Chapter 25
Henry was still in his cot. Whatever that man’s real name was, Sol didn’t need to think of him as anything but Henry. Cursing himself under his breath, Sol wondered how he could be so arrogant as to think he could waltz into this camp and waltz back out again without starting any ruckus. Rather than waste any more time thinking it over, Sol made sure his guns were loaded and then scooted toward the back of the tent.
‘‘You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?’’ Henry asked.
Ignoring the man completely, Sol dove for the loose section of the tent under which he’d crawled earlier. It took a bit of squirming, but Sol made it out in short order. His mind churned on everything that had gone wrong. But the whole night wasn’t a loss. If Garver was there taking orders from Oberlee, that meant that whatever was happening with the money shipments was linked all the way to that level of the Jessup Mining Company. Since Oberlee had at least one lawman working for him, that meant he was more dangerous than some thieving boss. Either that, or Oberlee was a concerned businessman trying to protect his money from a bunch of robbers.
‘‘Good Lord,’’ Sol groaned as more shots were fired and a few men started making their way inside the tent. ‘‘What was I thinking?’’
Everything rushed through Sol’s mind so quickly that he felt as if he might just get thrown off the face of the earth and into empty air. Forcing himself to get moving again, Sol tripped and twisted to one side to keep from landing on his face.
He hit the ground on his left arm, which sent an explosion of pain through his entire body. Although it wasn’t a graceful landing, he didn’t think it should have hurt so badly. When he looked down, he saw his arm was bleeding in several spots. Only then did Sol remember being grazed by a few bullets from the first bunch that had ripped through the tent.
Whether it was the sight of his own blood or the pain that flowed from those wounds, Sol was snapped out of his haze quicker than if he’d been doused with cold water. He bolted away from the tent and made it a bit farther than he’d hoped, but wasn’t about to celebrate just yet.
The hailstorm of lead continued, but most of it erupted from the front of the biggest tent. Every so often, a shot was fired from somewhere in the distance that sounded more like whip cracks than gunshots. Even stranger was the fact that those shots seemed to come from a slightly different angle each time.
Hearing voices to his right, Sol looked in that direction and saw a group of men slowly approaching him. They were about ten paces away and immediately backed up when they spotted Sol. Gritting his teeth through the pain of his small wounds, Sol prepared to defend himself. All he needed to do, however, was wave his gun toward that group of men to send them scurrying away as quickly as their legs would carry them. Not only were those men unarmed, but they were barely dressed. They covered their heads with their hands and rushed toward the smaller tents situated next to the wagons.
If only the rest could be sent away so easily.
When Sol saw Garver and two of the other gunmen running around the large tent, he immediately took aim with both guns. Before he could think twice about it, he pulled his triggers and sent a barrage of lead through the air. Sol didn’t even know if he hit anything. All he could see was the smoke from his pistols and all he could feel were the guns bucking against his palms.
Men scattered in every direction. A few of the gunmen dove for the ground, but Garver dropped straight down and kept his eyes on Sol.
‘‘You got lucky once,’’ Garver shouted. ‘‘It ain’t about to happen again!’’
Sol stopped firing and suddenly wished he knew how many bullets he’d spent. He looked to see where the other gunmen were and caught one of them sitting up to sight along the top of his pistol. Just then, another one of those distant shots cracked through the air and delivered a piece of lead into the gunman’s back. As that gunman fell over, Sol turned and made a run for the edge of the camp.
‘‘Where are my drivers?’’ Oberlee shouted. ‘‘Get over here and get these wagons moving!’’
Those petrified, half-dressed men whom Sol had sent running before now emerged from behind the wagons. They traded some words with Oberlee, who shoved them toward the horses and barked at them to get the teams hitched into their harnesses. If Oberlee had had a whip in his hand, he would have undoubtedly used it to make the frightened drivers work faster.
As he ran away from the camp, Sol felt like he was trapped inside a bad dream. Even though his legs were moving, he wasn’t completely sure if he was covering any ground. And if he was, he didn’t quite know where he was headed. Every part of him hurt to some degree or another. No matter how unlikely it seemed that he would make it out of that camp alive, Sol wasn’t about to stop trying. He’d already gotten himself in too deep to try and rest now.
