Louise looked outside, where a rider who’d just been handed a pair of bulging saddlebags took up the lead rope of his pack mule. Jacob Hammer had forgone Chinese dress and wore a frilled white shirt, tight riding breeches tucked into English boots and, unusual for him when he was within the compound, crossed gunbelts carrying a pair of ivory-handled Colts.
In the early-morning light Hammer looked up at the rider and talked.
“What’s he saying?” Louise said. “I can’t hear.”
“Viktor can hear. Viktor can hear grass grow.” He turned an ear to the door and after a while said, “He talks of the dream smoke.”
“Opium?”
“Opium, yes. He tells the man on the horse to buy opium.”
“What else does he say?”
“I don’t know. Old Man of the Mountain angry. He sees us. Viktor not listen anymore.”
The giant quickly stepped away from the door and sat on his cot.
After the rider waved to some onlookers standing around the courtyard and left, Hammer watched him go and then crossed to the dungeon. He stood, legs apart, and stared fixedly at Louise for long moments. Then he said one word, just one syllable that oozed menace and hate like pus from a rotten wound.
“Soon.”
Hammer smiled his cold smile, turned on his heel and walked away.
Louise was very afraid. She turned to Viktor, seeking to draw assurance from his great strength, but to her horror the giant’s face was a mask of terror.
* * *
It was possible that Sam Flintlock would have kept vigil in his sun-seared hiding place among the rocks for days, perhaps many days, and after sipping his canteen dry would have been forced to leave. But fate, the arbiter of a man’s destiny, had other plans.
* * *
Bridie O’Toole had been against the scheme from the start.
“Sam, I think it’s best, at least until we meet up with Detective Brown—”
“My ma, you mean?”
Bridie ignored that. “We use the arroyo as our headquarters and ride out every day in search of Jacob Hammer’s couriers. There may be food we overlooked at the Smith cabin and that will be our first stop.”
“There’s no grub left in the cabin—we took it all,” Flintlock said. “Hammer’s men carry grub, coming and going, and we’ll step over their dead bodies and take it from them.”
“Sam, without food and plenty of water you can’t maintain a surveillance of Pitchfork Pass. You’d very soon become too weak to raise your rifle.”
Flintlock managed a thin smile. “I think the Hawken is lighter.”
“You’re being silly again, Sam.”
“Will you show me the way to Pitchfork Pass?”
“You’re dead set on the idea?”
“Yeah. Dead set.”
“Then I’ll take you there.”
“What will you do?”
“First I’ll go to the cabin. There just might be some cans left.”
“And then?”
“I’ll scout around for signs of Detective Brown.”
“Hammer’s men will still be out hunting us.”
“I’ll take my chances. That’s what the Pinkerton Agency pays me for, after all.”
Flintlock and the woman mounted and then stopped briefly by O’Hara’s grave to pay their respects. They rode through the arroyo into the dawn light, but after a few minutes, Bridie drew rein.
“Sam, are we both being foolish?” she said.
“In what way?”
“I’m still here because I can’t bear the thought of a woman failing as a Pinkerton. And you are here because you want to avenge O’Hara’s death. The destruction of Jacob Hammer’s criminal empire has become secondary and that’s not why I was sent here.”
“Bridie, look around, look how vast is this landscape and how insignificant we are. We’re two people whose lives don’t matter a damn. If you’re killed, you’ll become a one-line entry in a Pinkerton ledger. And me? Nobody gives a damn whether I live or die.”
“What are you telling me, Sam?”
“Just this . . . we can’t beat the Old Man of the Mountain. He’s way too powerful. All we can do is make the cost of him doing business too high, force him to move on and set up in some other place.”
“So we stay?”
“Yeah, we stay.”
“I must keep telling myself not to turn tail, Sam, not to give up and ride away.”
“Me, neither. That’s why you’re taking me to Pitchfork Pass.”
“You never answered me—are we being foolish?”
“Of course, we’re being foolish, sort of like David was when he tried to outdraw Goliath.”
“David slew Goliath,” Bridie said.
