Gold Dust

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  “These are the sonsabitches from the bar!” Ned snapped a shot at a figure ducking behind a door on their right.

  “I know it!”

  “It’s a setup!”

  “I know it, I said.”

  The two lawmen separated. Ned yanked the pin on his revolver, dropping the cylinder. He slapped out the empty cartridges and reloaded. Tom Bell ducked into a formal living room on his immediate right. His pistol roared twice more.

  The empty magazine from Tom Bell’s Colt thumped on the hardwood floor. He slammed a full one into the handle and fired three times in rapid succession, followed by a thump further inside the house. “That’s the sawed-off little runt with the knife, Ned! Think that last feller’s upstairs?”

  “I ain’t looked up there yet.” Holding the pistol in his familiar Old West stance, Ned peeked around the door and into the entry hall. “You got anybody down in white jeans?”

  “Nope.”

  The woman was obviously dead. A large patch on her blouse had already burned off, charring her skin in places, but dying out. Tom Bell flickered past the open door and disappeared deeper into the row house.

  Ned crept through the line of rooms on his side of the house, following the muzzle of his pistol, looking for White Jeans. Except for the ticking of a clock somewhere out of sight, the only sound was his own breathing and light footsteps. Heart thumping like a jackhammer, he swallowed his fear and tried to warn anyone else in the back of the house to clear out while they still could.

  “Feller, if there’s a back door to this place, you better take it!”

  Passing an open door, Ned glanced across the hallway to see half a man’s body sprawled on the floor, a victim of Tom Bell’s .45. The old Ranger waved his arm around the doorframe at the same time his voice floated soft through the still air in the silent house. “It’s me. Don’t shoot.”

  “I see you. I’m right here.”

  Temples pounding and half deaf from the gunshots, Ned paused to glance at the plaster ceiling, hoping the floor joists above would creak and give away anyone upstairs. Taking a deep breath, he passed through a dining room and into the kitchen, trembling from tension.

  Tom Bell appeared at the same time. Muscles’ body lay in a spreading pool of blood. Tom leaned in so close to Ned’s ear he felt his warm breath. “There’s a staircase back here. The guy in white jeans is prob’ly above us. I have an idea.”

  They made their cautious way back through the narrow house. Ned expected to hear sirens at any minute. Heart pounding, he kept an eye on the doorway opening to the entry at the far end. They reached the living room and paused only a few feet from Kathleen’s still body.

  Tom Bell covered the stairs with the 1911. He held up a hand to keep Ned still. “Let’s get out of here!”

  He backed to the front door, opened it for three seconds and slammed it. Stepping lightly to join Ned in the living room, he held the constable still with a palm out gesture to wait. They could see the front door from their position, but were out of sight from the staircase, at least until anyone coming down would be exposed in the doorway.

  The clock measured seconds off their lives, then a full minute. A car started on the street and another hissed on the wet pavement.

  Chapter Sixty-two

  Owen lay on a filthy cotton mattress in the extra bedroom of his brother’s sixty-year-old farmhouse. There were no sheets, and the blue-and-white ticking was stained in several places. “What do you think?”

  “I had an old dog that got shot in the stomach like that once. He laid under the porch for two weeks and then crawled out one day and ate some old baloney I had in the icebox.”

  “So he made it?”

  Ellis grunted and sat back in his cane-bottom chair. “Naw, the baloney was bad and it killed him.”

  Owen grimaced. “Oh damn. Don’t make me laugh. It hurts too bad. Tell me the truth. What do you think?”

  “Well, you’d quit bleeding by the time you got here. While you was passed out, I checked that bullet hole. I think it broke a rib and glanced up. It cut through some muscle and missed everything else. Come out through the meat under your arm. It ain’t infected, at least not that I can tell.”

  “You ain’t no doctor, you know.”

  “I know it, Possum, but I doctored plenty of calves and dogs.” He glanced through the dirty farmhouse windows at the sprawling cotton fields of Prosper, Texas. “I believe you’ll be all right.”

  Though he hated the nickname, Owen had always bowed to his brother. He swallowed. “I hope you’re right.”