Suddenly, a pair of men ran around the edge of the camp to circle toward Sol from the right. Sol’s boots skidded upon the rocks in his haste to change directions, but he managed to do so as a shotgun blast erupted from behind him. A shot from the distance hissed past Sol’s head and continued over his shoulder, but Sol didn’t turn around to see where that bullet landed.
Behind Sol, one of the men hollered. Another shotgun was fired, but Sol had already been forced to circle around the camp. Oberlee, the man with the badge and one other had made their way to the wagons. A few more men who looked as if they’d only just been pulled out of their bedrolls were scrambling around to hitch the horses to the wagons. One of those men, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a pair of long underwear, raced to climb into the lead wagon’s driver’s seat. Even before he’d gotten the reins in his hands, another man carrying a shotgun and wearing a nightshirt climbed into the seat beside him.
‘‘Get these wagons out of here!’’ Oberlee shouted. ‘‘Right now, before any more of those robbers come swarming down on us!’’
With a good number of men from the camp gathered around the wagons, Sol turned to run in the opposite direction. He made it less than two steps before charging directly into Garver’s fist.
The punch had come as such a surprise that Sol barely even felt it. Instead, he was knocked straight back and nearly off his feet. Garver took one step forward and delivered a punishing kick to Sol’s ribs.
‘‘That’s for shooting me back when you stole Charlie’s money,’’ Garver grunted. He brought up his gun, thumbed back the hammer and said, ‘‘This is for shooting Bill.’’
Sol lay flat on his back so he could lift both hands and fire with both guns. One of them only let out a single round before it was empty. The other spat three shots in fairly quick succession before it fell silent. Even after he knew he was out of ammunition, Sol kept pulling his triggers.
Pulling himself to his feet, Sol held the guns in front of him as if they were something more than iron weights. Even though he carried fresh bullets in his gun belt, he was too rattled to reload. Sol couldn’t look away from the sight of Garver flopping on the ground like a fish that had been plucked from the stream.
Garver’s shirt was a bloody mess. He locked eyes with Sol as he forced out a painful cough. The rage in his glare slowly faded until it was replaced by sorrowful confusion. Then, like so many before him, Garver was gone.
The rumble of wagon wheels brought Sol back to the world of the living in a hurry. By the sound of it, Oberlee’s men had gotten both teams hitched to their wagons and were in the process of putting the camp behind them. The shots had died down a bit, since most of the activity was now centered on the wagons.
Sol was no longer worried about the money in that shipment. All he wanted was to stay alive. Sol kept that singular purpose in mind as he looked for the darkest, quietest spot that could be used as an avenue of escape.
‘‘Stop that man!’’ someone shouted.
Forcing himself to keep moving despite all the pain from his various nicks and bruises, Sol hurried past the small tents on the farthest edge of the camp. A few shots were fired at him and the ones that didn�
��t punch into the dirt whipped past him like swarming bees.
Behind Sol, the wagons were gathering speed. Those wheels rolled and the drivers whipped their teams to go faster.
Men were shouting, but most of those voices faded at the same rate as the rumble of the wagons.
Another shot was fired at Sol’s back. This one was close enough to sound more like a hungry animal barking in his ear.
‘‘One more step and you’re dead!’’
When Sol heard those words, he truly felt like an outlaw. It wasn’t the thrill he’d imagined when he was a child listening to all those stories about Nester Quarles. It was a simple choice that drifted through his mind: He could keep running, or he could turn and see if he could hurt those men bad enough for him to escape. Since his guns were dry, he knew he’d be forced to test his luck with the blade hanging from his belt.
Sol had never imagined that the thought of spilling another man’s blood would come to him so easily. At the moment he tried to figure which man he should take out first, he might as well have been deciding if he wanted honey or syrup on his biscuits.
Closing his eyes and bowing his head in shame, Sol planted his feet and raised his hands.
‘‘Now drop them guns!’’ the man behind him ordered.
Sol opened his fists and let the empty pistols hit the dirt.
There were heavy steps behind him as rough hands grabbed Sol’s wrists and pulled his arms down behind his back.