“I know, shot him with a rock.” It was good to see Flintlock grin again. “See, we’re not being foolish.”
“Yes, we are,” Bridie said.
“Damn right we are,” Flintlock said. “But if we light a shuck then O’Hara died for nothing, and I won’t let that happen.”
He kneed his horse forward.
* * *
Flintlock had been in his rocky perch above the entrance to Pitchfork Pass for only an hour when fate dealt him all the aces in the pack.
As the sky brightened to blue and a whiptail lizard did push-ups on a rock at his elbow, a solitary rider leading a pack mule left the pass and three armed men walked out of the entrance and watched him go.
Flintlock waited, eyes narrowed against the rising sun. The rider headed northeast for fifty yards and disappeared into a gully. Flintlock watched until the three men turned and walked back into the pass. He rose to his feet and scrambled down the steep incline behind him to his waiting horse. He mounted and headed through a flat brushy area among some sturdy piñon and juniper trees and headed northeast, riding between high, red sandstone walls where night shadows still lingered. His trail led upward, the height of the walls gradually decreasing until he found himself on a dome-shaped plateau that overlooked the broken landscape to the east.
He dismounted and saw below him and a little north the rider with the pack mule, his hat brim pulled low against the sun glare, eyes fixed on the trail ahead. The distance between Flintlock and his prey was at least 150 yards and he did not have enough faith in his skill with a rifle to chance a shot at that range.
He raised his canteen to his lips, drank and then, his face grim and set, stepped into the saddle and looked for a way off the bench. To his left was a point where the rock had broken away, leaving a drop of about three feet onto a brush-covered slope that fell away gradually to the flat. His mount balked at the jump, but Flintlock thumped the buckskin in the ribs with his heels and after some hesitation the horse decided enough was enough and hopped down onto the slope.
Flintlock leaned from the saddle and whispered into the big horse’s ear. “Pain in the ass.”
He took the slope and swung after the rider, closing the distance at a canter. A man in hostile country who doesn’t check his back trail is either stupid or overconfident, and Flintlock decided that in this case it was both. This was no-man’s-land, a savagely hot, waterless waste slashed by deep arroyos and uplifted ridges of sandstone rock. It was a desolate and dangerous country to travel over, and the Pitchfork rider should have been wary.
When the man heard hoofbeats behind him he finally turned his head and his eyes popped when he saw Flintlock bearing down on him. He slid his rifle out of the boot.
Too late . . . way too late.
Flintlock came on at a gallop, trailing dust, firing his Winchester from the shoulder. The buckskin had a smooth gait and at a range of thirty yards Flintlock’s aim was deadly. He shot the rider out of the saddle, covered the remaining distance between him and the downed man and levered two shots into him as the Pitchfork rider clawed for his belt gun as he struggled to rise to his feet.
Flintlock jumped from the saddle and advanced on the wounded man, levering and firing his rifle as he came, scoring shattering hits. �
�This is for O’Hara!” he yelled. “And this! And this! And this!”
The Pitchfork gunman died with a look of bafflement on his face, unaware of the reason for his death.
Then Flintlock’s terrible anger fled him. His eyes burned and there was a taste of green bile in his mouth and he felt exhausted. Then he looked at the bloodstained corpse at his feet and, in a small voice, said, as though explaining his wrath to the dead man, “That was for O’Hara.”
The Pitchfork’s gunman’s horse had fled the gunfire but the pack mule stood a few yards away, head down, its guide rope trailing. Flintlock led the mule back to his own mount and stepped into the saddle. In this silent land, he had no doubt the sound of the firing had been heard and a hue and cry would soon follow. Time was of the essence and he had to light a shuck. Searching the contents of the mule’s pack would have to come later.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Yeah, I saw a party of Hammer’s gunmen in the distance, but they didn’t see me,” Flintlock said.
Bridie O’Toole’s hair was damp from her wash at the pool, a waste of precious water, Flintlock thought. “I didn’t find any food at the cabin,” she said. “I didn’t find any trace of Detective Brown, either.”
