by E. R. Slade
It didn’t somehow seem very likely it could be lynchers—lynchers were most always mobs that shouted and carried pine torches and demanded the sheriff let the man loose into their hands, or else they attacked the jail like a charge of cavalry and tore the place down or tried to. There was always noise and commotion with a lynching. Unless it was vigilance committee work—that could be quiet.
Jeremy held the board up over his head, ready to bring it down.
There was a faint grunt from below and a glimmer of yellow light, like a thin jagged stroke of lightning, appeared in the floor. It widened and widened until Jeremy could see a bearded face, fearsome in the oblique light from a lantern somewhere out of sight. The man tipped the rock up and then couldn’t get it over far enough to make it fall back away from the hole.
“Don’t just stand there holdin’ that board,” Cork said. “He’p me git this here rock out’n the way. Body’d think you warn’t interested in leavin’ this place.”
Jeremy hurriedly tossed the board back down on the two metal brackets and helped to tip the stone over. The light from the lantern lit the inside of the jail weirdly, and Jeremy hoped the sheriff wasn’t listening or watching from somewhere.
Now, he could have stayed where he was, could have refused to leave in the hope of proving himself innocent in court. But Jeremy was plenty sick and tired of being cooped up, and here was a way out, and the sheriff was more interested in the gold than in justice; so Jeremy never thought twice about whether it was wiser to go or stay put. He just crawled out the tunnel as fast as he could after old Cork, and got onto his feet and looked around.
After the blackness in the jail, the night full of stars seemed bright. Three horses were standing together a few paces off, one of them with someone aboard.
“Leanda,” Jeremy said softly under his breath, eyeing the way she filled out her man’s clothes.
Cork, at his elbow, said: “Let’s git before the sheriff finds out you’re missin’.”
They swung up. Jeremy cocked his head at Leanda, but her attention was elsewhere.
“Let’s go,” she said impatiently, and set her spurs. Off she went, riding just like a man.
They rode north first, until they were well clear of the town, and then Leanda swung east, still riding hard. Jeremy was wondering where Cork had gotten a horse. The last he’d heard, Cork was riding a mule. For that matter, he didn’t recognize any of the horses.
When they finally slowed to let their mounts blow, they were out of sight of the lights in town. Jeremy pulled up even with Leanda.
“Evenin’, Miss Leanda,” he said politely. Now he’d slowed down, his mind was beginning to catch up with how things had changed, and if things had looked like a muddle before, that was nothing to what they looked like now.
“Evening,” she said. But like always with her, she seemed to be thinking about something else. That wagonload of gold, most likely.
“Sure is nice to get out’n that place,” he said to her.
“You’re welcome, Jeremy,” she said.
“How’d you know I was in there?”
Leanda waved a hand. “Everybody knows,” she said. “Listen, you didn’t talk any of this over with the sheriff, did you?”
“What, about the gold? No. Course not. And how about we all stay together from now on. So stuff like this don’t happen again, and interrupt things.” He saw that he was talking as though he planned to go after the gold, like before, but he excused it on the theory that he would still turn in Leanda—or what he knew, plus the locket—in the end.
“Well, you were the one that left,” she said calmly.
“I only left because I figured you’d cleared for other parts in the night o’ purpose to leave me behind. Now ain’t that what you did?”
Leanda turned her face to him, and he could just see the indignant expression there, by starlight. “If we had done that, why wouldn’t we have left you there in jail? Then you’d be safely out of the way, now wouldn’t you? I’d have thought you’d be glad to see we’re honest, and be grateful to get out of that place.”
It made sense—but only to a point. She wanted something from him. Maybe it really was his gun. Although, if all she wanted was a hired gun, she could get one for a lot cheaper than a quarter of a wagonload of gold. And there was no particular reason it had to be him. No, she still thought he knew something.
Or else she wanted to prevent his talking about her connection to Tyler and Hart.
Jeremy said, “Where we headed?”
“Camp,” Leanda said. “Not too far now. Down on the creek bank.”
