There was little clue as to what the man might once have looked like. He had been shortish, around five feet and a few inches, though it was hard to tell. The man had died with his knees drawn up to his chin, arms reaching out as though he was trying to fend off a blow. The eyes had long gone and the thin beard and moustache was an indeterminate brown.
‘Nothing. He was mentioned among your cousin’s papers?’
‘No. Not a word. Might there be others?’
‘Doubt it. Looks like we’re close to the end of the mine. Or as far as they got with their digging. Wonder why he came out?’
‘Perhaps to raise money to finance the expansion of the mine, to retrieve the ore on a more commercial scale. It’s possible, is it not?’
‘Could be.’
‘Yes. I’m sure that must be it. And this villain here tried to rob me of my silver. The dog! Bastard, whoever he was! Stealing my dreams. My precious, precious, precious dreams.’
And she began to kick the rotted corpse, stamping on the dry bones so that they snapped and danced under her boots. The skull came away from the torso, rolling, and she lashed out at it, sending it spinning like a top, teeth showering from the sagging jaw. Ribs tinkled against the walls of the passage and a thigh-bone bounced away into the hollow blackness.
Only when the skeleton was dismembered did Amy stop, leaning a hand against the tunnel, panting hard as if she’d run a race across ploughed meadows, the lamp shaking in her fist.
‘There.’
‘Guess that’s taught him a lesson he won’t forget in a hurry, Ma’am,’ said Crow, looking at her. ‘Won’t tangle with you again, I figure.’
‘Guard that tongue, Crow. You’re going to learn not to cross me in the near future. I employ you, to be a bodyguard.’
‘And scout.’
‘No.’ She shook her head, the straggly blonde hair veiling out around her narrow face. ‘Not any longer. I don’t need a scout, Crow. So remember that before you speak out of turn.’
He didn’t reply, turning on his heel and walking back out of the tunnel, into the open space where Edgar lay in a fitful sleep. There was that piece of paper stuck conspicuously in the empty tin that he meant to look at. But that could wait until Amaryllis Okie wasn’t hovering around.
There was still a little of the jerked meat left and Crow took some out, chewing thoughtfully on it. There was something wrong about the Black Bird Mine. He could feel it, but he couldn’t quite locate what it was. If the ore had been as rich as Okie had said, then why was there so little evidence of much working? He didn’t know a lot about mining, but there wasn’t any proof that this was the mother lode.
That was the problem with any kind of mining, for gold or for silver. Sometimes you might stumble on a pocket of wealth that promised unbearable riches. But the seam might only be five feet across and ten feet deep.
Could be you struck it big.
Could be that you didn’t.
That evening, Amy sat on the far side of the cave, staring out through the screen of bushes, watching the light fade away from the snow-covered mountains all around them. Crow wondered about the map that she claimed to have been drawing for herself, showing the way out. Despite all his own cunning he was worried that he might miss a vital turning or side-trail in the bad weather. And if he might not make it, what sort of chanced did Amaryllis have? Two chances. Infinitesimal and none.
The more he thought about it, during that evening, the more certain he was that she hadn’t meant her threats. It was clear enough that the silver and the possibility of great wealth had tilted her already unbalanced mind, but he couldn’t believe that it would have tilted it so that she utterly lost sight of reality.
Crow slipped into sleep with that comforting thought at the back of his mind.
When he woke it was still dark, but there was sufficient moonlight filtering through the stunted trees for him to see something going on in the cave. There was a dark shape moving about.
His first thought was that the bears used the mine for their den. There had certainly been droppings inside the tunnel, but he doubted that they would risk entering if they scented humans. They’d wait outside and spend long hours checking the risks. But if they caught Crow and the woman inside they’d finally take them easily.
But there wasn’t the strong smell that Crow linked with black bears. His second thought was that the Apaches had, after all, followed them. Perhaps they had a war-chief who would sacrifice his whole tribe to try and avenge the shame of the appalling losses that Crow had wrought on his warriors.
Edgar was far too weak and near death to be moving about.
So …
He was about to whisper her name when he heard a strange noise. Rather like a fountain, pattering on a summer’s day onto cool Italian marble. A gentle, delicate sound.
He rolled silently on his side, trying to make out what was happening. Amy, if it was her, seemed to be kneeling close by the figure of her only son. Was she holding him? But what was the noise? If she’d been in a further corner of the working Crow would have guessed that she was simply relieving herself.
Gradually, the noise grew quieter and then stopped. He heard the woman whispering. Talking to Edgar.
‘There, dearest child. All over. Over and no more pain. Pain gone.’
Then she stood up and the shootist realized with a chilling certainty what the sound had been and he started to roll over, reaching for the scatter-gun. But he was way slow and he heard the triple click of the hammers on the Colts and then the crack of the pistols being fired.