  “Well, you can stay here for a good long while, if you’ll stay out of sight.”

  “What’d you do with that car I came in?”

  “It’s in the barn. It’ll stay there till you’re healed, but then you get gone in it.”

  “I’ll go quick as I can. Anybody see you put it there?”

  “Probably. It sat out there in the yard for a couple of hours, too. I guarantee Dodd Dobbs saw it and he’ll likely tell everybody he knows. He’s worse than an old grammaw.” Ellis studied the peeling wallpaper.

  “It’s hottern’n a six-shooter.”

  “I figured as much. Guess I ought not ask, but who was it that shot you?”

  “I don’t know for sure. One of three people.”

  “Damn. You tangled with three at one time?”

  “One of ’em was a nigger deputy sheriff. I heard him on a police radio in a truck I stole. That’s how I got away. If I was to bet, I’d say the others were the law too.”

  “Didn’t they have no uniforms on?”

  “No. I was pulling a cattle deal and they was acting like buyers.”

  “But they weren’t.” Ellis barked out a laugh. “That’s why I got out of the business. It goes to show you can’t trust nobody these days, not even the laws.”

  “I said don’t make me laugh.” Owen grimaced and held his side. “It hurts too bad. Go on and get out of here and let me sleep.”

  Ellis shook a brown bottle of thick liquid. “I’m gonna give you a shot of this, just in case.”

  “What is it?”

  “Livestock penicillin. It works on a cow, it oughta work on you.”

  “That stuff might kill me if it ain’t made for people. Besides, I remember from when I caught the clap that different medicines work on different things. How you know that’s the right one?”

  “Well, it’s all I got, unless you think blackleg medicine’ll work better.” He drew a glass syringe full of white liquid that looked like Elmer’s glue. “Roll over. This goes in your hip.”

  Owen rolled to his side, gasping as the wound pulled. “Oh God, that hurts. I hope you sterilized that thing.”

  “Boiled it.” Ellis leaned over and jammed the dull needle into muscle.

  Owen tightened up and groaned. “Damn that hurts.”

  “Wait’ll I push this plunger.”

  “Oh hell!”

  Ellis rocked back on his knees. “That’ll do it. I’ll give you another shot, day after tomorrow.”

  “You didn’t use alcohol.” Owen lay back, gasping from the pain in his chest. “You’re supposed to wipe the skin with alcohol first.”

  “I never do it with the cows, so I forgot. I’ll do it next time.”

  Chapter Sixty-three

  Sirens rose in the distance. Apparently, White Jeans upstairs heard them at the same time and came thumping down the stairs. Instead of rushing out the door, he stopped on the last few steps, maybe listening, maybe wondering if the slamming door was a ruse.

  Ned held his cocked pistol aimed at the open doorway. The muzzle wavered, but Tom Bell’s .45 held as steady as if he were using a rest.

  The guy on the stairs was in a bad position. If he was right-handed, either the pistol, a shoulder, or his head would be the first thing to appear. Ned estimated his h
eight and steadied his aim where he expected a body part to materialize.

  Tom Bell wasn’t waiting, though, as the first distant siren was joined by a second, then a third. The moment he saw the muzzle of a shotgun emerge past the doorframe, he opened up with the big .45, punching holes through the plaster and lath.

  White Jean’s body fell into view, tumbling onto the hardwood floor and losing the pump shotgun in the process. He groaned and reached for a pistol in his belt, but Ned sprang forward and snatched it away.

  Tom Bell quickly holstered his pistol. “Grab his other arm.” They yanked the wounded man to his feet and he shrieked as the bones in his shattered, bloody shoulder ground together. “Shut up, buddy. You started this.” Tom Bell yanked the front door open with one hand. “Let’s get him in the car and get out of here.”

  Ned took in the wet street, surprised there were no onlookers watching. “Don’t you think we should stay and explain what happened to the laws?”

  “These guys are the laws, in some way. What I’m gonna do is find out what we need to know. That’s what you wanted, right?”

