by John Long
Leaving his boots behind him, knowing he moved quieter and swifter on his bad foot without them, he glided outside, strapping on his gunbelt. He crossed over to the main cabin, bounding for its side like a hunting wildcat. Precisely as Rand leapt for that wall, a gunshot jolted his heart. He was discovered. But no! There was some other reason. Hoofbeats and the rattling slither of shale announced the arrival of some night riders. Next instant three horses could be distinctly heard thudding across the spongy turf, heading straight towards him.
‘Clay!’ one of the riders hailed the cabin. ‘Wake up, you drunken fools! It’s Clay, I tell yuh. Clay’s back from town. The shipment’s arrived. Roll out, you sluggards!’
A lamp flared up in the cabin. Rand shrank down behind a woodpile. A half-dressed figure burst forth, staggered, swore, and took a more supporting grip at the front of his pants.
‘Dry up!’ The figure bawled like a runaway bull. ‘Who’s ayawling them words? Who’s a-telling the whole derned world our bizness?’
‘ ’Sme, boss – Tom. Clay’s here. Better saddle up – ride for Flintstone – raid the …’
Crunch! A sickening thud of fist contacting flesh, and followed by an agonised cry, brought silence.
Some minutes later the entire gang had crowded into the large cabin; and a more mixed looking group of fellows could scarce be imagined. Some swayed sleepily, others drunkenly, yet others tried to look intelligent in shirt-tails, round which they fumbled to tie gunbelts, and all spoke at once, demanding a clear account of affairs from Clay. Big Bruce thrust a mugful of liquor into Clay’s wiry hands, then released a loud bellow for silence. Not another word came from any man.
‘An outright plump shipment o’ dollar bills. Seen it with my own eyes.’ So stated Clay with an air of supreme importance. ‘Yup, fellas, I ain’t never seen so much. I was sweeping the saloon verandee at the time, and what a back-breaker that job was, when the stage pulled in all nice and neat as per usual. No extra guards, no nothing. Next thing I knows I saw the smarty boys from the bank bearing off a coupla hefty cases. It wasn’t until sundown that Hank came over for his drinks, but this time he was red and excited, yeah, and nervous too. There was one thing about me, I ain’t no nervous cuss like Hank. Anyhow, he sez the shipment’s in, bigger than we ever expected; it was the bigness what was a-scaring him. Well, boss, that’s the set-up.’
‘What did Hank Williams say exactly?’ Bruce demanded with angry impatience, brought on by Clay’s conceited manner, for he sat on the table and sneered proudly at everybody.
‘Hank jest sez it’s a sure-fire thing, Mister Bruce.’ Clay informed him, swilling his mouth from the mug and looking at the now greedily passionate faces staring at him. ‘Look here, boys, don’t make a breakneck dash for Flintstone, however. This needs careful handling. You all will get rich plenty, and soon enough.’ Clay grinned, real generous like. ‘Hank sez come Tuesday noon, slack bizness time. We’ve three days to make it.’
‘Is that everything, kid?’ Bruce suddenly roared at him, his hands moving restlessly.
‘Yes, Mister Bruce. Yes, sir!’ exclaimed Clay, stammering and stretching his scrawny neck.
‘Want me to straighten out the youngster?’ a cold and softly drawling voice crept from a certain bunk.
Clay, tightly clenching the mug in both hands, trembled audibly and retreated backward to the door.
‘No, Symes,’ sighed Bruce, glancing tiredly over his shoulder. ‘And please quit foolin’ with that gun. We’ll be needing everybody for this job. It’s a sight bigger than I ever thought. We’ll ride tomorrow at sundown.’