“Why did you leave that night?” he asked her.
“I thought of a place where Blue might be. Turned out he wasn’t there.”
“All you had to do was wake me up.”
“There wasn’t any point. I figured we’d come right back. Only it turned out it took a little longer than I planned.”
“You could ’a’ left a note.”
Leanda glanced at him like she was surprised. “I didn’t know you could read,” she said.
“Maybe you’d better stop thinkin’ I’m just some stupid cowpoke you can use how you want to. From now on, we stay together. Because if you try to give me the slip, I’ll find you, and then we’ll have us a do.”
“Hee hee hee.” Cork slapped his knee. “Now ain’t he grateful for what we done for him?”
“I guess you were right, Uncle Ham,” Leanda said, “we should have left him where he was. Curse a woman’s soft heart.”
Jeremy was taken a little aback. Changing his tone completely, he said, “I sure am grateful to you for getting me out of that place. It’s just the gold, you know. Does things to a man. I don’t mean nothing, really.”
Leanda glanced at him. “Forget it,” she said.
They rode on for a while, and then Leanda reined in suddenly, holding up her hand. Jeremy and Cork halted beside her.
“Hear it?” she said.
There was a drumming of hooves somewhere behind them, coming fast, but still a ways off.
“Follow me,” Leanda said, and turned her horse off to the left down a slight bank through a chaparral thicket, then around a big rock to where they had the thicket on one side and the rock on the other. They pulled up again and listened.
The hooves came on hard and fast; three horses, Jeremy was fairly sure. They kept still and the horsemen roared by. Jeremy relaxed a bit at that.
“Well, I guess the sheriff must ’a’ looked in on me and found I warn’t there,” he said. “Don’t care for how easy they found my trail.”
“Them ain’t sheriff’s deputies,” Cork said. “Them are some o’ Courtland’s boys.”
“Who the devil’s Courtland?”
“Feller Leanda and Blue won the wagonload of gold off’n.”
Chapter Twelve
They moved camp. They had approached very carefully, and found nobody around, but Leanda said they oughtn’t to take chances with Courtland’s men close by. Cork lit a fire, and then they rode south for three hours. Leanda picked out a thick copse of chaparral and they forced into the middle of it, hunted until they found a small open space. There was no water nearby.
“It’s only for tonight,” Leanda said.
“Where you plan on goin’ tomorrow?” Jeremy asked.
“Over into the mountains.”
“What’s there?”
“Blue,” she said.
“You found him?”
“Yes.”
Jeremy grinned wider than a pair of barn doors, so the corners of his mouth fetched up pretty near around back of his earlobes, not that he was aware of it.
Later, as they lay in the dark trying to get some rest, he asked Leanda: “Just how’d you and Blue come by this wagonload of gold? I mean, how’d Blue have anything to do with it?”
“He got me into the game.”
Jeremy pondered, trying to decide if he believed she’d really won it, and came to the conclusion that it was a
good question to worry about some other time.
“Him and you figured to split it?”
Leanda was silent for a few seconds. Then she said: “That’s right.”
“He warn’t kidnapped, then, was he?”
“Turns out not,” Leanda said.
“Go on now, you never really thought he was kidnapped, did you? Ain’t that the truth? What happened was, you and him got the gold from Courtland ...”
“I got the gold from Courtland. I won it, like I told you before.”
“All right, but you agreed to split it with Blue because you and him was working together and had it figured out that you would share everything you made. But then he took off with this here wagonload of gold. Now ain’t that a fact?”
There was a long silence, so that Jeremy thought she wasn’t going to answer at all, but finally she said, “Well, Jeremy, you’re right you’re not some stupid cowhand. That’s just what happened.”
Jeremy’s grin, which had shortened down during the conversation, widened out full as full again. Then he thought of something and the corners of his mouth came back from behind his earlobes once more.
“How’s he going to feel about giving up half of that wagonload of gold?” he asked. “He ain’t going to like it much, it don’t seem like.”
“No, he won’t like it,” Leanda said. “But he’ll have to do it. We’ll make him do it.”
