"Might come, not would. If I'd known it was guaranteed—"
"What? You'd have turned the silver profits down? Pitched in to help the Mormons?"
Walton made no response to that, but reached out for his whiskey glass.
"I didn't think so," Beardsley said. "We're in this thing together, and that's how we're getting out of it."
"All right," the judge replied. "What now?"
Beardsley withdrew a pistol from his desk drawer, sliding it across toward Walton. "First, protect yourself."
Staring at the weapon, Walton said, "I'm not a gunman."
"Be a man, at least."
"Is this the measure of it?"
"I would say it is, today."
Reluctantly, Walton picked up the pistol, hefting it. He thumbed the hammer back to half-cock, spun the cylinder, then lowered it again. "All right. What next?"
"Collect whatever money you can get your hands on in a hurry, and come straight back here. We'll see the marshal taken care off, then go by the bank on our way out of town and get the rest."
"Herb won't like it."
Picturing the chubby, balding banker, Beardsley said, "Who cares what Herbie Sims likes? He's a fatter man today, because of us."
"I'd better go." Walton stood up, tried shoving the pistol into his waistband, then gave it up and held the weapon loosely in his hand. "See you."
"Buck up," Beardsley advised. "A few hours from now, we'll be new men."
Nodding, the judge went out and shut the office door behind him. Beardsley let his smile relax into a brooding frown. Walton was clearly approaching the end of his rope, slipping into depression and guilt. Handing him a loaded six-gun was a gamble, but if he decided it was easier to use it on himself, so what? That simply meant another problem solved, more cash for Beardsley in the end.
It wasn't what he'd had in mind at first, when he'd decided they should jump the Mormon claim, but crying over spilt milk was a waste of time. The only thing Beardsley regretted, truth be told, was getting caught.
That hadn't happened yet, though.
Porter Rockwell still had trials to face before he got to Beardsley and the end of it in Tartarus.
* * *
A full half block of Main Street was engulfed in wind-whipped flames when Rockwell walked into the Nugget. He had reloaded the Sharps and the spare Colt cylinder, working quickly in an alley while he watched the panic spread through town. Fire was the worst thing that could happen to a rural settlement, aside from plague, made worse in desert towns by water shortages. He reckoned that the western half of Tartarus was doomed already, and the eastern half's survival would depend in large part on the wind's direction as the afternoon wore on.
But Rockwell was not waiting for the fire to do his job. He still had guilty souls to ferret out and punish with his own two hands.
Thy will be done.
At first, he thought the Nugget was deserted, then he heard a whistle. Two figures rose behind the bar, while two more came from somewhere to his left and overhead, moving across a kind of balcony that overlooked the barroom from the second floor. The two behind the bar had shotguns, while the pair upstairs made do with pistols.
Rockwell did not bother asking whether Beardsley was around. Before the shooters had a chance to open up, he threw himself to one side of the bat-wing doors and tipped a table over on its side, facing the bar, to use as cover. It was oak, he thought, but didn't stand much of a chance against the buckshot ripping through it with a sound like thunder, as the double-barrels both let go together. Splinters stung him, but the pellets missed, and Rockwell took advantage of the time the pair with scatterguns were bound to take reloading.
Rising from behind the shattered table, Colt in hand, he shot the taller of the two men on the balcony, watching a spout of blood erupt from where the bullet scored his throat. It was a killing wound, though not immediately fatal, but the wounded man went down and Rockwell heard his pistol clatter on the balcony.
He and the second upstairs shooter fired together, bullets crossing in mid-air. The gunman's slug whistled within an inch or two of Rockwell's ear, then he was doubled over, gut-shot, tumbling in an awkward somersault over the rail and plummeting to land behind the bar. The cursing that erupted there told Rockwell that he must have fallen onto one of the two shooters trying to reload.
Rockwell switched weapons, raised the Sharps and sighted roughly on the cursing voice behind the bar. It bucked against his shoulder as he squeezed the trigger, its .52-caliber slug punching through the bar's front paneling, and the profanity was cut short by a howl of pain.