‘‘That hurt?’’ the man growled into Sol’s ear. ‘‘I should break your arms and every other bone in your body for what you done. Three men are dead.’’ After tying Sol’s wrists together with a length of rope, the man spun Sol around so he could look directly into his eyes.
As Sol had guessed, the man who’d tied his wrists together was the one with the badge. Only a lawman would shout so much when a bullet to the back would have gotten the job done twice as fast.
Another man hunkered down a few paces back. He had a bit more panic in his eyes when he looked up and, as far as Sol could tell, he wasn’t wearing a badge. ‘‘There’s another one over here, Cam.’’
The man with the badge turned toward the other one and dragged Sol along with him. ‘‘Another body?’’
‘‘Yeah. It’s Garver.’’
Cam winced, but seemed somewhat relieved. ‘‘What about Wayne or Andy?’’
‘‘They haven’t come into the camp yet. Maybe it was them that was firing the rifles earlier.’’
‘‘Are you stupid?’’ Cam snapped. ‘‘Why would one of them be shooting at the rest of us? One of this killer’s partners got to them.’’ Turning to level his gaze at Sol, Cam asked, ‘‘How many more of you are out there?’’
‘‘I don’t know how many more there are,’’ a third man said from somewhere outside the camp, ‘‘but there ain’t nobody around here no more.’’
Cam’s face brightened when he got a look at the man approaching from behind Sol. He smiled and asked, ‘‘Did you put the rest of them down, Wayne?’’
The third man walked into Sol’s field of vision. Actually, he staggered into view. When Sol looked over to the new arrival, he saw plenty of dirt on the man’s face, blood on his clothes and wariness in his eyes. A dented badge hung from his shirt pocket. Slowly, Wayne shook his head. ‘‘I think I hit him, but I didn’t kill him. I went to check, but there weren’t no body. At least . . . not no outlaw’s body.’’
Gritting his teeth, Cam asked, ‘‘You found Andy?’’
‘‘Yeah. Looks like someone gutted him.’’
Cam stared at Sol as if he meant to set a fire. ‘‘You killed my friend?’’
Sol shook his head, but didn’t put much into it. He knew it wouldn’t do him any good. ‘‘I snuck in here and was caught. Do you think I could have gotten close enough to your friend to kill him?’’
Glancing at the knife that was still hanging from Sol’s belt, Cam reached out to pull it from its sheath. He looked at the blade and then ran his finger along the flat portion of it.
‘‘Where’s everyone else?’’ Wayne asked. ‘‘I heard a lot of shooting.’’
‘‘They took the wagons and moved on,’’ Cam replied. ‘‘That dandy didn’t want to risk getting his suit dirty along with the rest of us.’’
‘‘Mr. Oberlee paid you to keep his shipment safe,’’ the man without the badge said. ‘‘If you don’t hold your end up, I’ll see to it he finds out and you won’t get the rest of your money.’’ Even as Wayne turned and stalked toward him, the gunman held his ground. ‘‘And if . . . anything happens to me,’’ he gulped, ‘‘the sheriff will find out about this extra work you agreed to do.’’
Sol watched the men stare each other down as if he were watching two dogs fight at the bottom of a pit.
‘‘And if you’re inclined to be so difficult,’’ Cam replied, ‘‘maybe Mr. Oberlee should be told you were killed along with the others when all the shooting was going on.’’
The gunman didn’t back down as such, but those words had obviously shaken him down to the core. His concern grew when he realized he was the only one left in the camp who wasn’t a lawman or a prisoner. ‘‘I was just saying you got a job to do,’’ the gunman said. ‘‘We all do.’’
Cam nodded and shifted his eyes back toward Sol. ‘‘You’re right about that.’’ As he said those words, Cam aimed his pistol at Sol’s head.
When he heard the metallic click of that hammer being thumbed back, Sol closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable.
‘‘Wait,’’ Wayne said. ‘‘You can’t do that.’’
Cam’s voice was cold as ice. ‘‘He killed Andy.’’
‘‘It might have been one of his partners.’’
For a moment, Sol felt a faint whisper of hope brush through his head.
