‘Because we’d be lost within five minutes and dead within the hour. You want to go on, then don’t you let me hinder you, Ma’am.’
‘Shut your damned mouth, Crow.’
‘Yes, Ma’am. Want to feed your son, Mrs. Okie? Or maybe better not.’
‘Better not. I never liked him. A clumsy, ugly, fat child, too much like his father. Now he lies there slowing us down. If there was something to hand …’
‘A pillow, or somethin’ like that? Like the way Radley went?’
Her face went white as February snowfall and her hand fell to one of the gleaming pistols in her belt. Crow watched her movement, his face hard as stone.
‘Man draws on me, and I kill him. I can’t see a reason to treat you different.’
She fought a battle with herself and won it. Trying to paste a smile back in place, but it hung poorly on her angry lips.
‘We must not fall out, Crow. We are both all we have. And we must keep friends. I am sorry if I have been less than thoughtful with you. And for things I may have said. I am not … not myself.’
‘You look a whole lot more your real self now than any time since we met,’ he replied.
‘We have loved each other,’ she said, stepping in close to him and laying a hand on his arm.
‘Guess that’s not the word I’d have used. Not love, Amy. We screwed. That’s over. Most things are over now.’
‘Then we shall be friends. I have decided it. Good friends. And when the mine is found we shall be partners in it. Perhaps more …’ she said, coyly, leaving the end of the sentence dangling like an obscene invitation to him.
The snow stopped once more somewhere close to midnight, leaving drifts ten feet deep piled against the side of the trail. Crow walked back a hundred yards or so, peering out across the moonlit whiteness, seeing the track behind them was almost completely blocked. And all around, as far as he could see, every peak and rock was covered in a blanket of crisp snow.
‘Guess that’s the end of the chase for the Apaches,’ he said, to himself. They wouldn’t press on after such catastrophic losses in weather as bad as it had become.
It meant that all they had to fear was the weather worsening yet again. Though the shootist wondered whether if there might be another worry for him.
They ran into the bears in the early part of the next morning. The snow was so bad that Crow had tied Edgar across his saddle, shrouded in thick blankets, barely alive, but somehow still grasping to a spark of survival.
Amy came behind him, using his trampled steps to help her through the deep crust of whiteness. She led her own mule with her late husband’s animal pulling along at the rear.
There were five bears. Huge, black creatures, their thick coats crusted with snow and tipped with points of ice. Crow didn’t hear them coming because of the noise of his stallion’s hooves breaking through the smooth, deep white, crackling and rustling. The first warning he had was from his horse.
The black must have scented the bears’ rank odor and it pulled back, kicking up on its back legs, nearly pulling the bridle from Crow’s hands. It whinnied with terror and the shootist battled with it, struggling to draw the Colt, suspecting that it must be bears.
‘What is it, Crow?’ called the woman. ‘What’s scared him?’
The bears themselves answered her question, all of them coming in a lolloping run, seeming clumsy, yet covering the slippery rock as fast as a sprinting man. Their tongues hung out, spittle falling in gobbets from their gaping jaws, eyes gleaming redly with the prospect of so much fresh meat.
‘Oh, Jesus! Noooo!!’ screamed’ the woman, her voice raising shrill echoes from the cliffs all around, bouncing the sound back again and again. The noise was so loud that it actually had the effect of making the bears check, slowing down, and almost halting, sniffing suspiciously, glaring their hunger.
The stallion had passed through his first fear and was now quite locked away in mortal terror, seeing such fearsome enemies so close to him. Crow was forced to let him go, hoping that he wouldn’t bolt too far. Then drawing the scatter-gun as well, though he doubted what its effect could be against the thick-skinned animals.
There was a big old male, scarred across the nose, and four females. Two of them looking older and the other two younger. Crow figured that the early break in the weather must have caught the animals by surprise and they were now out foraging for needed food. All of them had finally halted, the male at the front, snuffling and shaking his great head from side to side, dribbling in the snow.
