“Sure. I didn’t …”
“I see you again and I’ll kill you.”
“It was a mistake, Mr Crow. Oh, God! You bust my ribs for me.”
“Livin’s the mistakes you don’t make, son. That’s the lesson you learn tonight, then it’s not wasted.”
With that he was gone, vanishing silently into the night. One moment he was there, looming over Daniel like an avenging angel of doom, then he’d disappeared back towards the white rectangle of the wagon. The thing that frightened the boy even more than the crippling pain of the kicking was Crow’s voice. Through the vicious, bitter attack the shootist hadn’t once raised his voice above a whisper.
Daniel lay down, huddled like a baby on a cold night, and he started to cry again.
“Where is my son?” asked the Reverend Spangel, standing by the rig, holding on to his staff as though it comforted him. Beyond the green pastures the waters flowed on through the valley, filled with the shadows of death.
“Out yonder,” said Crow. “Ben. You all right?”
The ramrod managed a grin, though his face in the moonlight was paler than Sierra melt-water. “Feelin’ fine and dandy, Crow. You figure they’ll come against us one more time?”
“I figure there’s more still camped some ways up yonder,” pointing to the northern end of the valley. “They’ll have heard the shooting and it won’t be long before they send in a scout. Then …”
“Then what?”
“Then, Reverend, we’ll see.”
“Should I pray?”
“Pray all you want,” replied the shootist. “Just so’s it doesn’t stop me and Ben gettin’ our guns charged up again.”
It took only a few seconds for them. Crow slipping in two more ready-mades to the scattergun. Emptying out the spent cartridges from the Colt and reloading it. Checking that he had more bullets ready in the pockets of his black jacket. Ben painfully doing the same with the Winchester.
“Where d’you want me, pardner?” he asked the shootist. “Over by the wagon?”
“No. If’n they get through to us, they’ll go for the rig. Guess that the Reverend should be there, among those rocks. You with him. I’ll carry you in a moment.”
“What about my son, Mr Crow? Can he not be of use?”
“Your son is about as much use as a bladeless knife, Mr. Spangel.”
The great head with its veil of silver hair bowed at the words, and the voice was quieter than before. “I know he is a hollow reed, Mr Crow. That is part of the burden I bear.”
“Well, you go bear it over there and keep clear. Ben’ll do his best for you.”
He hefted the ramrod to a safe position, surrounded by large boulders, where Ford could fire easily from a prone situation, without exposing himself unnecessarily to any return fire.
Ford looked up at him, catching his arm. “Why don’t you just ride away, Crow?”
“Maybe I will, Ben.”
“Go now. “Fore it’s too late.”
“Leave you with a blind man and his useless boy? I said I maybe would, Ben. When I do I’ll tell you.”
“And that’ll be the end?”
Crow sniffed. “Yeah, Ben. That’ll be the end.”
An hour or so later the Mexicans sent a man out to find where the others were. A lone rider on a grey horse, cantering confidently along on the far side of the river, reining in and standing in the stirrups, trying to see into the darkness.
But most of the moon had gone and he couldn’t make anything out. Spangel was hidden in the wagon and Crow and Ford were waiting patiently in their positions, rifles at the ready.
Daniel still hadn’t reappeared and Crow couldn’t have cared less.
“Figure he’ll come over?” whispered Ben Ford, twenty yards off to the left of the shootist.
“Hope so. Could do with another easy killing. Whittle the odds down some more.”
But the bandit was more cautious. Walking his grey up and down on the opposite shore, shouting out some kind of warning in Spanish. Finally taking out his rifle from the saddle bucket and snapping off three shots in the general direction of the camp. From where they were, Crow and Ford could see the Mexican more easily then he could see them, but the distance and the light weren’t good enough to bother with risking a shot at him. It was better to keep quiet so that when the main body came in at them, they wouldn’t have any idea how many there were opposing them, or where they were placed.
