by E. R. Slade
“Howdy, Stranger,” the one-eyed leader said. Noting that Riley was absent, Lee wondered if these men had been in town yet. If so, had they decided not to bother breaking Riley out with crowbars and instead come for the keys? Or had they decided they could do without Riley?
“Do something for you?” Lee asked mildly to gain thinking time.
“Why, sure.” The one-eyed man scratched his jaw. “You can tell me where Chuck Riley is.”
“In jail, where he belongs.”
“You’re telling me you jumped him in the dark?”
“Don’t need to. Go take a look for yourselves.”
“You got some Apache in you, too?”
“No, but just about everything else. You don’t need to wave those guns around, you know. No need of anybody gettin’ hurt.”
“Well, now, that’s an attitude I like, stranger. Supposin’ you just pull that pistol of yours out—real slow, now—and drop it on the ground. I reckon we’ll be accompanyin’ the lady here back to town.”
Lee had been edging his horse around so that he was between the men and Carmen. She had not changed her expression at all from that of one looking at a carcass full of maggots.
“That’s all right, gentlemen,” Lee said, still keeping the tone mild, right hand resting on his hip, just above the handle of his Colt Peacemaker. “The lady’s obliged, but we got business elsewheres. Be seein’ you gentlemen another time, perhaps.”
The one-eyed man squinted into the sun at them and edged his mount along, trying to get the sun and Carmen out from behind Lee. Lee decided it was time to take advantage of the best in a bad situation before the odds got worse. He smiled, tipped his hat with his left hand, and then made as if to ride off.
“Hold it, stranger.” There was the sound of cocking hammers.
Lee swung his horse around, pulling the animal up onto its hind legs so as to make it harder for the gunmen to hit Carmen, and shouted at her, “Ride!” The same second he drew and emptied his revolver just over the heads of the ten horsemen, hoping to startle their mounts into being jittery and keep the riders from being able to shoot straight for the necessary few seconds while Carmen escaped around the corner of the ranch house.
Lee saw the horses shy and jostle each other, and was just beginning to think his plan was working when the world spun around him and he lost his wind, getting a mouthful of dirt. He heard whinnies, shouts and the deafening roar of gunfire, and then it all faded away.
~*~
Pirate Olberg had suspected some such trick and was ready for it. When the stranger began to fire, he let loose with the Winchester, and the stranger wasn’t long biting the dust.
Once the stranger had fallen, Pirate shouted, “Hold your fire. Get that girl!”
Carmen had nearly gained the corner of the ranch house. Pirate got his horse under way. But the difficulty was really all over. She made it only about twenty yards beyond the corner before Pirate caught up with her, leaning out and with his left hand grabbing the right rein from her hand and twisting the snorting horse’s head around to bring it to a halt.
“Do we bring the stranger?” Baldy wanted to know as he pulled his mount up alongside.
“He dead?”
“Ain’t checked.”
They rode back and looked down at the still form in the dust. Blood was drying in the dirt, and flies were buzzing around.
Pirate chuckled.
“If he’s alive, he won’t be no trouble. Let’s ride. I’m gettin’ a powerful thirst.”
~*~
When the riders had gotten out of earshot, Lee rolled up onto an elbow and then got tiredly to his feet, spitting out gritty dust and trying to ignore the pain in his left shoulder. The bullet was no longer in him, he discovered upon examination. It had torn flesh, and maybe he’d lost a bit of blood, but it was the fall from the horse that had knocked the wind out of him, and made the world fade away for a few seconds.
He walked slowly to the ranch house. As he reached the door, the fearful little Mexican woman opened it, peered around it cautiously and then came hurrying out to make a fuss over him.
She insisted on bringing him inside and washing his wound thoroughly and putting a bandage on it. All the while she chattered in Spanish, with a smattering of English now and again when she wanted him to do something, such as turn to the light or hold still so she could fasten on the bandage.
Finally, she was done.
“Now you lie down,” she said.
“No,” he said. “But thanks. I’ll be back.”