Even with the Winchester Crow knew that nothing would stop all of them once they got it firmly into their minds to charge. A big black bear weighed in at close to a half ton of lethal bone and muscle, and there wasn’t a bullet made that would stop that inside twenty paces. The Purdey would check one of the bears, and six bullets from the Peacemaker would deal with a second animal. That would still leave three.
The mules were both whinnying in mortal fear and Crow could hear the woman’s boots scrabbling for a hold in the frozen snow as she fought to hold on the reins. ‘Shall I let them go? Get my gun?’ she panted.
‘No. Hold them. Might be all we got left.’
The bears were still undecided and, on an impulse, Crow elected to walk towards them. Taking off his black hat, holding it by the wide brim, waving it backwards and forwards, making a hissing noise with his mouth.
‘Come on, you bastards. Get going. Come on! Get up, there!’
The Colt was back in its holster, the Purdey still in his right hand. Crow beat the hat against his thigh with his left hand, seeing doubt in the eyes of the bears. The big male snarled, so close that the shootist could smell the foulness of its breath. But the step it took was away from the advancing man.
He was less than ten paces from the male.
Five paces, and still the animal had only given that single step of ground back. The females were huddled together, uncertain what to do, eyes looking to the big male for a lead.
Crow flicked at the creature’s face, swiping it on the nose with the hat. Making it snarl again, but it took a further step back, lashing out with one of its front paws, nearly ripping the hat from his fingers.
The shootist advanced another pace, but this time the bear didn’t move, its neck extended, snapping at him with its strong yellow teeth. The scatter-gun was still in Crow’s right hand and he kept it pointed down, into the snow immediately in front of the male. Pulling both triggers at once, risking everything on a single throw.
Gouts of snow and splinters of rock and lead whirled about the bear’s face, dashing into its eyes and blinding it for a moment. AH five of the animals retreated at the sound and fury of the explosion, the females turning tail and starting to lollop back the way they’d come, whining with fear. Blood was trickling from the muzzle of the big male and it stood its ground only a moment longer than the others, before spinning about and following them. But that single moment seemed to Crow to stretch for ever. If the black bear had decided to still come on after him there would have been little chance.
As it was, they had survived again. He caught his stallion easily only fifty yards away, Edgar still safe on its back. Amy didn’t speak for some minutes after the incident, leading the mules.
Then: ‘That was close, Crow.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You were so brave.’
‘I don’t reckon that there’s truly any such thing as brave. There’s dying or living. You do what you can and maybe you get to live a whiles longer. That’s what some folks call brave. I don’t.’
The snow held off and the bears didn’t reappear, though Crow knew that they must have a den somewhere not too far off.
The next morning, according to’ the map, they were less than a half mile from the mine. Crow had halted the stallion, one arm supporting the sick boy, when his eye was caught by an unusual rock formation, way high up on the facing cliff. Something that he might not have seen from a hundred yards back or from a hundred yards fu
rther on.
‘Look.’
‘What?’
‘Up there,’ he said, pointing.
‘Where? I don’t see a thing.’
She had stopped a little further along the trail, leaning wearily forward in the saddle of the mule.
‘Come on here and look up. There. To the right, above that jagged scar on the rock shaped like a big letter “M”. See it?’
Amaryllis kicked her heels into the flanks of the burro, urging it on, reining it in when she was level with the shootist.
‘So, what’s so very important?’
‘See that …’ he began, but he saw her jaw drop and her eyes open wide with excitement, and he stopped talking.
‘The rock, Crow. Oh, Lord Jesus! It’s shaped like a falcon.’
He nodded. ‘Yeah, ma’am. Like a big black bird. We’re there.’
Chapter Twelve
The likeness to a falcon’s head was so striking that Crow wondered whether men hadn’t been improving on the hands of nature carving away some of the rock to strengthen the resemblance. But when he looked at it more carefully, he could see the lines of fracture in the cliff across the valley and the way that wind and rain and ice had exposed the weaknesses, breaking off chunks of bare rock to model it into the black bird. Now topped with snow, like a bizarre plume of dazzling feathers, it was easy from that one position to see the cruel hook of the beak, and the hollow like an eye.