Finally, with a last shot at the wagon, that ripped through the canvas with a dry, tearing sound, the bandit spurred his horse away, disappearing into the blackness at the far end of the valley.
“Won’t be long now,” said Ford.
Crow didn’t say anything.
There wasn’t anything to say.
Crow flicked open the case of the gold hunter, holding it close to his ears. Barely able to catch the soft sound of the ticking over the sounds of the river. By angling the face of the watch he could just see the last shreds of moonlight shining faintly off the black Roman numerals.
“Near three, Ben,” he whispered.
“Figure they’ll wait for dawn?”
“My guess is that there’s more of ’em somewheres near here. Maybe we saw some of part of them. Guess the rest might come to try and figure out what’s happened. But there must be around a dozen or so still alive. Maybe outside the canyon.”
When it came to fighting Crow was good at guessing. Not always right, but not often wrong.
Beyond the water they could just make out a body of men. Not more than five, though, was Crow’s judgment. They reined in across the other side of the ford, clearly not certain of their tactics.
“Hey, gringos! You hear me, you over that side? I know you there.”
They kept silent.
The Mexican tried three or four more times, reining his horse right into the edge of the water, so that the hooves kicked up a fine white spray.
“We got many amigos, come soon. You not goin’ no place, compadres. We got you trap good.”
Then came a volley of ragged shots, none of them coming close enough to do any harm. After that the band galloped away, whooping and shouting. It was very quiet once they’d gone.
“We could hitch up the team and make a run for the top of the trail,” suggested Ford.
“They’d …”
The ramrod answered his own suggestion. “Get us before we was halfways up that snakin’ trail. Yeah. Guess that’s so.”
Crow thought again about saddling up his stallion and making his own try for safety. Ford seemed to be reading his mind.
“Pappy used to say as a man waits for the last moment, finds he’s missed the train.”
“I hear you, Ben.”
“Could be there won’t be another train along, Crow. You think on that.”
Crow was also thinking on the money that was in the wagon, under the blankets where the Reverend Charles Spangel rested. Money donated by the good Christian folks of Pensacola, Florida. A whole lot of dollars, packed into a pair of wooden boxes. Chests that were locked tight with two of the biggest padlocks that Crow had ever seen. A futile gesture since the boxes themselves could have been kicked open by an angry whore in button boots, using her Sunday parasol to lever off the hinges.
That money made a strong reason for staying around a while longer.
It remained quiet. The moon had almost disappeared, leaving only a faint shimmering of light behind the tops of the surrounding mountains.
The shootist could no longer see the face of his watch, but he guessed that it had to be coming close towards four. Less than an hour and the sky would begin to lighten. If the bandits were coming before dawn, they’d need to make their move soon.
“Where’s the boy?” hissed Ben Ford. “Ain’t seen a hair of him.”
“He was back yonder. I’d spoken to him some about runnin’ out on friends. Guess, he’s digestin’ the lesson.”
“Maybe you should …”
“Maybe not.�
� He paused. “Hell, I’ll go back see if he’s there.”
The noise of the thundering falls drowned the grating of his heels among the damp stones and sand. He heard the old man shifting in the rig, making it squeak on its springs. And one of the tethered pair of horses whinnied softly as he went by.
The rocks were silent and empty. Crow walked around and through them, but there was no sign of the boy. Which meant he was either on his way up the trail or he was in among the cottonwoods. He couldn’t have gone anywhere else.
A cool breeze had risen, tugging at his hat, and he pulled down on the brim, setting his shoulders as he stepped in towards the jagged shadows of the trees.
Stopping.
A sound catching his attention.
Faint creaking, like a leather door hinge rubbing on wood.
It was a sound that Crow had heard before and he moved his hand from the butt of the Purdey. Whatever he was going to find there wasn’t likely to be able to do him any harm.
“Oh, Hell,” he said quietly.