He had the Sharps reloaded with another paper cartridge when the second barman rose, his double-barrel swinging toward its target. Rockwell got there first, another crack of smoky thunder from his rifle, and the scatter-gunner's head exploded like a gourd with fireworks packed inside.
Rockwell got up and palmed his Colt, crossing to move around the bar. His rifle slug had crushed the hidden shooter's hip and left him wallowing in blood, shotgun forgotten, as he clutched himself and moaned.
"Where's Beardsley?" Rockwell asked him.
"Gone. Knew you were coming."
"Where, not why."
"Dunno. Oh God, it hurts!"
Rockwell considered finishing his misery, then saved a slug and left him to it. Half of Tartarus would soon be ashes, maybe taking Beardsley with it, but he couldn't leave that part to chance. As long as any part remained, the hunt went on.
Where next? The judge's office, maybe ... or the house where money lived.
* * *
Walton was already inside the bank with Herbert Sims, the president and manager, when Beardsley entered with an empty leather satchel in his hand. The whole place smelled of smoke, though it was on the east side of Main Street and safe, so far. Sims displayed a sickly pallor, whether from the town's advancing immolation or the judge's large withdrawal from the vault, Beardsley could not have said.
"You too," the banker said, at sight of Beardsley. "I suppose I should've known."
"Nothing's forever, Herb," Beardsley replied.
In a stricken voice, Sims said, "The town. We were supposed to grow and prosper. You remember that?"
"Luck of the draw," said Beardsley. "Are you ready, Isaac?"
"As I'll ever be," said Walton, gray faced, sounding nearly as depressed as Sims.
"Christ, you two are gloomy. Try to see the opportunity in this."
"What opportunity?" Sims challenged him.
"To start fresh," Beardsley said. "New territory and new people. Hell, a whole new life."
"A new life?" Sims stared back at him, incredulous. "I'm forty-two years old, for heaven's sake!"
Beardsley considered that, then pictured Sims turning against him, under pressure from the law, making a deal to testify and thereby save himself.
"I guess you're right," said Beardsley, as he drew his pistol, a .31-caliber Remington Beals pocket revolver, and shot Sims in the face.
Walton lurched backward as the banker fell, crying, "My God!"
"He had nothing to do with it," Beardsley replied.
"But why? Why Herb?"
"He was a weakling. Think about it, Isaac? How long do you think he'd hold out when the law came asking questions?"
"Still."
"Still, what?"
"It's so . . . cold blooded."
"Worse than killing Mormons?" Beardsley sneered, "or is it just because you saw it done this time?"
"It's just . . . I didn't see it going on and on like this."
"Well, Christ all Friday, Isaac."
Looking at another weak link in the chain, Paul Beardsley raised his Remington and blew a hole in Walton's chest. The judge went down, wriggling and gasping like a man trying to rise out of a fever dream. Beardsley stood over him and fired another shot into his forehead, ending it. That done, he put away his pocket pistol and retrieved the gun he loaned to Walton earlier, tucking it underneath his belt. He picked up Walton's satchel,
too, before the spreading pool of blood could stain it. With his empty bag, he carried it around the cashier's counter, to the open vault in back.
There was no reason why the cash should go to waste. There was no question he had earned his share, and why not just take all of it—or, anyway, as much as he could carry.
Looking out at Tartarus in flames, he reckoned that the town had little need of money now.
Chapter 12
Main Street was blowing up a storm. The desert wind that had initially fanned flames along the avenue's west side had given way to something else, a draft from Hell's own bellows, making Rockwell sweat as he walked down the middle of the street. Around him, he identified two different kinds of citizens: those who already had been burned out of their shops and homes, watching the flames with ghastly faces, and the others who'd been spared so far but didn't know how long their luck would hold.
He felt some of them staring at him as he passed among them, three Colts in his belt, the big Sharps cradled in his arms. He saw the fear and hatred in their eyes, but no one made a move against him. They were frightened, more than furious, afraid to lose their lives on top of all their worldly goods.
