by John McNally
Packett’s eyes glistened with excitement and his cheeks burned with pleasure, his breathing quickened. Rasping like a blunt saw as he stared at Carter, he said, ‘That’s a hell of a feeling, ain’t it, that’s raw fear. I reckon a day ain’t worth living unless it feels like it might be your last.’
Carter felt the sweat run down his back like a warm hand as Packett moved the hot knife towards his face, he could smell the heat of the blade and hear Packett’s wheezing chest. He swallowed dryly and closed his eyes as tight as he could.
CHAPTER 14
‘Stop right there,’ said a voice. Carter realized he was holding his breath and he sighed and opened his eyes and took a deep lungful of air. He smelled pine, sweat and wood smoke and thought it had never smelled better.
Packett hesitated, the knife shuddered in his hand and he edged the blade closer to Carter’s cheek.
‘I’m warning you, mister, if that knife moves as much as a fly stuck in mud, I’ll put a piece of hot lead through your thick skull, now back off right quick or you got yourself a whole mess of grief.’
They all looked around, a man stood in the gloom of a long green-black corridor of trees. He moved forward across ground matted with a thick layer of tangled grass and striped with shadow. The undergrowth rippled in the breeze and out strode Don Plunkett. He held a carbine, he looked as solid as the trees around him, as hard and unyielding as oak.
Crick looked livid, his face screwed up in a knot, as red and hot as a well timed slap.
‘Plunkett, what the hell are you doing here and what gives you the right to interfere in my business?’
‘I’m here because that feller on the ground is telling the truth, he ain’t with Mooney and never was.’
‘Says who?’
‘I do,’ said another voice. Quincy Roof stepped out of the shade at the other side of the glade nursing a rifle in his hands, the breeze ruffling his beard. ‘You know me, Crick, I’ve been trading in these parts for a year or two now. I saw that young man yesterday morning. He was wounded and set out to hunt Mooney, they’d just shot his partner. I was in his camp at Patrick Creek right after it happened. We sat by my wagon and I bandaged his side and fed him before he moved on.’
‘Not only that, and hear me good,’ said Plunkett, ‘I talked to a couple of men who said they saw a feller in a blue coat and tan trousers like him up at O’Brien and we ain’t seen him since. They reckon he killed at least two of the Mooney gang. Now back off and get gone before I lose my temper. I heard what you said about not caring who was killed. As I recall, that’s the second time you’ve said something like that. Now you’ve got on my wrong side and I don’t want to see your miserable face out here anymore today. Get your sorry hide out of my sight and take your men with you.’
The gunman cut the rope holding Carter and Carter stood, walked over to Crick’s horse and looked up at him. He did not speak, he held out his arm with the handcuff and chain and shook it quietly under Crick’s nose. Crick undid the cuff and Carter let it thud into the dust and he stood and clenched and unclenched his hand.
His eyes rested thoughtfully on Crick for a moment and then he reached out, pulled Crick from his saddle and dragged him to the ground. Crick hit the floor like mud off a shovel. Carter grabbed the front of his coat and pulled him back to his feet. He raised his right hand, tightened his fist and held it like a lump of rock under Crick’s nose, his arm muscles bunched as tight as iron when he drew back his arm. He hammered his fist into Crick’s face, splitting his lips against his teeth. The punch brought tears to Crick’s eyes and sent a tremor through his whole body. Blood from his smashed mouth stained his gums and teeth pink and a red froth dribbled across his chin. Crick threw his hands to his face and held his mouth, his eyes wide with fear then he dropped his hands to his sides and he stared at Carter with his bloodied lips pressed together.
‘Come on, I’m going to lick you good,’ said Carter, the skin on his face as white and stiff as candle wax. He stepped in close and his shadow fell across Crick’s ruined face. Crick quivered like a leaf in a breeze.
‘Please leave me alone,’ he said, his voice little more than a cringing whisper.
‘You’d like as kill a man before you’d made any effort to find out if he told the truth. I won’t forget that. It’ll work out different next time round for me and you.’ As Carter spoke, he pointed his finger with his thumb up like a gun and pretended to pull a trigger. ‘Now get to hell and gone down the trail.’