Daniel Spangel had dragged a heavy boulder over, pulling it painfully through the soft shingle. The furrow was fifty feet long and the marks of the boy’s feet showed the effort that it had needed.
The boulder still stood under the tallest of the trees. A tree that looked as though it had been hit by lightning once upon a year. A side branch, ten feet or so high, had been torn off, leaving a jagged, white-tipped stump.
The boy had looped his belt over that branch, using the rock to mount up. Crow could see that the first attempt hadn’t worked. The belt had been too short. So Daniel had stripped off his shirt, revealing his painfully thin body, the ribs darkened from the kicking Crow had administered to him. Knotting the shirt over the branch, then tying the end of the broad leather belt to it.
He’d put the loop around his neck, balancing precariously on the rough top of the boulder. Then simply stepped off into the silence of eternity. The noose hadn’t broken his neck. Daniel had strangled slowly, his eyes popping white from their sockets, the mouth open. Lips swollen and blood trickling black from between his teeth and from his nose. Crow noticed with a dispassionate interest the common phenomenon that the strangling had given the boy a massive erection.
The shootist didn’t feel any particular sorrow or sympathy for the hanged youth. As far as he was concerned, Daniel had been little enough use alive.
He turned away from the corpse, still swinging a little in the wind, the leather of the belt stretching and creaking as it weighed on the broken branch.
Behind him, by the river, Crow heard a shot being fired and a call for help.
It had finally begun.
Chapter Fifteen
The Mexicans had second-guessed them. Though they probably knew there were reinforcements somewhere around the isolated valley, there was no way of knowing for certain when they’d appear.
So three of the band had chosen, maybe fortified by tequila or cheap whiskey, to try a night-time raid. There had to be another crossing-place, ways up the river, for they hadn’t come over where Ben had been watching.
The first he knew was a disturbance near the rig. Horses stamping. Crow’s stallion kicking out at somebody skulking in the blackness.
“I fired over there and heard Spangel yell out.” Crow had arrived, sprinting out of the dark, diving in the sand near Ford. His scattergun ready in his fist. Listening intently to the ramrod’s hurried explanation. After that single shot there’d been silence.
“Sure there’s three?”
“Yeah. Reverend’s got ears on him. Shouted there was three men movin’ by the rig. That’s all.”
It’s a stand-off. We can’t get to them. They won’t move from cover.”
Ford nodded. Slipping another round into the Winchester, cradling the butt back against his shoulder. They’ll take us easy if more of them come over there.”
The shootist drew in a deep breath. “Then I’ll shift them from by the wagon.”
But it wasn’t necessary. The Mexicans made their move first.
“Hey!” Spangel. “Hey, what’s happening here?”
“That the old man?” said Ford.
“Yeah.”
“With them bandits back, I never asked you.”
“Daniel, you mean?”
“Sure. You find him, Crow?”
“I found him.”
The flatness was unmistakable. Ford whistled. “He’d done for himself?”
“Yeah. Hanged on a tree by his belt.”
“Poor bastard.”
“Maybe. Maybe better that way.”
There was silence from by the wagon. Crow didn’t call out to the old man to find out what was happening. There was no point. It would just give away their position to the Mexicans.
Nothing happened for better than a half hour. Except that the first glimmering of the false dawn appeared, washing the deepest blackness from the corners of the sky.
“We’ll soon be able to see ’em, Crow,” hissed Ford.
“Sure. And they’ll be able to see us.”
Crow stared into the pits of shadow behind the wagon. There was a flicker of movement and he put down the Purdey, hefting the Winchester. Bringing it to his shoulder and squinting along the barrel. Like all great marksmen Crow fired with an open, two-eyed stance.
“See one?”
“Yeah. But not clear enough. Close by the front where those stones are braking the wheels.”
“Hell. If’n they move them, Crow, the whole wagon could roll on down that slope there and clean into the river. And that’d be the end of the rig.”
“And the money.”
“And the Reverend Spangel.”
“Be the end of my contract.”