And the woman’s voice. ‘I’ve done for Edgar, and now you, Crow. Now you! And it’ll be all mine. Mine, all mine!!’
Chapter Fourteen
Despite her murderous madness, Amy Okie was still a lightly-built woman. It’s not easy for a woman to fire one pistol without it kicking high and hard. To try and shoot off a matched pair of Peacemakers, even if they have fancy butts, is about ten times as difficult.
Crow pushed himself to one side, towards the blanketed figure of the boy, feeling his hand slip in a pool of something that was sticky and warm. Something that he knew the light would show up as being a rich red color.
None of the bullets hit him, though it was sheer luck that neither of them was struck by one of the whining ricochets that howled off the rocks, kicking sparks into the blackness. Though he wasn’t counting, it seemed as if Amy had fired off most of the twelve rounds in the hand-guns. His main intention was to get out, fast and safe, and he did that, scooping up the rifle in one hand, tucking the Purdey in its holster. Not bothering to try and return the storm of lead that was hissing around the Black Bird Mine. As he dived for the entrance he noticed the glimmer of white sticking in the tin and he bent and picked it up, powering himself head-first through the bushes, rolling in the snow, on down the slope, pursued by the screaming hatred of the mad woman above him.
‘You thievin’ fucker, Crow. Fuckin’ black bird, you! Bring bad luck. Killer! Whore-fucker! Stealing my precious from me. My silver. It’s mine, you hear? You hear, Crow? It’s all mine.’
The shouting went on after he’d taken the stallion and the mules and moved them a hundred yards out of sight along the trail, picking his way through the frozen ruts in the icy snow. He was minded to ride straight out, but there were questions he needed answering. He decided that he’d wait around until dawn, and then see how things looked.
One important reason for not going back out of the mountains was that Amaryllis Okie had tried to kill him. If she’d stopped at slitting her dying son’s throat, then that would have been bad enough. But she’d tried to shoot Crow, and in his book that merited his paying her a little special attention.
The other reason for not moving out of the Sierras as fast as the stallion could walk was that bit of paper. It had been put in the tin for a purpose. To catch the eye of any man wandering by. Whoever had put it there had done so with the intention of it being read.
And as the first ligh
t of dawn caressed the tips of the western mountains, so he pulled it out. The paper wasn’t that white. In fact, it was the same sort of paper as the map, but it had been weathered and worn to a lighter shade of pale.
The writing was also the same, and the signature at the bottom was Radley Hungerford, with a date that had been bleached away.
The note wasn’t very long.
“If any white reads this then say a pray for the soule of Lyle Canaan. He was a good freind and pardner to me but we did fell out over the shares of the richs we thouht to find. Ha ha ha. Some richs I must tell you. Ha ha. Lyle must be laffing down in HELL were he has gone. I new he was planning to do for me and so I did it first for him. With a pick in the head. He would laff along with me if he new what I find the day befor this. The silver has run out. There is no more here. I am sure of it. It was a small poccet of it and no lode. So that is the end. I go now with what I have kept and will never come here ever.
Signed by Radley Hungerford.”
The man called Crow rarely laughed, and when he did it was generally at things that other men didn’t find in the least amusing. He read the note through once more and the corners of his thin lips curled up, his dark eyes crinkling with grim pleasure. To have come so far for so little. So much death and misery and suffering, for nothing. He was certain that the note was true. It hadn’t been the mother lode. Just a few dollars worth of good ore that was all long spent.
‘Stuff of dreams,’ he laughed. ‘By God, but that’s rich. Guess I’ll go home now, but first I’ll pass the news on to that crazy murdering bitch. Only justice.’
He left the horse and the two mules, and walked slowly back, glancing up at the carved head of the black falcon on the cliff, laughing again at it.
As he neared the sloping face of snow-caked rock that led to the Black Bird Mine, he saw movement higher up the mountain; hesitating, unslinging the Winchester from his shoulder. Strung out along the skyline were five black shapes, squat and heavy. The first one larger than the next four.
Crow considered putting a couple of rounds after the bears, but eased the hammer back down.
‘None of my concern,’ he said.
Inside the mine, he could hear someone singing. A monotonous chant in a woman’s voice, high and ragged.
‘Hangman, oh hangman, slack your noose a while, I think I see my husband coming, riding many a mile. Husband oh husband have you brought silver, Or have you brought gold? Or have you come to see me, hanging on the gallows cold?’
Crow stopped near the bottom of the winding trail, calling out to the woman. Trying to attract her attention.
‘Amy! Mrs. Okie!!’
But the singing carried on, the rising wind making the notes sweep and fall.
‘True love oh my true love have you brought silver, Or have you brought gold? Or have you come to see me, hanging on the gallows cold?’