‘‘But he killed at least one man in this camp,’’ Cam replied.
‘‘And Bill,’’ the gunman added. ‘‘He was one of Mr. Oberlee’s men. That man there shot Bill dead and ran off with Charlie Lowell’s money.’’
‘‘You know that for a fact?’’ Wayne asked.
The gunman kept his voice steady and nodded solemnly. ‘‘There’s a price on his head for it,’’ the gunman explained. ‘‘Twenty-five hundred dollars.’’
‘‘You hear that, Wayne?’’ Cam asked. ‘‘Anyone can kill this man and they’ll collect a reward. After all the blood this animal’s spilt, I won’t even accept the reward. That make you feel any better?’’
Without missing a beat, Wayne said, ‘‘The only money you accept is your wages.’’
‘‘Sure, but don’t forget the money we took from Mr. Oberlee. You think the sheriff would take too kindly to that?’’
"It wasn’t a bribe."
‘‘Maybe not, but we was bought and paid for,’’ Cam told him. ‘‘The sheriff ain’t around and we’re taking orders from someone who paid us plenty to do what he tells us to do. You can call it what you want, but that’s what it is.’’
‘‘We were hired to protect that shipment,’’ Wayne said sternly. ‘‘The wagons have moved on and the shooting’s stopped. We’re not Oberlee’s killers.’’
Sol watched the two lawmen argue and was careful not to move or make a sound. The scales might not be tipped in his favor just yet, but things were looking a whole lot better than they had a few minutes ago.
Although the fire in Cam’s eyes wasn’t as intense as it had been before, it was still burning when he said, ‘‘This man’s a killer, Wayne. He’s wanted and he fired at damn near everyone in this camp. The only reason he didn’t kill more was because he missed.’’
‘‘If I wanted to be another one of Oberlee’s hired killers, I would have asked for a lot more money,’’ Wayne said. ‘‘No matter what jobs we took on the side, we’re still lawmen.’’
‘‘Last time I checked,’’ Cam growled as he once again stared at Sol, ‘‘we were still doing our duty by putting down mad dog killers like this one here.’’
Sol was beginning to see a prison cell and court-house in his future instead of a bullet through his skull. He felt even better when he caught sight of Nester creeping through the camp to get a good spot behind the lawmen and remaining gun hand.
Nester crouched on the front half of one of the small, half-collapsed tents left behind by one of the wagon drivers. With the other half of the little tent still propped up, Nester’s silhouette could hardly be seen.
‘‘What’s the proper way to deal with someone who killed one of our own?’’ Cam asked.
Wayne looked over his shoulder and back toward the direction from which he’d approached the camp. ‘‘There are some sturdy trees over there. I say we hang him. That way, if the sheriff wants to check up on what happened here, they can find Andy’s body up on that rise and this one’s swinging from a branch. We’ve done our jobs and it’ll all be done by the letter of the law.’’
‘‘And if any more of those robbers come along, they can get a real good look at what’s in store for them,’’ Cam added as he eased the hammer of his pistol back down. ‘‘Sounds just fine to me.’’
‘‘And why the hell don’t we just shoot this one and be done with it?’’ the gunman asked.
‘‘Because the sheriff would hang him,’’ Cam replied. ‘‘We’re deputies of the sheriff, so we’ll follow his way.
You ever seen a man hung?’’
The gunman shrugged and shook his head. ‘‘No.’’
‘‘Then you should watch this one and you’ll see we’re not doing him any favors. Once that rope starts tightening, he’ll wish we would’a shot him and been done with it.’’
Sol felt a cold sweat push its way out of his face and hands. That chill rolled all the way through him and seeped down to the marrow in his bones when he got a look at Wayne’s face. Only a few moments ago, it had seemed the other lawman was fighting to keep Sol from being cut down like a dog. Instead, Sol was going to be strung up like a man.
Frantically looking in the spot where he’d seen Nester, Sol didn’t find the sight he wanted. Rather than take aim with his rifle to give Sol the chance to run, Nester was backing away so as not to draw any attention. Apparently, he was more than happy to have Sol take the fall for both of them.
Death of a Bad Man Page 23