Jeremy nodded in the dark, thoughtfully.
“How come you need me? It don’t seem as though you’ll be wanting to take only half what you figured was yours to begin with.”
“I already told you that. I need you to back my hand with your gun. And don’t think I’m giving up anything. I would have given Uncle Ham half of my share anyway. You’re getting half of Blue’s share.”
Jeremy nodded again. Way in the back of his mind warning shots were going off, but he didn’t pay too much attention, because he thought: if the lady wants my help, well then, I’ll give it to her, and take the pay that goes with it. Besides, who was it got me out of jail?
After turning things over a little more he said, “I don’t reckon I’d let Blue have any of the gold, if it was me. He warn’t planning to leave you any.”
“Jeremy,” Leanda said, “we have to get something clear. You do your job and you get your share, and that’s it. The rest isn’t your business. Okay?”
“I guess.”
“Blue’s not a double-crosser, really,” she said. “He’s just weak when it comes to gold. And he did get me into the poker game.”
So that was how it was, Jeremy thought. She was still soft on him. She wanted to hurt him, but she didn’t want to, so she split the difference and pretended it made sense. Just like a woman.
Warning shots went off again in his mind, but he didn’t pay any more attention now than before—in fact less.
He remembered something. “I ain’t got any gun,” he said.
“Oh, that’s right,” said Leanda, and went fishing in her saddlebags. She came up with a gun belt and tossed it over to him—the same gun he’d found in Cork’s house. “Uncle Ham says you can keep it,” she added.
Jeremy checked it over, loaded it with cartridges from the belt. “How’d you get it back from Watson?” he asked.
“Uncle Ham just slipped in and picked it off a nail on the wall after the sheriff left. Let’s get some sleep. We’re leaving here first light.”
~*~
They did, too. They had an apple apiece for breakfast, and no fire to warm coffee or hands. Just the apple, and a drink of water, and they rode.
It was a mighty fine day, Jeremy thought. The sun was hot, but then it was always hot. The big fortress of the Rocky Mountains towered over them, wisps of cloud around the peaks.
Jeremy daydreamed about the gold. He sort of knew he should have been thinking more about Leanda and how he might find out if she was guilty of killing Tyler and Hart, but the idea of coming into a huge fortune had a way of taking over his whole mind. He thought of how he would go back home to Texas and when Pa asked him how he’d made out up north, he’d say, real casual, “Oh, fair.” And maybe he wouldn’t let on more than that for a while, and would go down onto those south ranges and see what he could buy up. When he had a few thousand square miles or so, or whatever he could get hold of, and had built some nice corrals and a ranch house and a hay barn and had got himself all set up and going with about half a million head of cattle, or whatever, then he would get in his fancy new buggy, like the one Jackson Fearson Prickett always rode around in, and wearing his best beaver hat and gussiest duds he would drive north to pay a visit. There wouldn’t be nobody dare say a word to him. And he’d say to Pa, how’d you like to come down and see the little spread I just bought? And then they’d ride for about six weeks, or whatever it took to get all the way around it, and wouldn’t Pa’s eyes bug out then! And Pa would ask, how’s it come to be that you have all this? And he would say, oh, I just made a little strike up north.
Jeremy grinned his ear-to-ear grin again, thinking of it. That’s what he would say—just made a little strike up north. Real casual.
At noon they stopped briefly to fill canteens at a creek, and to eat some cold beans. Cork had a bottle of something. He grinned and took a slug, his face scrunching up like he was trying to wring it out; and in fact two small tears squeezed loose and disappeared into the maze of creases under his eyes. Cork’s face-scrunching turned into a grin again, and he offered Jeremy the bottle.
“Don’t, Jeremy,” Leanda warned. “It’ll kill you.” She said it flatly, not like it was a joke.
Cork laughed and kept offering the bottle to Jeremy. “She’s right,” he said, “but it don’t happen right off. It’s a slow-workin’ poison.”
Jeremy looked at Leanda’s warning glare, and then at Cork’s grin.