Crick slid down the side of his horse and sat on the floor.
Hillard Packett edged across to his own horse without speaking. Carter’s body seemed to hum with energy, he swung round with his right arm bent and his elbow out and caught Packett across the top of the nose. The bone shattered with a crack like someone cocking a rifle. Blood whipped from his nose across his cheek in long bright threads, leaving his face meshed in red.
‘You’re lucky you didn’t touch me with that knife, mister,’ Carter said. ‘You’ll get the death you deserve and I don’t reckon it’ll be a long time in coming.’
Packett wiped a smear of blood off his nose with his wrist, pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers and said, ‘We’ve all got to die some time. I’m going to make sure I deserve it when my time comes.’ He struggled onto his horse, wheeled it around and rode out of the clearing back to Sailors Diggings.
Don Plunkett picked up Crick’s hat from the ground, dusted it on his leg and rammed it down hard onto Crick’s head. He bent, wrapped his arms around Crick like he was trying to lift a sack full of fat and hoisted him up, sat him on his horse and slapped a hand across its rump. Crick slumped in the saddle, hanging onto the saddle horn. He looked like he had been kicked from one end of Rogue River to the other as he disappeared up the trail after Packett. They all turned and looked at Crick’s hired gunman, who stood in silence with Quincy Roof’s carbine pointed at his back. Carter walked across and stood in front of him, he stepped up close, pointed a finger in his face and said, ‘You got anything smart to say?’
‘Don’t be pointing your finger in my face,’ said the gunman. He had a Colt in a rig on his right hip and another gun wedged down his waistband; his hand tightened on the gun butt in his rig.
Carter’s shoulders relaxed but then his hand flashed out and he gripped the revolver in the gunman’s waistband and drew the hammer back, they all heard the trigger sear lock into place. Carter said, ‘Draw that gun and I’ll pull the trigger and geld you like a horse, you’ll be picking your nuts out of the dirt.’
The gunman sighed and said, ‘I reckon you can leave me alone and let me find my own way to hell, don’t you?’ He nodded at Carter. ‘You’re as mean as a Mojave Desert wind but I ain’t no pushover myself. Maybe we’ll meet again further down the line.’
Carter looked at the floor, waiting for his anger to go and for his feelings to sort themselves out. After a moment or two he said, ‘Get out of here.’
The man put a finger to the brim of his hat and sauntered off as if he was out for a stroll, they watched him ride off. Carter stood deep in thought, his eyes scanned the tree line and the spangled shade around the edge of the glade.
‘Who else is in the trees?’ he said.
Plunkett smiled and said, ‘He’s with us, Milton Shine, you can trust him. He’ll make sure they don’t double back while we sort ourselves out.’ He held a hand out. ‘I’m Don Plunkett.’
‘Eddie Carter.’ They shook hands. Carter looked down as Baird struggled to a sitting position. ‘The feller on the floor with a sore head is Garrett Baird, he’s a friend.’
Baird looked up, the pain in his head forgotten as he smiled his thanks at Carter.
‘I hope you remember me from yesterday morning, son,’ said Quincy Roof as he stepped forward. ‘Them foil cartridges work out fine, did they?’
‘Well, I’m still alive. They did, Quincy. I appreciate you speaking up for me, you sure got my acorns out of the fire on that one.’
‘I r
eckon you ain’t an easy man to kill anyway but I’m glad to help. We got someone else to see you as well, young Floyd from the livery rode out in my wagon with his grandpa, we left them back up the trail a piece. He’s here to tell folk what you found out at the livery and how you figured out Mooney hid the gold. It all shows you’re in the clear.’
Plunkett said, ‘I doubt you’ll ever convince Crick you didn’t steal his gold, he doesn’t trust anyone where his money’s concerned. That punch you gave him has been a long time coming. Listen, we got your guns and horse as well, they’re waiting back at the camp where you and Mooney were this morning.’ Plunkett stopped talking when he saw the sombre intense look on Carter’s face. ‘What’s wrong?’