  The sirens grew closer and they rushed the wounded man across the sidewalk and into the backseat of Ned’s Fury. Tom handed Ned the keys and followed their hostage into the car. “I told you I had a bad feeling about bringing that gal here.”

  “I’ll listen to you if there’s a next time.” Ned pulled onto the street as the cold rain turned to wet snow.

  Chapter Sixty-four

  Ty Cobb and Jimmy Foxx Wilson paused at a barbed-wire fence hanging loose on bodark posts. Behind them, thick hardwoods stretched down to the Red River. On the opposite side, an overgrown pasture was quickly going back to nature everywhere except for a long, fresh trench dug along a line of mature oaks.

  Ty Cobb rested one wader-covered foot on the bottom wire that stretched through loose staples with a creak. “I swear, I hate to see this.”

  “Old Gary Tidwell wouldn’t’ve let this happened when he was alive.” Jimmy Foxx scratched at the longish hair sticking out from under his cap.

  “Well, he’s gone and now Bill Preston has it.”

  “I reckon he won’t care if we shoot a few squirrels over there on the creek.” Jimmy Foxx threw a grin at his brother that said more than the words.

  Ty Cobb scratched at a three-day stubble. “You know, this place used to be working alive with quail.”

  “They’ll still be here. I ‘magine Bill won’t care if we bust up a covey or two, neither.”

  His brother laughed. “Hold my shotgun.” He handed the humpback Browning to Jimmy Foxx who put one foot on the bottom strand and raised the next wire. Ty Cobb bent at the waist and stepped through the gap. They traded shotguns and repeated the process.

  “Listen!” Jimmy Foxx pointed his nose into the wind like a retriever. “Them are quail talkin.”

  “Sure ’nough. Let’s go bust ’em up.”

  They hadn’t taken two steps before a covey of birds exploded one hundred yards down the fencerow. The brothers paused, looking in that direction, and saw two men and a woman walking their way.

  “Who’s that?” Neither cared that they were on Bill Preston’s land. They’d grown up hunting the river bottoms of Lamar County and knew every landowner who owned pastures, fields, woods, and meadows. “It ain’t Bill.”

  “Naw, he’s usually over there working on that new house they’re building, or diggin’ in that gully not far from his house.” Jimmy Foxx squinted at the trio. “They’re not huntin’. I do believe they’re carryin’ shovels.”

  “Gold diggers!”

  Seeing the brothers, the trio froze.

  Ty Cobb waved. “Y’all come on over here!” Cradling his shotgun in the crook of one arm, he watched them hesitate, bend their heads in discussion, and walk in their direction. Jimmy Foxx rested the barrel of his shotgun over his right shoulder.

  The two men and a woman in casual city clothes took their own sweet time making their way through the knee-high weeds. All three wore coats that looked brand new. Recognizing them from Neal Box’s store, the woman’s face broke into a wide grin. “I know you two. You’re the Wilson boys.”

  The brothers nodded as one. Jimmy Foxx tilted the time cap up on his forehead. “We know you, too. What’re you doing out here, Scottie?”

  The men waited, silent, holding their shovels as if they were war axes. Squaring her shoulders to make her breasts stand out, Scottie took the lead. “Mack Vick told me that big old oak tree standing out there all by itself is most likely where that Palmer Lake gold might be.”

  Jimmy Foxx grunted. “Mack knows cattle, but he don’t know nothin’ about trees. That there red oak come up when I was filling my diaper. They grow fast and big.”

  The men behind her looked disappointed. “Is this your land?”

  Ty Cobb studied the young man in a flat top. “Good-looking haircut. I don’t know you.”

  “Billy Taylor. I’m Scottie’s boyfriend.”

  Back to her friends, Scottie raised an eyebrow. Neither brother knew whether it was a question or reaction to the man’s statement. Ty Cobb couldn’t help himself. “I didn’t know for sure you had a boyfriend. You and Mack Vick looked kinda chummy up at the store the other day.”

  “Boyfriends come in all sizes and styles.” Disinterested, Scottie cut her eyes toward the distant tree line and trench obviously dug by a bulldozer. “So do you know where we need to look?”