“My ma is out there somewhere. And there’s bound to be grub on the mule. The feller I killed was traveling northeast and there are no railroad depots in that direction so he must have been carrying grub.”
“Tracks are being laid all over the Colorado Territory,” Bridie said. “Plenty of new rail depots up that way.”
“That might be the answer,” Flintlock said. “I reckon Jacob Hammer is thinking ahead. He’s breaking new ground, worried about Pinkertons and government agents in Flagstaff and other places in the Arizona Territory.”
“Do you think it’s possible that we’re crowding him?” Bridie said.
“Yeah, we’re crowding him. Why else would he send a rider north into Colorado to break new ground?”
“Help me strip the mule,” Bridie said. “Let’s see what the man was carrying.”
The results of the search through the pack stunned Flintlock and Bridie into silence. There was grub, enough for a couple of weeks, but what amazed them was the sum of money the Pitchfork gunman had been transporting, fifty thousand dollars in bundled banknotes, a fortune that could support a man in reasonable comfort for a hundred years.
Bridie looked into Flintlock’s eyes and said, “Sam, we’ve hurt him. Even Jacob Hammer can’t take such a loss.”
Flintlock nodded. “It’s going to make him mad as a red-eyed steer, all right.”
The woman looked around her. “This place isn’t going to remain safe. Hammer will comb the whole territory to get this much money back.”
Flintlock made a swift mental calculation. “Except for the notes I used to start a fire, we now have just under sixty thousand dollars of Hammer’s money. Is that enough to put him out of business?”
“I doubt it,” Bridie said. “But it’s a start.”
Flintlock shook his head. “No, it’s a start and an end. We’ll load the money onto the mule and then get the hell out of here for a spell.”
“And go where?”
“Anyplace where there’s law.”
Bridie thought that over for a few moments and said, “Wait. I have an idea.”
She rose to her feet, rummaged through her carpetbag and triumphantly waved a piece of folded paper at Flintlock. “It’s a map, Sam.”
“Hell, woman, we don’t need a map.”
“Yes, we do.”
Bridie opened the map and laid it on the ground. She perused it for a few moments and then jabbed a spot. “Yes, there it is, right there,” she said. “Fort Defiance. Where there’s a fort, there’s soldiers and a telegraph.”
“We’ll be safe there,” Flintlock said. “Hammer won’t attack a fort.”
“He’d be a fool if he did. I can telegraph my superiors, tell them about the money and await further instructions.”
Flintlock picked up the map and peered closer. “How far away is this Fort Defiance?”
“A three days’ ride, four if the mule doesn’t behave.”
“And if the Old Man of the Mountain doesn’t slow us up permanently. All this map shows between here and the fort is open space. Suppose we come up on a mountain range or a river?”
“I don’t think there’s a mountain or a river between here and Fort Defiance. If there was, it would be marked on the map.”
“Bridie, there’s nothing on this map but a few scattered towns and badlands. Look, right there and there, it says badlands.”
“I see it, but I’m sure a man in your line of work has crossed badlands before,” Bridie said. “Men with a price on their heads and badlands go together.”
“Seems like I always had O’Hara to scout for me in that kind of country.”
“And now you have me, Sam. I’ll ride scout.”
Flintlock smiled. “You’re not O’Hara, Bridie, but I guess you’ll do.”
“Then it’s settled. We ride for Fort Defiance.”
“And hope we don’t run into Jacob Hammer’s gunmen.”
“I don’t even want to think about that, not now,” Bridie said.
“Me, neither,” Flintlock said. “Not now, not ever.”
* * *
That evening Flintlock and Bridie O’Toole dined on fried salt pork, fresh sourdough bread and sweet little rice balls that Bridie said were Chinese and a big restaurant favorite in San Francisco and other places.
“The Old Man feeds his gunmen well,” Flintlock said, a grain of rice sticking to his unshaven chin.
Bridie removed the rice and said, “And now he’s feeding us.”
“Real nice of him, huh?” Flintlock said.
