He seemed to read my thoughts. “You boys taken the hard way. They’s a nice trail winds cow-gentle up the back of this here peak.”
In that moment, whatever seasoning I had acquired during that dreadful climb dropped from me, and the child that I was screamed inside my brain: It isn’t fair! Dangling as I was from the precipice, eyes burning with tears of anger and frustration, I could not raise even a hand to defend myself against the weapon, whose cylinder was already turning as he depressed the trigger.
The report was loud and ringing, its noise alone nearly enough to jar me from my perch. Certain that I had been shot, I could not at first understand the sudden contortion of Beacher’s body, hunched with the pistol rotating slowly out of his grip, until he crumpled to the ground on top of it with his hat cocked comically over one ear and his features twitching within inches of mine. Only then, in the dizzy euphoria of realizing that it was not I whom the bullet had found, did I turn my head and look down–miles down, it seemed, to the edge of that toy forest–to see Corporal Panther standing straight and tall, with Joe Snake’s Winchester carbine snug to his shoulder. A patch of gray smoke scudded sideways from the muzzle in the morning wind.
Chapter 22
THE TRADE
I have lost most of the details of what happened next. I remember pulling myself up and over the edge of the cliff–laughably easy it was, in the rush of my relief–and cooing to Beacher’s strawberry roan, which, ground-hitched only and made nervous by the gunshot and the sight of the strange battered boy approaching, shied away a few exasperating yards at a time until I could seize the reins; but I do not remember at all my journey back around to where Panther awaited me. Evidently it was as gentle and uneventful a path as the dead man had claimed.
“I wish Sergeant Redfern had seen that,” greeted the Indian. “He gave up trying to teach me to hit anything with a long gun beyond fifty yards.”
His voice was weak. His fever had broken and he was bathed in cleansing sweat, but the effort of dragging himself from his bed and carrying the confiscated weapon through the woods had taxed him greatly. He was bleeding again.
“You should not be up,” said I, dismounting.
“If I were not, you would certainly be down. I woke up alone and turned out to learn why. I followed two sets of tracks from the dead man in camp to here.”
“I am grateful you did.”
I relieved him of the Winchester and helped him into the saddle. This took several tries, for my legs were quivering with exhaustion. Finally he was secure and I led the roan into camp, carrying the carbine.
We were alone with Bald Jim asleep in one of the wagons and Christopher Agnes still lying where he had fallen. This time the snakes’ venom had proven too much for his immunity. When I turned him over to confirm that fact, one of his killers slithered out from its warm berth beneath the corpse, buzzing its rattles. I reeled back, levered a fresh round into the Winchester’s chamber, and took off its head with my second shot. Its body was still thrashing when the echo faded.
Bald Jim went on snoring.
Panther resisted my efforts to help him down. “Cut out a mount for yourself and grab some supplies,” he said. “We’ll need another long gun and ammunition.”
I said, “You would not make ten miles in your condition.”
“Leave me where I fall and ride on.”
“I cannot leave this camp,” said I. “I gave Ben Wedlock my word.”
“The bandit?”
“Yes.”
“What is the value of your word to one of his stamp?”
“It has the value I place upon it.”
He regarded me. “Who is your father?”
“I never knew him. I was raised by my mother.”
“I would meet her.”
“If you stop at the Good Part Boarding House in Panhandle, you most certainly will.”
He dismounted then, waving me off when I stepped in to assist. When he was on the ground he allowed me to help him to the chuck wagon, where I lowered the gate to make him a seat. Inside the wagon I found alcohol and proper bandages. I cleaned and dressed his wound with the efficiency of practice, noticing in the process that the unhealthy flush had faded from the skin around the gash. So there was something to Wedlock’s Sioux remedy after all! But if I accepted that, then his fanciful tales of life as Chief Red Cloud’s prisoner and honored guest must also be examined in a fresh light. And if he was not all lies and treachery, then how much of what he said could be kept or dismissed? I could not fathom the man.