Rockwell could muster nothing in the way of pity for them. He would never know how many of them were aware of what had happened to the murdered Saints. And frankly, he no longer cared. He had identified the men behind the killings, and had dealt with all but two of them, unless they had more flunkies posted somewhere on the safe side of the street, waiting to snipe at him.
Isaac Walton's office had gone up in smoke before he reached it, leaving nothing for him but the bank. Still standing, opposite the fiery ruin of the Mother Lode saloon, its door was shut and had a CLOSED sign hanging on the inside of the upper half, made out of glass. Rockwell supposed they had no fear of someone breaking in, before today.
He tried the doorknob, and it turned. Taking a cautious step inside, he saw two bodies stretched out on the floor in front of him. One man, shot through the left cheek by his nose, he didn't recognize. Likely a bank employee, possibly the man in charge. The other, also strange to Rockwell, had been shot once in the chest, and then again, above his left eyebrow. A gold medallion dangling from the watch chain on his vest was etched with three small letters.
I.M.W.
For Isaac Something Walton?
Probably, and that left only one man to be hunted down.
Before he left the bank, Rockwell walked back to check the vault and found no one concealed there. Sacks of what he took for coins, and maybe silver nuggets, lined a set of shelves, but he could find no paper currency. Add robbery and two more murders to the list of Beardsley's crimes.
Leaving the vault, he spied a back door standing open and went out that way, peering in both directions, hoping for a glimpse of Beardsley. There was no sign of him, certainly no point in studying the arid, sandy soil for footprints that would give a clue to his chosen direction.
Never mind.
If he was leaving Tartarus, he needed transportation.
Which meant he was heading for the livery.
* * *
"Saddle my bay," Beardsley commanded, getting edgy when the hostler stood and stared at him. "Right now!"
"Yessir."
The old man shuffled off to do his bidding, Beardsley chafing at his sluggishness and wishing he could beat some youth into the man. Cursing, he retreated to the open door fronting on Main Street, leaning out to watch the town die, scanning faces on the street in search of Porter Rockwell's.
Damn the man! Why did he have to come along on his crusade and ruin everything?
He and his fellow marshals hadn't managed to arrest the Mountain Meadows murderers, who'd killed ten times the number slain in Tartarus, but maybe that was by design. If Beardsley had disposed of people Rockwell and his church called Gentiles, would the marshal even care?
It made no difference now, of course. The damage had been done.
He turned back toward the hostler, shouting, "Are you finished yet?"
"Comin' right up!"
"Be quick about it!"
It was risky, hurrying the old fool, but his nerves demanded action. Beardsley knew he'd have to check the cinch straps, make sure they were tight enough to keep his saddle on the bay before he galloped off and got dumped on his butt within a mile of town.
There'd been no time to count his money while he was collecting it in haste, but Beardsley had a decent head for figures. He'd been thirty-seven thousand dollars to the good before he picked up Isaac Walton's share, plus whatever was left inside the vault at Herbie's bank. Enough to settle anywhere, rebuild his life under a new name and live happily until the Reaper came to visit, in another forty years or so.
Whatever it came out to, finally, Beardsley regarded it as no more than his due. The whole town owed him for the hard work he'd put into it, and now that he was force to flee, he saw a certain justice in the fact that so little of Tartarus would be left standing in his absence.
"Better luck next time," he muttered to the flaming ruins on the western side of Main Street.
Now he heard the hostler coming with his bay mare, moving slower than molasses on a winter morning. Beardsley went to meet him, set his satchels down while he was checking on the saddle cinches, then considered what to do with them once he was mounted.
Yet another damned delay.
"Do you have any good strong twine?" he asked the hostler.
"Should have."
"Well? Go fetch it!"
"Yessir."