“Mmm . . .” Bridie said. She looked beyond Flintlock. “Rider!” she said in sudden alarm. She picked up her gunbelt and slid the Smith & Wesson .44 from the leather. She and Flintlock rose at the same time.
“State your intentions or you’re a dead man,” Flintlock called out into the gloom and the rider, a black silhouette against the backdrop of darkness, drew rein.
“Don’t shoot. I’m coming in.”
A woman’s voice.
“Are you Detective Brown?” Bridie said.
“Who the hell else would I be? Seems like there’s only two women in the whole Arizona Territory. I’m one and, honey, you’re the other.”
“Ride forward and be identified,” Flintlock said. “And don’t make any fancy moves. I’m not a trusting man.”
“Mister, I’m too tired to make any kind of move,” the woman said. She urged her horse into a shambling walk and when she was a few yards from the fire she stopped.
“Light and set,” Bridie said. “I’m Detective O’Toole.”
“Saw you once or twice,” Detective Brown said. “I took you for somebody’s wife.” She nodded at Flintlock. “Maybe his.”
“I’m a Pinkerton,” Bridie said. “They sent me to find you.”
“Well, you’ve found me, or I’ve found you. It wasn’t difficult.”
Letting out a little groan, the woman stepped stiffly out of the saddle. “I could use a cup of that coffee,” she said, walking to the fire.
“Coming right up,” Bridie said. “I’m very glad to meet you at last, Miss Brown.”
Flintlock could contain himself no longer. His eyes shining in the firelight he grinned and yelled, “Ma!” He threw himself at the woman and took her in a bear hug, only to jump back as though he’d been burned as something hard rammed into his belly.
“Back off, mister,” the detective said. She held a Smith & Wesson in her hand. “Or I’ll blow your navel clean through your backbone.”
“But . . . but . . . Ma, it’s me. I’m your son.”
“His name’s Sam Flintlock and he claims you’re his mother,” Bridie said. “He says he’s been searching for you for years. Here’s your coffee, Detective Brown. Watch out, it’s hot.”
The
woman stared hard at Flintlock as she holstered her revolver. “Don’t ever do that again,” she said. “Next time I’ll gun you for sure.”
“But it’s true, I am your son and you’re my ma,” Flintlock said.
“Mister, if you’re my son, you’re a sore disappointment to me. My son’s back East somewhere and he’s a doctor or a lawyer or maybe an army officer, not a thug dressed in buckskin with a big bird on his throat.”
Flintlock displayed his irritation on his frowning face. “After you left me with old Barnabas he had an Assiniboine woman put the bird on my throat. If you’d been there, you could’ve stopped him.”
Detective Brown was suddenly interested. “Did you say Barnabas? Would that be Barnabas McIntyre, the mountain man?”
“Yes, it would, and a wicked old stick he was. One time he pinned me down as grizzly bait.”
“My father’s name was Barnabas McIntyre and he was a mountain man.”
“And he didn’t approve of your choice of men and you ran away with a gambler and left me behind,” Flintlock said. “Now, I want you to give me that man’s name, since he was my pa.”
“What’s wrong with the name you got?”
“For God’s sake, woman, are you crazy? I was named for a rifle, not my father.”
“That’s no way to talk to your mother.”
“So, you admit that you’re my ma?”
“It seems that’s the case. My name is Jane McIntyre, but you can call me Ma if you like. But don’t ever try to hug me again without warning.”
“What was my pa’s name, Ma?”
“I’ll tell you that when I think you’re ready.”
“I’m ready.”
“No, you’re not.”
“You’re not what I thought you’d be,” Flintlock said.
“What did you think I’d be?”
“Well, not as tall. I mean, smaller and . . .”
“Prettier?” She nodded in Bridie’s direction. “That I’d look like her?”
Flintlock couldn’t come up with an answer, and Jane said, “I’m not pretty, and I’m not small, Sam. I’m tall and bony, all angles and flat planes, and I’ve got big hands and feet and men tell me I look like one of them.”
“You’ve got nice hair, Ma,” Flintlock said.
Pitchfork Pass Page 12