He put his Stetson back on as he went out and whistled for his horse. He had some hard riding to do. He had one ace up his sleeve, but nothing else: the fact that Riley was in jail. But he would lose even this leverage if he didn’t get there first.
Instead of heading up the bank of the Little River, the easiest ride, and normally the fastest, though it was a winding trail, Lee cut north into the brushland and rode hell-for-leather on a beeline for town, going up and down every little gully and tearing his trousers in the thickets. The trip took three-quarters of an hour. He rode in just as the Riley gang came up over the cutbank from the trickle of the Little River and started past the first buildings in town. Shouts and gunfire began as they saw him raise dust up Main Street to the hitching rail in front of the sheriff’s office. Lee jumped down and ran inside. The dead sheriff had been removed.
Lee closed and barred the door and the window shutters, which were substantial.
Then he checked the cell block, confirming there was no way in from the outside. Riley was lying on his back, hat over his eyes. He lifted the hat with a grimy forefinger and eyed his captor.
“What’s all the ruckus?” he inquired lazily, as if it didn’t really matter much to him.
Lee didn’t bother to answer. He started back towards the sheriff’s office.
“Ain’t you goin’ to feed me?”
“Later.”
Lee slammed the door between the cell block and the office, and then listened to the milling of the horses outside and the men talking to each other.
Finally, the one-eyed man shouted at him. “We got you surrounded, stranger. No need for trouble. We can wait a whole lot longer than you can.”
Lee grimaced and strangely an image came to mind of Carmen sitting on her horse out there, probably just as haughty as ever. It abruptly made him realize how it all must look from her point of view. Mother long dead, father shot dead trying to escape being tortured, and men fighting all around her. What was she supposed to think? Lee involuntarily felt the bristly stubble on his chin, and for the first time in months remembered he’d once been somewhat proud of his appearance.
“You in there? This is Pirate.” Good name for him, Lee thought.
“Yeah, I’m here. So’s Riley. I’m offering a fair trade. Riley for the girl.”
“No deal,” Pirate promptly answered. “When you get ready to give in, we’ll be here.”
“If you don’t care about Riley, why are you here at all?”
“We got patience.”
“I don’t. I’ll give you ten minutes. If you don’t trade, I’ll shoot Riley.”
There was a pause. Lee opened the door to the cell block, unlocked Riley’s cell and brought the smirking outlaw out into the sheriff’s office at gunpoint.
“Pirate? This is Lee. I’ve got Riley right here. He’s going to tell you I mean what I say.” He spoke in a lower voice to Riley. “Your boys out there don’t agree to a trade in ten minutes—you for Carmen Haversam—I’m going to put a nice neat hole between your eyes.”
There was a short eyeball-to-eyeball test of wills.
Then:
“Pirate?” Riley bellowed. “Trade. He’ll do it.”
There was a mumble of conversation from beyond the door, none of it intelligible. Then Pirate’s strident voice came back.
“Riley?”
“Yeah?”
“Did he jump you out there in the wash that night?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t believe it. I think you’re in cahoots with ’im. Reckon we’ll leave you to die.”
Riley’s face took on an expression of fury that might have made Pirate quake in his boots, had he seen it.
“Pirate, when I get my hands on you, I’ll see you burned alive.”
“Your Apache blood is showing. Double-crossing treacherous dog.”
Another voice piped up here. “Wait a minute, Pirate. Chuck’s my brother.”
“You a treacherous Apache scoundrel too?” Pirate roared. He must have been quite a pirate, Lee thought.
“Well, there’s no need to kill him.”
“We ain’t killin’ him, Baldy. Calloway is—if he actually means to. But it isn’t because I wouldn’t like to.”
“Come on, Pirate.”