“What now?” asked Panther. “You appear to be the clearer-headed.”
I thrilled to this declaration of faith; then considered the question. “The sun is up. Wedlock and the others will return soon. They will not expect us to have overpowered Pike, Beacher, and Christopher Agnes.”
“How shall we take advantage of that?”
I told him. The plan had taken vague form in my mind during the trip through the woods into camp; now the finer details worked themselves out in the telling. When I had finished, the Indian studied me again.
“You are a white man through and through, to be that devilish,” said he.
“I have not lacked for examples on this journey. We must make ready.”
The sun had cleared the tallest of the hills when three horsemen appeared at the north end of camp. I recognized Wedlock in the middle aboard his blaze, with Blackwater chewing his omnipresent cigar at his right and the Negro wrangler with the withered arm at his left. I was seated on the front of the wagon where Wedlock had treated Panther, doing my best to appear bored and morose. When he saw me he halted, putting a hand up for the others to do the same. The sun flared off his glass eye when he turned it to put his good one on me.
“Where’s the others?” he called.
I said, “Pike’s asleep and Beacher’s with Bald Jim. Christopher Agnes is out hunting snakes.”
“A while ago we heard shots.”
“That was Pike practicing his marksmanship.”
“Funny time for it.”
“He was trying to scare me,” I said.
Blackwater laughed nastily; “That’s Pike all right.” For a long time the trio remained unmoving while their horses, tired and smelling camp, fidgeted impatiently. “How’s the injun?” Wedlock asked then.
“There has been no change.”
He scratched the blackened part of his face. Then he raised his voice. “Beacher! Pike!”
I said, quickly, “I am worried about Panther. Will you look at him?”
Wedlock nodded at Eli and Blackwater, who started their horses toward the other wagons. The one-eyed man came my way. Abreast of me he drew rein.
“You look worse used than the last time I seen you.”
“I have been up all night worrying about the Indian.” The others had almost reached the wagon containing Bald Jim and no one else.
“Pike give you a hard time?”
“I have not run off,” I reminded him.
After a moment he continued to the back of the wagon. I got off and circled behind him on foot. Just as he reached for the flap, Bald Jim’s voice called from the wagon where he had been fast asleep.
“Beacher? Beacher, where the hell are you? I need a sip of that tanglefoot. Beacher?”
Wedlock leaned back swiftly, drawing the big Remington from under his belt. Just then Panther tore aside the wagon flap from inside and thrust the Winchester at him, working the lever for emphasis. At the same time I took the heavy short-barreled revolver out of my shirt and thumbed back the hammer. I had found it not far from where Pike’s whip had snatched it from my hand.
“You’re pinned tight,” Panther advised him. Crouched in the wagonbed with the carbine’s stock against his cheek, he looked like an Indian in a posed photograph. There was nothing artificial about his expression.
The old guerrilla froze with his pistol half drawn. “You forgot about Eli and Blackwater.”
“Call them over,” said Panther.
Wedlock grinned. The Indian moved the Winchester an inch and repeated the order.
“This way, boys.”
They started over, leaving Bald Jim’s wagon. “Ben,” said Blackwater, “Beacher ain’t–” He saw me holding a pistol on his leader. Out came a huge Colt’s Peacemaker with the front sight filed off.
“Tell him to get rid of it!” Panther snapped. “Yours too.”
Wedlock threw his weapon aside. “Do it,” he said. “You too, Eli. We got us a thing here.”
They hesitated. I made elaborate threatening motions with my weapon. It occurred to me then in a flash of belated wisdom that these cutthroats might care nothing for their leader, that I had made the dreadful mistake of assigning Christian motives to animals. While I was considering the implications, Blackwater cursed and let his Peacemaker drop to the ground. Eli slid a long rifle of unknown manufacture out of his saddle scabbard and threw it in the dirt.
I must have sighed audibly, because Wedlock chuckled. “Who done for Pike, the injun?” Although he was facing Panther, the question was directed at me.