Carter felt like he had a stomach full of cactus, he wiped his lips on the back of his hand and said, ‘Get the horses in, we’ll have to double up. We need to pour it on riding back to that camp. Mooney’s heading back that way. I’ll tell you what it’s all about when we see that the boy Floyd and his grandpa are safe.’
CHAPTER 15
They rode hard for the camp, emerged from the shadows of the last long draw and let the horses thunder across the soft earth. As the bush gave way to a sparse line of trees, they saw the rocks and Quincy Roof’s canvas covered wagon with the tongue up in the air and the mules grazing to the side. Everything looked peaceful, young Floyd watched them in, he stood with Carter’s black Morgan horse. He rubbed the horse under the jaw, stroked the short hair down his face between the eyes then he smiled and waved when he saw Carter.
‘Let’s eat,’ said Roof, then he turned to Baird behind him. ‘Come on, Garrett, I’ve got some clothes you can have that will make you look a real thoroughbred.’
Baird glanced shyly at the others and walked after Roof to the covered wagon. While they waited, a tall, fair-haired man arrived.
Plunkett waved across at him and said to Carter, ‘This here’s Milton Shine.’
Shine was thirty years old with a mouth that always wanted to break into a grin and eyes that sparkled like icy water. He wore a black wool coat and black trousers tucked into cracked dusty boots. He walked with a limp, favouring his left leg.
He had been hurt three times before. The worst one, the one that made him hobble, happened in late 1846 when he ran through a blistering curtain of bullets to pick up a wounded friend at the Battle of San Pasqual. Earlier in the year, he caught one in the shoulder at Sacramento and still had the puckered mark where the lead ball struck. The last one was a scar on his forehead from when he fell down a flight of stairs in a drunken heap in the Hot as Harry saloon in Ellensburg – that’s the one he tended to talk about the most.
‘How do,’ he said as he dismounted and stretched his back.
Carter returned the smile. He vaguely remembered Shine from the fight on the hill at O’Brien, and said, ‘Glad to meet you. Let’s talk later; right now can we bank that fire up while we collect more wood? We need to keep the fire burning good all night and tomorrow. That fire will bring Mooney to us like a moth to a lamp. I’ll explain while we eat. It’s going to be dark soon.’
They all looked up and saw the light fading, the evening sky was streaked with purple and the dusk like a deep breath drifted in among the trees around them.
‘Milton, could you set by the fire and keep an eye out for any movement on the hills or in the trees?’ Carter said.
‘Sure,’ said Shine, ‘I reckon I’m good at sitting.’ He sat on a rock and laid his rifle across his thighs while the others settled in.
Later, with the kindling stowed and the food ready, they all hunkered down to eat. Quincy Roof and young Floyd carried plates piled with salted, battered pigs’ feet, fried bread and corn fritters.
Roof said, ‘Set by the fire and wade right in to what we got.’
They ate in a comfortable silence as the darkness fell around them.
‘You look like a new man, Garrett,’ Floyd’s grandpa said through a mouthful of fritter.
Milton Shine nodded and said, ‘He needs a bit of packing on them bones, I’ve seen more meat on the end of a fork. Mind you, he looks happier than a hog downwind of a full swill trough.’
Cleaned up Baird seemed a different man, he wore a chequered shirt with a button-down collar and blue flannel trousers cinched at the waist with a belt. His freshly shaved face looked fuller and his cheeks shone with colour.
‘I feel good right enough,’ said Baird, looking pleased. ‘It’s like I’ve just woken up for the first time in many a year.’ He chewed on his food and said, ‘I need to find my dog soon.’ He looked over at Carter. ‘He’ll make my life hell if I don’t share my luck with him.’
Both men smiled.
‘What’s your dog called?’ said Floyd.
‘He was my son’s dog,’ said Baird, and he looked down at his hands and coughed a dry dusty cough that seemed too heavy for his chest. He swallowed, suddenly tense and nervous as if he had just woken up and started talking about a nightmare that still scared him. He spoke quickly and his voice wavered at the final part.