“Pirate?” Riley roared suddenly, further enraged. “You listen to me, and you listen up but good. Only one in these parts can stay on the right side of Two Fingers is me. Now, my uncle Two Fingers knows all about the gold, and he wants his share. I promised it to him. He’ll be on hand to get it when we find it, you can be sure. He’s out there right now a-watching you. He’s just biding his time. If’n you kill me, or let me get killed, he’ll do one of two things. Either he’ll burn you alive, or, if he takes a notion, he may cut you in small pieces. He ain’t got no scruples about that kind of thing. Now, what’ll it be? We can always get the girl later.” He looked at Lee fiercely.
This caused considerable mumbling in low voices outside, and then finally Pirate shouted in a heavy voice:
“We trade. How do you want to do it, Calloway?”
“I’m going to open the shutters on your right as you face the building. Riley’s face will be in front of mine, in case you take a notion. You’ll be able to see us, and we’ll see you. I want you all to stay back, well back, say the middle of the street. Got that?”
“You’re callin’ it.”
“That’s right. Keep it in mind. Okay, now I open the shutters.”
With Riley in front of him, warned with a gesture to keep quiet, Lee walked the prisoner to the other window, which would be to Pirate’s left instead of right. There was no point in taking unnecessary chances.
The scene in the street was more or less as expected. There wasn’t any surprise planned. No one was set to shoot. They had all backed off to the middle of the street. Lee counted all ten, and Carmen. Might be other confederates in town, but if one or more of them was doing something tricky, there wasn’t much that could be done about it. Up and down the street there were faces in windows, people standing in doorways. Odd the way people will stand around and watch something like this. He wanted to tell them to get back, get out of the way, in case there was shooting, but knew it would do no good.
Pirate looked irritable, Baldy half scared, half relieved, apparently unable to make up his mind what stance to take regarding his half-brother. The others sat their horses expectantly, waiting to see how all this was going to be carried out. Carmen still sat proudly aloof on her mount. Yet as Lee looked at her, something moved inside him and he felt a sense of sympathy and understanding with her.
“Oh, there you are,” Pirate said, slightly abashed. Maybe he hadn’t been sure which was his right and which his left, and didn’t like being made to look stupid in front of his buddies. Of course, they had all been watching the other window too, but Pirate hadn’t had time to notice that.
“Now, the girl gets down from her horse,” Lee said. “And she walks to the door. I’m watching that nobody follows.” He looked down the front of the building in both directions carefully, to be sure someone wasn’t waiting in ambush.
Carmen, at an impatient motion from Pirate, got down and walked slowly to the door.
“Everybody put his gun away,” Lee directed, “and then his hands up. Just for good faith.” Once that had been accomplished, not without some grumbling, he left the window, prodded Riley to the door, which he unbarred, then opened.
Lee noticed that Pirate’s hand now hovered over his stolen hogleg. But he didn’t look proficient somehow—perhaps it was the awkward way the pistol hung on his belt. Lee wasn’t very concerned about it.
“Got to make sure you don’t pull something,” Pirate said firmly.
Lee suddenly pushed Riley out, pulled Carmen in, and slammed and barred the door. He went to the window to peer around the edge of the frame: now for the critical question of what they would do next. There was a side window in the office which let into an alley. If they were occupied with each other out there for a minute or two, he and Carmen might slip away.
Riley waved his arms at Pirate and began to cuss him roundly. Pirate cussed back.
Baldy tried to interfere, but before long the ex-seaman had jumped down from his horse and pulled a dirk, a wicked-looking thing with a gleaming blade. He waved it around in a hairy fist, abusing Riley at the top of his lungs.
Lee breathed a heavy sigh of relief. He and Carmen watched through the window as the gang of outlaws went into the Blue Belle a few doors down, just the near side of the doctor’s office.
Chapter Seven
“What is it you want from me?” Carmen demanded as they ate one of Millie’s lunches, which Lee thought tasted better than anything he’d ever eaten before in his life. He realized he might be a little prejudiced, due to the fact that he hadn’t eaten or slept in two days. But that didn’t change his opinion.
“I don’t want anything from you, ma’am,” he said. “Exceptin’ your cooperation. I’m trying to finish the job I tackled when I drove off Riley and his gang. I like to finish what I start.”
“I don’t believe you. I don’t believe a word.”