“He killed Beacher. I killed Pike.”
“Hell you did!” said Blackwater. ” ‘Less’n you backshot him.”
“Tha’s how I’d do it,” Eli said.
“Christopher Agnes?” Wedlock asked me.
“Killed by his pets. We buried him.”
He laughed. The sound of his mirth chilled me to my soles.
“Davy, you are a one. I rode with men twice your age didn’t–”
“Don’t say it!”
Everything that had gone bitter inside me, all the betrayal and crushed innocence and on top of them the ordeal of the past twelve hours, had come out in those three words. He sobered.
“We had us a deal, me and you,” he said. “You gave your word on it.”
“Do not speak of honor to him,” warned Panther. “He has more of it at his young age than you will ever know. I should hand you over to Lives Again. You will know justice before you die.”
“Lives Again is dead for good. And this here’s between me and Davy.”
“He is right,” said I To Wedlock: “The understanding was my freedom for the map.” I drew out the leathern pouch with my free hand and tossed it past him. It landed beside his horse’s forefeet.
“What’s that?”
“Orrin Peckler’s directions to where the gold is hidden. The directions you killed Flynn to get.”
“You had them right along?”
“I would have shared my portion with you.” My eyes were stinging. “I would have given you all of it to go away with you and fight Indians and bandits and ride through the West like the heroes in Jed Knickerbocker’s books. All you had to do was ask.”
For a long time he was silent. The back of his neck was creased and red and I was aware for the first time of the deep furrows on the good side of his face. He looked his age and more.
“I reckon you’ll be holding us for Knox and the rest. They’re due here at noon for the trade; that schoolteacher never gave up a flicker when I laid it out. Deadwood ain’t far. We can be tried and strung up proper there.”
“Take the map and go.”
Even Panther was startled. I think that if all three of them had whipped their horses at that moment he would not have been able to collect himself in time to stop them. But they were as stricken as he.
“They are killers,” he said. “You told me yourself they murdered the man Sampson.”
“There is nothing to prove he did not fall from his horse and hit his head when his cinch broke. I do not care to see any of them again. The map is yours,” I told Wedlock. “You are welcome to it and all the misery it has brought me. Take it and go.”
He scooped it off the ground without dismounting, grunting as he straightened. He dug out the Confederate note, studied the addenda, and took off his campaign hat to fold the map inside the sweatband, throwing away the empty pouch. His fair hair was plastered tight to his big skull. His eye caught me.
“It ain’t over, Davy. Someday we’ll do all them things you said. The frontier ain’t over for those of us with sand in our craws. Not by a damn sight it ain’t.” He put on the hat at a rakish angle and gathered his reins. “Let’s ride, boys. We’re burning daylight.”
“What about our guns?” Blackwater was plainly unaware of the boon that was theirs.
“We’ll get better ones and provisions in Deadwood. You’ll see to Bald Jim?” he asked me. “He’s a fair healer and wants for nothing but whiskey.”
“We will deliver him to the authorities in good fettle. His bravery may spare him the gallows.”
“Right and good!” said he; and regarded me one last time, Judas eye glittering. “No, sir, Davy. It never will be over for our kind.”
He backed the sorrel away from the wagon and reared it as he wheeled. A smack of his hand on its rump and they were away, trailing the others. The trees took them in, and soon even their hoofbeats were gone.
I never saw any of them again except in dreams.
“Thank you for not interfering,” I told Panther.
“You were the wronged party.” Winchester lowered, he was gazing after the departed company. “And ‘I suppose I owe Wedlock for my life. I do not know that I agree with the price.”
“I have known little but wickedness since the map came into my possession. I am free for the first time in many weeks.”
Wedlock for once was true to his word. The sun was barely overhead when five men entered camp from the north, two mounted, three on foot. There was no mistaking the Deacon’s granite angular figure aboard his rangy claybank, or the big Swede Dahigren riding Mr. Knox’s mare Cassiopeia with a stained bandage knotted around his right thigh. Mr. Knox was leading the mare–unshaven and obviously exhausted, but no less Mr. Knox.