“How old are you?” he asked Cork.
“Wal now, I don’t rightly know. Over seventy, but not a hundred yet, I don’t think.”
“How long you been drinkin’ this stuff?”
“What, this? Why, boy, I was weaned on this stuff. My Ma used to make corn liquor back in Tennessee. For all I know, she may be makin’ it yit.”
“That so? And she drank it, too?”
Cork looked at him in blank amazement. “Why, she didn’t feed it to the hogs,” he said.
“It’ll kill you, Jeremy,” Leanda warned again.
Jeremy grinned at her. He was feeling good today. He felt like there wasn’t anything he couldn’t do. He reached for the bottle and tipped it up against his lips.
Something exploded, and for a minute he was sure he had been gut shot, the pain was so bad, except the pain burned all the way down his throat, too.
He came to looking up at Cork’s grinning face. Cork had the bottle now. Leanda was kneeling on the other side of him looking mad.
“Uncle Ham,” she said, “get rid of that stuff, and I mean now. Dump it in the creek.”
“But it’ll kill the fish,” Cork objected.
Jeremy was in real pain. “Water,” he said weakly. It hurt searingly just to speak. He moaned, and that hurt, too. He’d had strong stuff before, but never anything like this. His head felt like there was no top on it. He blinked at tears, aware that they were only a minor contributor to the blur. He’d heard of men going blind from drinking wood alcohol, or alcohol and creosote. Was he going to go blind?
He was scared now, thinking about this. Everything looked desperate and final to him. He was going to go blind! And maybe all that burning would make it so he couldn’t eat anything but mash for the rest of his life. He’d known a man once like that ...
Leanda was holding a canteen to his lips. He raised up on his elbows with an effort, and drank. In a little while his head cleared somewhat, and his vision began to clear, too—a great relief. He sat up and shook his head to try to get the peculiar feeling out of it, but all that happened was that a slight buzzing started in his ears and his head began to get just the first touch of
a dull ache, which he knew usually wound up a big ache before it went away.
Leanda asked, “All right?”
He looked at her, tried to focus, almost managed it. She smiled at him briefly, and then turned her attention to getting a little fire started for lunch.
By the time lunch was over, the beans and the strong black coffee had diminished the buzz and he could almost see clearly again. There was a heaviness in his stomach though, which made him think that perhaps his lunch might come back up before long, and the ache in his head was beginning to throb ominously.
Just before they mounted up, Cork pulled out his bottle and took a shot of it, again squeezing tears out of his eyes while it went down, and then grinning afterwards. He offered Jeremy the bottle, but this time Jeremy warded it off.
“I don’t see why you ain’t dropped dead of that stuff,” he said, his voice hoarse and his throat paining him something awful. Talking made his headache worse, too.
Cork seemed to think this was hilarious, and hooted and cackled over it for some minutes.
As they rode along, Jeremy’s headache became the sledgehammer kind. Meanwhile the up and down motion in the saddle tossed his insides into a regular fire-mush.
Leanda kept glancing at him. Finally, she said, “You look pale, Jeremy. You all right?”
“Sure,” he said, feeling just the opposite.
“I hope so. The trail gets rougher.”
Jeremy closed his eyes a moment, swaying slightly in the saddle, thinking of the long afternoon ahead. It was funny about that stuff Cork drank. It was probably 100 proof, but he didn’t feel at all drunk, just sick. It was more like drinking lye than liquor.
They were past the foothills now, and a huge crag of mountain rose jaggedly overhead, giving Jeremy the feeling that it was actually falling over onto them. The wind was blowing plenty hard suddenly, sweeping up toward the crag, and a billow of black cloud was roiling up there, closing off the top of the crag from view.
Cork had been looking up at it occasionally. Now he took another shot of his killer water and said, “Goin’ to rain.”
At that moment, thunder rolled off the crag, echoing into the distance. The wind gusted, whistling in the lodgepole pine and fir which grew in small stands here and there on the steep, meadowed hillside up which they were guiding their mounts.