“What do you think then?” he said, exasperated.
“I think you want the gold for yourself. So, you come along at just the right moment and rescue me. You think I will talk to you because you have saved my life. Well, I’m aware of the tricks. I will tell no one where the gold is.”
Lee sat back in his chair, feeling rather foolish, the color rising in his face. He dabbed at his mouth with his napkin and coughed two or three times. For he hadn’t ever considered the possibility that she might think he was after her money. It was, after all, the obvious thing. Too busy trying to get himself clear of the trouble he’d gotten into to pay attention to the obvious.
“What’s the matter,” she pursued relentlessly, apparently misinterpreting his reaction, “cat got your tongue? I may be only a girl, but I’m not stupid. Are you Chuck Riley’s brother? You look just like him.”
That was not a thing he cared to be reminded of.
“No,” he told her firmly, looking her straight in the eye. It mattered to him that she believed what he said this time.
“It doesn’t make any difference anyway. I’m not telling you anything.”
“I ain’t askin’ you to tell me. It’s purely your affair. The only thing I would like to know from you is, if there’s some relative you might stay with for a couple of days, until this business with Riley’s gang is settled. Somebody who can keep you out of sight.”
“I have no living relatives.”
“How about friends? You must know someone who can hide you. You’ve got to get out of sight, somewhere.”
“I’m staying at here at Millie’s. I don’t know what you have in mind, but I am not interested in your attentions.”
Lee was losing patience. The temptation to just ride out and leave the whole thing as it stood was growing greatly in him. After all, he owed nothing to anyone here. If the town wasn’t able to stand up to men like Riley and Pirate, that was their problem, wasn’t it? And they could live with the consequences. Carmen, who was the center of all this, as far as he was concerned, didn’t want him around, didn’t trust him. She seemed unwilling to cooperate even for her own safety; shouldn’t he wash his hands of her?
But something in him—perhaps upbringing, perhaps conscience, perhaps something else he wasn’t admitting to himself yet—made him stay. It wa
s wrong somehow to walk out and leave the thing half done. He looked across the table at Carmen thoughtfully, and she looked back defiantly, perhaps fearfully.
“Okay,” he said finally in a soft voice, “then do it this way. Go somewhere out of my sight as well as theirs. I would prefer to be able to warn you of trouble, but if you are too frightened of me, we’ll do without it. But you need a place to hole up for a little while, until these men are jailed. I’ll be ridin’ out as soon as they are locked up and there’s a sheriff to look after them, so I won’t cause you no trouble after that. If you want them convicted of killing your father and of assaulting you, then come out for the trial. But don’t stay here or anywhere they can find you. You ought to know enough not to do that.”
“Father always taught me to face my problems,” she said defiantly.
“That’s generally a good notion, but there comes a point when it don’t make sense to put yourself in the way of trouble. It’s like it don’t make sense to try to stop a stampede by stepping in front of it. T’ain’t good judgment.”
“Why don’t you just leave me alone? I can look after myself.”
“Like you were doing when I drove them off in the desert? I ain’t leavin’ here until I get your promise to hole up somewhere.”
“Oh, very well then,” she said impatiently. “At least I won’t have you around.” She excused herself and got up and went to the door, then paused, turning back, looking undecided about something. For a moment he was sure she was going to speak, but then she didn’t.
Lee watched the firm but graceful movements she made as she walked off, and then he looked away.
~*~
The Blue Belle, at just after noon, was not very busy. Two or three drifters were gathered around a shabbily dressed man who was trying to sell them shares in a claim he said he owned which would make them all rich, if only it could be developed. He didn’t look too rich yet himself in his worn out rags and decrepit felt hat. The saloon keeper, Joe Kingston, was wiping glasses with a less-than-spotlessly-clean cloth. His lunch, cooked by Millie and sent around, was on the back bar.
When the raucous gang of rough men came kicking through the batwings, cussing and shouting at each other, the little group around the mining claim huckster turned their attention to them expectantly, waiting for excitement to begin.