  “Sure do.”

  They leaned forward, anticipating Jimmy Foxx’s statement.

  “Jewelry store. There ain’t no gold out here, and you two fellers ain’t got no business digging on this man’s land, ’cause I bet Scottie didn’t tell him y’all were coming out. I’d get myself gone if I was y’all.”

  “He’s doing enough digging himself, he won’t notice we were here.” Scottie’s smile disappeared in a flash. “Well, you’re no friend at all. Come on, boys. Let’s go back up to the store and see if anyone’s had any luck. Maybe we’ll find someone more accommodating to help us.”

  She spun on her heel and stalked away through the grass. Her boyfriend Billy paused. “Say she was running with another guy?”

  Jimmy Foxx shrugged. “Said I saw her talking to Mack Vick.”

  Billy frowned at the ground, looking defeated. “How big an ol’ boy is he?”

  Ty Cobb’s hand measured six inches above his head.

  The boyfriend shrank even more. He met his silent buddy’s eyes and they followed Scottie down the fence row.

  Ty Cobb watched them climb the fence where they were first sighted. “They ain’t got no sense at all, riding an old fence like that.”

  “Naw, and can you believe it, city folks just come out and start diggin’ on private land like they got good sense.”

  “Aint’ that the truth? Well, let’s get after them quail before they all die of old age.”

  Sheriff Cody Parker leaned against his car in the parking lot of Neal Box’s store, his arms were crossed and he studied the half dozen cars parked around the domino hall. The news of the shootout between Anna, John, and the rustlers followed by hours of investigation had taken a toll.

  Mayor Stratton had called him into his office, questioning Cody about Anna’s bruised face and the incident with the rustlers. Halfway through the mayor’s tirade, Cody figured out Stratton’s concern. It wasn’t budgetary issues that had him all twisted up. He had the hots for Anna and didn’t want her to be placed in danger.

  He needed to get out of Chisum and think, back home to the little community that was as comfortable as an old shoe.

  He’d also driven out to keep an eye on the people coming into Center Springs. More and more complaints were being filed over trespassers looking for gold, though neither Neal Box or Oak Peterson cared. They were having a banner year, selling food, shovels, and buckets to the out-of-towners caught u
p in the gold rush. Oak had even hired some of the local boys to build screened trays that hopefuls bought to sift the dirt, in the hopes they could get permission to dig.

  The only problem was that most of the landowners didn’t want strangers driving through their pastures, leaving gates open, and digging exploratory holes. All except Neal Box, who gladly let anyone pay for the privilege of investigating the five hundred acres a mile from Palmer Lake that he leased from the owners who lived in Dallas.

  The Wilson Boys pulled up and shut off their truck’s engine.

  The brothers joined Cody. Ty Cobb spat a long stream of tobacco juice onto the bottle caps that served as cheap paving and kicked one rubber shoe against the other to dislodge a clod of dried mud. “I had to run some of these treasure hunters off Bill Preston’s land a little while ago.”

  The back of Cody’s neck tingled. “They close to the big house on the overlook?”

  “Down at the far end.” Jimmy Foxx sat on the trunk of Cody’s car and fished out a pocketknife to clean his fingernails.

  Ty Cobb scratched under his hat. “Bill’s new house is purty as a picture. Took him a while to get it built, though. The grade dropped off more than he expected and it took considerable fill dirt to level it off. They set the foundation and then changed their minds and doubled the size. It’s gonna be a showplace when they’re finished.”

  “How come ’em to make it bigger?”

  “Had plenty of money to spend on his house, I reckon. He owns a big car dealership in Dallas. I heard he got some kind of deal and made a killing in the last few months.”

  “Where’d they dig it?”

  “Dig what?”

  “The fill dirt to level the foundation.”

  “On the northwest side of his place. Down on a draw that drains off toward the river. We shot some quail down there where he dug it out. Looky here what I found in some of that dirt he turned up.” He held out an arrowhead. “First one I’ve seen in a couple of years.”