‘We’ve made it, Crow,’ sighed Amy Okie, hugging herself and panting almost as if she was in the middle of some racking orgasm.
‘If’n those bears don’t reappear,’ said the shootist, pointing ahead of them where the tracks of the five animals led across the virgin whiteness, vanishing at a forking of the trail. ‘They must live hereabouts. Wouldn’t care to run into them again.’
‘You’d scare them off, my hero,’ she replied, smiling at him with some trace of her former fondness. But having once seen the dark side of her character, Crow wasn’t taken in by the sweetness and light.
‘Maybe. Come on. Let’s go find this mine and maybe shelter from the storms. Lay the boy some place.’
‘He still lives?’ she asked, with a clear note of disappointment in her voice. The tone as prim as if she was asking whether a servant had remembered to bring in some clean damask napkins.
‘Just.’
‘If he goes, then it’ll all be mine, Crow.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Mine, all mine. The silver. Money. I’ll be rich. Fine clothes. Silk under-things. A beautiful house. ‘I’ll travel.’
‘Best make sure the ore’s there, ’fore you start spending it.’
‘Course it’s there. We’ve done it. I’m a success, Crow. A woman of power. A success.’
‘Once met a gunslinger, out near Juarez. Must be a good eight years ago. Name was Bobby Zimmerman.’
‘What of him?’
‘He said something about success.’
‘What?’
‘Said that there wasn’t any success like failure, and that failure wasn’t any damned success at all.’
‘I don’t think I understand that, Crow,’ Amy said, wrinkling her forehead in bewilderment.
‘Not sure I do, either. Maybe Bobby didn’t. Recall he was gunned down by a lady dealer out west. Lowland Sarah. Sad-eyed woman. Kept a little pocket pistol in her garter. Big enough to take him away to buy the farm, I guess.’
‘I know what’s success and what’s not, Crow. I’ve lived with the one long enough to know what the other is about. I’ve dreamed of it. Power and money and all the things it buys.’
‘Happiness?’ he asked.
‘Of course,’ she hissed at him, eyes narrowing at the blasphemy. At that moment Crow realized that everything had combined to turn her mind. If she wasn’t totally mad now, she was so far along the road that he doubted she’d ever be able to turn back again.
‘Stuff of dreams, Amy. That’s what it is. Some folks find it. Most don’t.’
‘I have, Crow. I truly have. Now let’s go see where it’s all waiting. Then away home.’
‘Yeah. Be easier getting out.’
‘I know. I’ve been drawing my own map, Crow. Very carefully, each night. I have a good memory. I believe I could find my own way out.’
The madness showed in her not realizing what a clear warning she was giving him of her possible intentions.
‘Take care,’ he said, quietly. Amaryllis Okie didn’t hear him. She wasn’t meant to.
The map was clear, all the way through to the end of the line. It was easy to use the references of ‘the bird’s head and beak, following the pointers to lead them to a point at the bottom of a gently-sloping cliff. It was obvious to someone of Crow’s great tracking skills that there had been a deal of activity around the lower part of the trail some time ago. As far as he could tell, in the places where the wind had swept the rock bare of snow, nobody had been around with shod animals for a year or so, but that would fit in with the timing as far as Cousin Radley was concerned. There was a faint track leading up the face of the cliff, pointing to what looked like a small cave, partly hidden by some scrubby bushes. If you’d been looking for a silver mine, you’d have ridden on by. There was nothing about the dark hole in the cliff to distinguish it from dozens of others scattered through that part of the Sierras.
‘I’ll go up,’ said Amy, swinging her leg over the back of the mule, giving the reins to Crow.
‘No.’
‘I’m in charge of this show, Crow.’
‘Not of my life. With those bears runnin’ free near here, I don’t aim to stay around. We’ll all go up to the mouth of the mine. The animals can be tethered down here. If’n they scent the bears coming back they’ll let us know soon enough.’