Young Will Asper looked fit, if disgruntled. Several steps behind them hobbled Judge Constantine Blod, leaning heavily upon his stick, his overabundance of flesh hanging from him like some enforced burden. He alone was not carrying a weapon.
At sight of me, Mr. Knox uttered the only blasphemy I had ever heard from his lips and hastened forward, dropping the mare’s reins so that it halted. He put away his pistol to rest his hands on my shoulders. I noticed then that one of his fingers was bandaged several times around.
“David! Lad, I thought it was another of Wedlock’s tricks. When he handed me your jacket–”
“I am all right,” said I; and being with him again filled me with energy, so that I told him everything, beginning with Mad Alice and finishing with Wedlock’s departure, as an excited boy tells his father all the details of a day at the circus. His reactions to our escape from the stable and to the deaths of Christopher Agnes, Nazarene Pike, and Charlie Beacher were nothing compared to his astonishment over what I had done with Flynn’s map.
“Gave it to Wedlock? David, what could you have been thinking? I know you were shaken, and yet–”
“That was the condition for my release,” I said. “I could do no other, having given my pledge.”
Will Asper was enraged. “We risk our skins and he gives the swag away like a bloody saint! Dolly and me throwed in with the wrong side!”
The Swede said something in his native tongue that did not sound like argument.
“Treasures to Babylon.” Hellfire squirmed in the Deacon’s ice-blue eyes. “May Elder Sampson sit in judgment.”
Judge Blod was weary. “I said at the start the boy should stay home. In one fell swoop he has rendered the entire expedition meaningless.”
“How can that be,” said Mr. Knox wryly, “when you have said that you are not interested in wealth, only in journalistic fodder? You have made a man’s choice this day, David. Your life is worth more than bullion.”
“But I did not give up the bullion.”
Silence surrounded me. I felt the scrutiny of six pairs of eyes. I did not keep their owners waiting.
“The map,” I said, “is a lie. Follo
w me and I will take you to Quantrill’s gold.”
Chapter 23
OUR QUEST ENDS
From a distance, the stable and dugout looked like natural features of the landscape, between which the shadows of the five wooden crosses joined to form a latticework in the late-afternoon light. There was no sign of the old woman.
“It looks abandoned,” said Mr. Knox, handing me his binoculars. “Perhaps she cleared out after your escape.”
I focused the lenses on the stable. We had stopped the wagon containing the prospecting equipment atop a rocky knoll with an unobstructed view of Mad Alice’s homestead a quarter of a mile away. With us, mounted, were the Deacon, Will Asper, and Panther on a borrowed horse. Judge Blod lay in the wagonbed complaining of his gout, which he had at last stopped referring to as a wound of honor. Dahlgren, trusting–touchingly, I thought–young Will to look after his interest, was back in camp resting his leg and keeping Bald Jim company.
“No, she is there.” I returned the binoculars. “She has replaced the poles we removed, and I can see the horse moving about in the stable. The question is, how do we make our approach?”
“Straight on, if there is any truth in what you told me. Any other way would certainly invite a slug from her musket.”
“We still might. There is no predicting her.”
He studied me. “We needn’t do this, David. That gold has claimed enough lives.”
“It is no longer just the gold,” I said. “It is the reason we are out here, and why good men have died. Besides, it is only a question of time before Wedlock and the others figure it out. I would not see that bandit and prevaricator gain. There is no good in him.”
“Bandit and prevaricator, certainly. No man is evil through and through. I know for a fact that Wedlock is not.”
I looked at him. For the first time I saw embarrassment cross his features.
“I am hardly inclined to speak in Wedlock’s favor,” said he. “However, there is no question that he was devastated when he thought you’d been killed.”
“He said words to that effect, I have no doubt. He can make a rock shed tears when he is so inclined.”
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