Old man picking up his pace a little as he headed for a work bench, coming back a moment later with a ball of braided sisal string. He handed it to Beardsley, watching while his anxious customer measured a double length and cut it with a pocket knife, then tied it to the handles of his two fat leather bags. It was a pleasant strain to hoist them, twisting string around the saddle horn, so that one satchel hung on either side.
Ready at last.
Beardsley shoved several coins into the hostler's hand, not bothering to count them as he climbed aboard the bay. Without a backward glance, he spurred the animal and galloped past the stable's open doors.
* * *
Rockwell had circled back to Main Street on his way to reach the stable, watching out for Beardsley as he went, in case he had misjudged the man somehow. It made sense for his quarry to escape, but manhunting had taught him that a character who's desperate might not be thinking sensibly. He'd seen men stand and fight when they were sure to lose, and others run when they could probably have saved themselves if they'd had grit enough to try.
There must have been two hundred people on the street by now, watching the fire and basking in its heat. A couple of them grumbled something as he passed, but Rockwell didn't catch it and he didn't care, unless one of them made a move against him. As it happened, none of them was brave or dumb enough to try him. Nor were any of them armed, from what he saw so far.
That part could change, he realized. It only took one loud-mouthed, angry person to arouse a mob, and he could have real trouble on his hands. But looking at the people lining Main Street's eastern sidewalk, Rockwell thought they looked defeated, beaten down. Maybe resigned? He wondered if their shared guilt had prepared them for a day like this, when everything they'd built would lie in ashes at their feet.
Nearing the laundry, Rockwell saw the Chinese moving out. Their shacks were on the safe side of the street, at least for now, but they weren't taking any chances. They had packed two wagons, hitching them to mules he hadn't seen before, not waiting for the wind to shift and turn the flames or round-eyed populace against them. From his seat of honor in the lead wagon, the old man stared at Rockwell, might have nodded to him, but the drifting smoke left that in doubt.
Rockwell was fifty yards out from the livery when Beardsley, mounted, suddenly appeared, hunched over in his saddle, riding hell-bent for the northern end of Tartarus and anything that lay beyond it. Stopping in his tracks, Rockwell shouldered the Sharps
and framed his target in its sights.
One chance, and Beardsley would be out of range for decent shooting by the time he could reload. That meant a chase, maybe for miles, and Rockwell thought he'd rather end it here, if possible. He took a breath and held it, gently squeezed the trigger, waiting for the heavy kick against his shoulder when the hammer fell.
There was a heartbeat when he thought he might have missed, then Beardsley arched his back, one arm outflung, the other maybe clutching at his saddle horn. Then he was falling, taking something with him as he tumbled and the bay ran on without him. Saddlebags, perhaps, one of them bursting open when it hit the ground, loosing a storm of paper scraps.
Advancing, Rockwell saw that it was currency, wind-whipped, some of it being sucked into the nearby wall of flames. He watched a final tremor run through Beardsley's frame before the man lay still, his jacket, vest, the shirt beneath it sodden crimson where the big Sharps slug had come out through his rib cage.
It appeared that he had tried to take the money with him, even dying. As it was, his left hand clutched a length of twine he'd tied between the two black satchels, so that they had dropped on either side of him, the left one springing open on impact. Rockwell knelt down to close it, then released the death grip while he could, before the fingers started stiffening. Hoisted both satchels by the twine connecting them and backtracked toward the stable where he'd left his Appaloosa.
"Didn't get far," said the hostler, eyeing Beardsley's corpse.
"They rarely do."
"What happens now?"
"Depends on what the fire leaves, and what people want to do with it," Rockwell replied.
"It's burning out," the old man said. "I reckon we're okay."
"You think so?"
"Feel the wind. It's shifting."
"I hadn't noticed."
"Maybe 'cause you ain't from here. I'll get your horse."
When he returned, Rockwell gave him a bundle he'd removed from one of Beardsley's bags, not counting it. The old man blinked and frowned. "You paid up in advance," he said.
"A little something extra. Just in case."
"Well ...."
West of the Big River: Boxed Set of Eight Western Novels Page 19