‘We can hide in the mine, then?’ she asked, a curious smile hovering on her lips.
‘Yeah. Why not?’
‘And Edgar?’
‘Right. Be out of the wind, and it looks like there’s more snow on the way, tasting that old blue norther rising up.’
Inside there was clear evidence that men had been living in the cave. Even without using a light it was possible to see that some attempts had been made to shore up a narrow passage leading straight down into the mountain. There was the marks of a fire, the ashes still where they’d been when Radley had left the mine. There were also a few tins scattered about and some broken glass. A shovel with a snapped haft to it and the head of a pick, red with rust.
‘Where will the silver be?’ asked Amy, taking absolutely no notice of Crow as he laid the sleeping boy on a ledge, to one side of the cave, tucking the blankets around him.
‘Could be deep. Could be lyin’ round so you pick it up in your fingers,’ he replied.
‘I’m going in to have a look. The lamp’s on the pack mule, isn’t it?’
‘No. There was two. I brought one along. It’s here.’ The light from the oil-lamp was feeble and yellow, guttering as the wind bit into the opening. ‘Take care of it, Amy. There’s no more fuel for it. Won’t last more than an hour or so.’
She took it from him, mouth working as if she was chewing some tough meat. Her eyes darted suspiciously around the mine, as though she saw robbers lurking in every shadowed corner. He noticed that, despite the cold, she was sweating again, like she had when she’d been needing to use some of the heroin.
‘You stay here, now.’
‘Sure, ma’am. Go find your treasure.’
There was something in his voice that penetrated and she turned to face him. Her cloak pulled a little to one side and he saw that she was carrying both of her late husband’s pistols, their ornamented butts glistening in the golden light.
‘I’m not a fool, Crow. I don’t look for a pile of ingots, you know.’
‘Sure.’
‘I don’t even look for piles of ore. I just want to look and see what’s what. It’s my right. My precious right, Crow. Precious, precious, lovely black bird mine.’ She was crooning, using the s
ort of voice that a mother might use to put a baby to sleep. Her eyes half-closed, she stood swaying from side to side, smiling to herself.
It was a smile that brought a shudder to Crow, and he was aware of the short hair rising on the nape of his neck
‘I’ll stay with the lad.’
‘Who? Oh, yes, dear Edgar. Still not dead, dear boy? No matter. No matter.’
‘Don’t get lost,’ he said, trying to make it sound as if he cared.
‘No. Fare thee well, Crow.’ She vanished into the darkness and he could see the faint glow of the lamp, and hear her boots rattling over loose stones, fading away.
He sat down on his heels, wondering how the lamented Radley had found the mine. There were two battered tin mugs among the ashes, and that meant he must have had himself a partner. Why had they left? Where was the other man? His eye caught a slip of paper sticking from the top of one of the tins near the opening and he was just about to investigate when he heard a piercing scream, vibrating from the dark hole.
Chapter Thirteen
At least the mystery of the missing partner was easily solved.
‘Been dead a good year, Amy,’ Crow said, his voice seeming to hiss in the coffined passage of bare rock. ‘Hold the light up some. There.’
‘I just saw him lying and …’ her voice shook nearly as much as the oil-lamp and she was on the edge of bursting into tears.
Crow had found her about twenty-five paces into the hill, stooping as the tunnel grew more narrow and the ceiling seemed to drop. She was standing looking down at a jumbled heap of bones and rags, the quivering light throwing moving patches of blackness across the corpse.
‘What …’
Crow bent lower, folding his height, peering at the body. Pointing to the remains of a pick-axe protruding from the skull, half its length buried among the straggly, matted hair. The bones were stained deepest black with old, clotted blood.
‘Looks like a little murder runs in the family, Amy. Seems Radley bought out his partner by caving in his head for him.’
‘Who was he?’
‘Could be we’ll never know.’ He foraged among the dry rags of shirt and pants, finding nothing but a few small pebbles. Holding them to the light he saw that they were high-grade ore, almost certainly a small sample of what the cousin had brought back with him, along with the map to the Black Bird Mine.
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