‘We called the dog Ulysses. See, in the Mexican war, I worked for a quartermaster officer called Ulysses Grant. I looked after the horses, did some blacksmithing and such but we was part of every battle, always up front in the thick of things. I liked Grant right well, he did his duty as good as any man I ever saw. He was about as nice a man as you could ever meet and I thought he was first rate.’
He massaged the back of his neck with the palm of his hand and felt embarrassed, he glanced around and saw that they all sat listening. He continued.
‘I tell you something for nothing. At Molina Del Rey, a lot of men were hurt and Grant was the only officer I saw helping the wounded. He volunteered us for everything but did all right by me. He put me up for a certificate of merit. See, one day when we was out, I found a trail through dense chaparral and we sneaked in and took a Mexican battery. We defended that position for hours. I done all right, killed a few men, we turned the day and the Mexicans panicked and fled across the Rio Grande, a lot of them boys drowned.’
Carter handed Baird a small cigar. He lit it, closed his eyes and let the smoke drift out of his nose.
‘I saw a lot of death and was just sickened by all those bodies on both sides laid out in the smoke of that war day after day. Piles of them mangled and coated in white dust like ghosts. I got mustered out in the end, spent a year living with the Lipan Apache, married a fine woman called Nashota and had a son called Kika.’ He stared at the smoke drifting through his fingers from the cigar he held. ‘They both died of fever first year we came up here.’ He put the cigar in his mouth and looked up, his eyes half shut against the smoke from the cigar.
Everyone else sat with their gaze fixed on him, waiting for him to go on.
‘After they died I just gave up on everything I guess, my boy would be about as old as that young feller,’ he said, nodding at Floyd, his eyes swimming with tears. He pulled his hat down low, hiding his expression in the shadow of the hat brim.
After a moment Shine tried to lighten the mood and said, ‘Anyone eating the last of that pork? I’m that hungry I could clean a whole hog down to the bones.’ He speared the food with his knife and held it up. ‘Me and hog meat go back a long ways. I was once drunk in Stevenson up off the Hood River in Washington County, and when I stopped drinking I had a real live hog for company. I told everyone that I reckoned I’d won him in a card game. Next thing I know some farmer accuses me of thieving from his hog lot. He made more noise than a piano falling down stairs. Walloped me good, one minute I’m trying to explain and the next the floor came up and hit me hard in the face. Can you believe it, I was chased across a roof and out of town because of that hog. The farmer never caught me and I’m right glad, you wouldn’t want to get on his wrong side.’ He gnawed at the meat and smacked his lips.
‘Did you really steal it?’ said Floyd.
‘Damn right I did,’ said Shine.
‘What’s your story, sir?’
> Shine shrugged his shoulders.
‘Not much to tell I guess, I’ve been here and there, and done this and that. Reckon I’ll move on soon enough.’
Plunkett looked up. ‘Milt already gave up the money he had from panning gold to the families of the folks killed by Mooney.’
Shine said, ‘Well, hell, I’d like have lost it at cards I guess, so it stopped me getting into bad company.’
‘He ain’t the only one neither,’ said Plunkett. ‘Quincy there gave a lot of his stock, like food, clothes and such to the families. It’s all at their livery. We’ll sort things out proper when we get back.’
‘Least I could do,’ said Roof, ‘we all got to pull together. I hope someone would do the same for my family.’
‘We’re getting help from others but some ain’t interested,’ said Plunkett. ‘One in particular, that goddamn Horace Crick. He’s sat in his big house making a fortune out of us placers but he won’t help no-one but himself. I don’t see that we should worry too much about helping him get his gold back. He can afford to lose it. He makes that much every durn month out of us placers. We’re looking for justice for the folks they killed. Out here justice means killing all of them.’ Plunkett thumped his fist in his hand and looked around. ‘Don’t it?’ They all nodded. Plunkett turned to Carter. ‘Eddie, you seem awful sure that Mooney’s coming back here. Do you figure the gold’s still in these parts?’
‘Yes, Don, I do,’ said Carter. He stretched his legs out towards the fire and threw his coffee grinds on the ground and watched them soak into the dirt. ‘I reckon the best place to hide something is where everyone can see it. Like as not, the gold is buried under the fire right in front of us.’