There was a moment of stillness before Ben Ford spoke again. “And me, Crow. And me.”
“You can’t sit a horse at all?”
“Not even to save my life. And this sure as Hell would be to do that. Nope. Can’t do nothin’ but lie here.”
“A travois?”
“Sure. Where’s the wood, Crow? And with a hornet’s nest of greasers shootin’ at you. Come on …”
The shootist was saved from trying to reply to the unanswerable by another shout from Spangel. Revealing that their worst fears were happening.
“I’m moving! Holy Christ, save me! I’m moving!”
“They’ve moved the fuckin’ stones, Crow!” called Ben, firing three rapid shots into the dim pool of darkness below the wheels of the Conestoga. He was rewarded with a yelp of pain. A figure jumped from the ground onto the seat of the rolling wagon, seeking cover.
Crow lay still where he was, not prepared to take the chance of exposing himself to a sniper’s fire from among the boulders.
“It’s goin’ to …” began Ford, stopping when he realized how trite and obvious the thought was.
The wagon was clearly going into the river, gathering speed under its own weight, creaking and rattling. Whatever Crow had tried to do it would have been much too little and much too late.
It hit the edge of the water with surprisingly little splash, only a burst of white foam, tinged pink by the rising light, splattering up around the wheels. The bottom of the river shelved steeply and there was sufficient impetus to the rig to carry it out into the middle, where it immediately began to float. Turning like a majestic state barge in the swift current.
“Could you get a rope on it?”
Crow didn’t answer for a moment. Realizing that if there was any chance, no matter how remote, it might be worth taking a risk to try and save the wagon.
Not the wagon.
Not the Reverend Charles Spangel.
But the money. Those chests filled with money. In less than a minute the rig would reach the beginning of the steep, jagged rapids, where the waters would boil and tip it over. Rolling it and smashing it open, carrying the shards of wood and everything in it way deep under the ground, where it would be lost forever.
“Nothin’s worth gettin’ kil
led for. Except your own life, Ben,” said Crow, remaining where he was.
“You could, maybe. Hell, guess you’re right, Crow. Only takes one man with a rifle behind there and he can hit you easier than stealin’ wool off an old woman’s needles.”
Together they watched the closing seconds of the Conestoga. To their surprise they suddenly saw the unmistakable figure of Spangel appear at the rear of the wagon, tearing back the canvas cover. His giant body was huge and black against the whiteness. And he was holding one of the Mexicans in his arms.
“Jesus,” breathed Ford. “Will you look at that man!”
“Perish in the waters, you damnable cur!” roared the old preacher, hurling the body out into the foaming river. The bandit sank for a moment, then reappeared, arms flailing helplessly. They saw him battered against one of the first jagged tips of the rapids and then he vanished and didn’t reappear.
“Vengeance is mine, saith …” began the echoing bellow of the Reverend Spangel, above the screams of the drowning man and the raging of the falls. Then Ford and Crow heard the muffled crack of a shot.
Another.
A third.
They saw him stagger, the arms reaching out to the heavens. The head turned to look into the wagon, the blind eyes seeking his assailant. Lurching out of sight of the two watchers.
They heard a fourth shot.
“Pistol,” said Crow, laconically.
“Must be another in there.”
“There,” said Crow.
Spangel reappeared a last time. Holding a struggling Mexican in his arms as though the bandit was a fractious child. They could see the first light gleaming off the polished frame of a Colt. There was another shot, barely audible as the barrel of the pistol was pressed deep into Spangel’s barrel chest.
“That’s five bullets in him,” whispered Ford, with something close to religious awe in his voice. “Man just won’t go down.”
The old preacher must have been dying on his feet, fighting for his balance against the rocking of the wagon. The rig trembled on the brink of the first sharp descent into the maelstrom.
“Goin’,” said the shootist, and he might have been speaking about the wagon. Or about the minister.
One-Eyed Death Page 10