chamber and fired a wild shot in the direction of his voice.

  “You have no dear God, you pig!” she shouted as the bullet whined off the petrified timber in a streak of orange. “You never did have! All you ever had were fools who followed you. But they can’t help you now, Dad. I am the past, come back to kill you!”

  The Ranger heard her ranting as he drew closer. He slid to a halt and ducked against the wall at the sound of the rifle shot. He held his burning torch low, out at arm’s length at his side. He heard Orwick’s voice across the cavern he found widened before him.

  “Mattie,” Orwick said. “You were never my wife. Neither was Isabelle. You’ve made a mistake coming here.”

  “You can’t talk your way out of this, Dad!” she shouted. Another rifle shot rang out. “We were your first wives, Isabelle and I. Now you’ve replaced her with more scared, hungry children.”

  “You two were never my wives, Mattie! I had to turn Isabelle away for younger wives. She’s my mother!” he shouted louder, to be heard above Mattie’s ranting.

  The Ranger froze at Orwick’s words, the torch flickering at his side.

  Silence fell again. This time it hung in place for what seemed like a long time, as if the darkness had run out of air and now had to struggle for breath and regain its essence.

  “Oh, dear God,” Mattie said finally. A realization came over her. Then the silence returned, taking another moment to harness its sanity. “Ezekiel . . . ? Ezekiel Orwick?” she said in a hushed tone.

  “Yes, I’m Ezekiel, your nephew,” Orwick said. “Only now I am Dad Orwick in the flesh. Dad went to glory last year. He sits at God’s right hand. Both his name and his ministry are rightfully bequeathed to me, his firstborn. It has all been sealed and bound by the hand of God, through his most holy Council of Angels.”

  Mattie fell silent again; the Ranger left his torch on the ground and inched over closer to where Mattie’s torch lay burning in the dirt.

  “Aunt Matilda?” Orwick called out. “Can you see now why I had to unbind Mother Isabelle—even a couple of my older half sisters who God had instructed Dad to take as wives years earlier?”

  “Yes,” Mattie said quietly. “Stand and let me see you.”

  “You won’t shoot?” said Orwick.

  “No,” Mattie said, “I won’t shoot. Not if you’re my nephew Ezekiel.”

  The dark figure rose from behind the rounded timber and pushed the hood back from his face. Mattie looked at him, recognizing him from his childhood, seeing the family resemblance. She sighed.

  “What became of my children, Ezekiel?” she asked.

  He shook his head and spread his hands slightly.

  “We were never told,” he said. “You must remember how things were done back then. People were kept in the dark about most things.” He added in a deep sincere tone, “That’s something I’m going to change, once I get things the way I want them. No more hiding the truth, misleading people.”

  “Does anyone know you’re not the Dad Orwick yet?” Mattie asked.

  “Not yet,” he said, “other than my closest saints. But they’ll be told, when I decide the time is right—when I know they can accept it.”

  From the cover of darkness, the Ran
ger cut in.

  “I hate to interrupt a family reunion,” he said, “but like you said, we’re still enemies, you and I, remember?”

  Orwick half crouched, gun still in hand, and looked around in the darkness.

  “Ranger? I believe you now,” he said. “I know it wasn’t you who killed Young Ezekiel. Is there any way we can square things between us? Now that I’m Dad, I want to get along with the lawmen across the border the way Dad himself always managed to do.”

  “Not a chance,” Sam said. He edged along the wall in the darkness, the Smith & Wesson up, cocked and ready. “You rob banks and kill people. You’re leaving here today with your hands behind your head, or your bootheels dragging dirt. You decide which suits you.”

  “The Goble’s bank money is on the table out there. Take it back,” said Orwick.

  “I plan to,” Sam replied.

  Before Orwick could say anything more, Mattie suddenly blurted out, “Young Ezekiel is the boy I shot at the water hole?”

  “What, you shot my son?” Orwick shouted.

  Sam saw him turn back in the direction of Mattie’s torchlight, still crouched, still ready to fire.

  “Oh my God! I didn’t mean to,” Mattie said standing, stepping out of the indentation into the small circle of flickering fire. “I didn’t know. . . .” She held her rifle, but Sam felt doubtful she would use it right now.

  “Mattie, stop, look out!” he shouted, seeing Orwick taking aim at her.

  Without waiting another second on her, Sam fired. His shot hit Orwick dead center of his long robe and sent him staggering backward a step, still aiming at Mattie. Sam fired again, and this time Mattie swung the rifle into play and fired with him. Both of their shots hit Orwick, knocking him backward to the stone floor. His gun fell in front of the timber. The two stood ready to fire again, seeing a bloody hand reach over the rounded timber and feel around weakly for a moment. Then the fingertips fell limp to the ancient dirt.

  Stepping over to where Mattie stood, Sam reached out and took the smoking rifle from her hands.