Crow picked up the tune, changing the words of the last verse in his own rich, deep voice.
‘I haven’t brought you silver, I haven’t brought you gold. I’ve just come to see you, hanging on the gallows cold.’
‘Who’s there? Blessed Mary! Who is that down there? Richard? Is that you?’
‘It’s me. Crow. Got something to read out to you. Figure you might be interested.’
Straw hair blowing in the breeze, Amaryllis’s head appeared over the edge of the drop, peering down at him. She held a pistol in her hand and waved it threateningly at him.
‘You go away, Crow. Right away! I don’t need you. Everyone else is dead. Cut Edgar’s chubby throat like the sleeping hog he was. Blood’s dried, now. Go away. Leave me to what’s mine.’
‘Got a letter I found from Cousin Radley. Want to hear it?’
‘No!’
‘Goin’ to read it anyways. Here it is.’
It didn’t take long and the woman remained silent through it. Only when it was over did she begin the scream. A keening note, like a graveside banshee. The scream began high and thin, and became higher and higher. Thinner and thinner. Until it was like the tearing of a sheet of finest crystal, going on and on. Amy stood up in the mouth of the mine, firing the pistol again, snapping off four rounds until he heard the hammer clicking on empty chambers. None of the bullets went within fifty yards of him and he waited until the echoes of the shooting had finally rumbled away in the distance. Sounding he thought in passing, like the cannons in the rain he’d spoken of to poor fat Edgar Okie.
He unslung the Winchester, drawing a bead on the screeching figure. Firing twice, working the action so fast that it sounded like a single shot.
The woman stopped her scream for a moment, then it began again, overlaid with a veneer of white pain. The first bullet had smashed her right knee into shards of bones and rent cartilage. Even as she started to topple sideways Crow’s second shot took effect. Repeating the same devastating damage to the left knee, bursting the joint apart and doing irremediable harm to her legs.
The shootist calmly slung the rifle back on his shoulder, having ejected the spent cartridges hissing in the snow at his feet, watching dispassionately as Amy began to fall. Sliding on her face, then managing to roll, broken legs trailing like a doll’s, blood streaking and smearing right down the hill. Both guns had been thrown away as she was shot, vanishing into the jumble of trodden ice and jagged boulders.
When she finally came to a stop, barely fifteen feet above him, she had stopped her crying, the shock and pain silencing her. Her face was turned towards him and the eyes were glazed with madness.
‘Listen, Amy. This won’t do any good. You’ll never understand me, but I’ll just say it this once and then I’ll give it up and go. I took on a job, to take care of all of you. Means anything happens then a man’s supposed to do something. Like your slitting the neck of your son. It doesn’t make any difference what I thought of him. He was part of my job as bodyguard. If I don’t, then it gets bad for business. Word gets around. You hear me? You hear me, Mrs. Okie?’
She nodded slowly, eyes never leaving his stony face. The blood still flowed freely from the wounded knees and Crow saw white stumps of splintered bone protruding through the sodden rags of the breeches.
‘That’s all. Oh, there’s the matter of your trying to murder me, too. I don’t take kindly to that, Ma’am. Not kindly at all. But I don’t much like killing women. I’m not going to kill you.’
‘You’ll just leave me here?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m crippled. No food. No guns. I’ll die, just as sure as if you put a bullet through my brain. Please, Crow. Do that for me?
‘No. You wanted to be here, with your precious Black Bird Mine. You got it. Now it’s not worth a wooden nickel, but it’s all yours.’
‘Oh, please.’
The insanity was being washed away on tidal waves of pain and she started to cry. But Crow was utterly inflexible. Once the shootist set his mind to a course of action, then not all the tears of all the women in the world would make an ounce of difference. That was the way he was. The way he’d probably always be.
He didn’t say anything more to Amaryllis Okie when he left her. Crow didn’t like gloating. As he walked away he heard her crying more loudly, but the wind soon carried that away from him. He reached the horse and the mules and swung himself easily into the saddle, looking back for a last time.
The body of the woman was clearly visible, at the end of the crimson scar on the face of the snowy cliff. And above it, nearly a thousand feet higher, but moving cautiously down, were those same five black shapes, scenting the blood.
Crow took a final look at the odd formation of the black falcon’s head, way across the valley, visible through the first flakes of snow that were beginning to fall again.
‘Yeah, he said to himself. ‘The stuff that dreams are made of.’
And he rode away.
Read others in the CROW series by JAMES W MARVIN
1: THE RED HILLS
2: TEARS OF BLOOD
3: WOR
SE THAN DEATH
4: THE BLACK TRAIL
All Published by PICCADILLY PUBLISHING
Piccadilly Publishing
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Bodyguard Page 11