Jeff Rand had remained in hiding outside the cabin, leaning close to the paneless window. On hearing those final words, followed by a maniacal laugh from Symes, he quietly moved away. As he did so another hidden figure moved into the lamplight slanting from the doorway. A shrewd smile played on Mister Sturdy’s face as he watched Rand’s soft-footed retreat.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Daybreak over Grapevine Gulch was both a picturesque and eerie spectacle. As the desert sun elevated itself with blinding splendour above the mountains, the sky became a mighty goldfield, while sand that had sometime drifted high along the gullies, looked like flowing rivers of gold. But an unearthly atmosphere, an awful waiting silence haunted that territory, in fact the land was like the long dead face of the moon.
Down in the gulch a tall figure, stripped to the waist and carrying a washbowl, sauntered forth from the smallest cabin. This early riser, after stretching and yawning and scanning the scenery, crossed to a spring which spurted from the mountain side. Having filled the washbowl and watered his horse, he retraced his steps, hung his gunbelt across a nail outside the cabin, and began to wash.
A few seconds passed, then another figure appeared, climbing stealthily to the summit of a small mound between the cabins. This fellow was already dressed, and, as he watched the person below, he grew peculiarly tensed and rigid of body.
‘Hi, Mister Dirt! Washing ain’t ever gonna clean away Ted’s murder.’
The man stooping over the washbowl at once ceased to move. Those words, as they came stealing venomously behind him, were received with a queer thrill down the spine. He fought back an urge to swing around, knowing such a sudden action could cost his life.
‘It’s Crocker, ain’t it?’ he mildly inquired, taking a fleeting glance at his hanging guns, then secretly watching Crocker’s reflection in a jagged piece of glass left hanging in the cabin window. ‘Say, you rise early, neighbour; I guess you like a peaceful sun-up.’
‘Listen, Rand. I said you’d never pack Ted’s pay-roll, and you won’t,’ began Crocker, his voice starting to joggle in hidden depths of hatred.
‘You listen, sonny,’ cut in Rand, who now dare not budge an inch. ‘I heard there’s been a strike down in hell. So just hang around me, fella, and you’ll sure get in a free claim.’
‘I said I was gonna kill yuh, Rand,’ Crocker proceeded, growing softer, crouching lower. ‘Yeah – and here I am!’
Again Jeff Rand’s eyes flashed anxiously to his guns. They hung just out of arm’s reach. He would never make it and live. This Crocker kid was certainly determined to fix him for good; and no, one simply could not under-rate him, not after that display of private gun practice. Another thing, Crocker was now refreshed after sleep, so how much swifter might he be this morning. Once again Rand covertly studied the man’s reflection. Jake Crocker’s hand was already resting on his gun-butt.
‘You don’t figure on taking no chances, do yuh?’ Rand observed with a low chuckle. ‘Reckon you judge this the safest time to make your fight, me with guns off, hands all soapy, no other folk around, and me sun-blinded if I swings about.’ Jeff continued talking with a lazy carefreeness. ‘I think you’re not a very kind hombre, son. You know what? I b’lieve you’re a dirty low-down squirt!’ His voice turned suddenly harsh and sinister.
Fiery wrath choked Crocker’s utterance. He fixed madly boring eyes on Rand’s back. He was ready. Still Rand remained motionless, head bowed, wholly relaxed, hopelessly surrendering to the execution. He saw the effect his final words had produced, and he knew the moment had come. One of his hands he had kept dry, yet in the other he held a slithery block of soap. He now tightly squeezed that block. The soap flipped leftwards. It caused a momentary distraction. Then it happened.
‘Drag it!’ Crocker seemed to shriek the words; and he dived into action.
A veil of blood seemed to pass across Rand’s eyes. Down he sank: he flumped on his knees in the mud, and spun around in the same motion. In the same instant he dragged down his gunbelt. Before that belt slapped the earth Rand’s gun was belching. Shots pounded and zipped to and fro. Crocker screamed first, then collapsed, three slugs tearing into his chest. Rand had grown pallid and expressionless. He continued to kneel, gun still directed, far extended, all in a kind of staring and staring trance. An oddly gurgling liquid was coursing round his knees. Two inches from Rand’s brain, a bullet had bored throu
gh the washbowl.
A number of half-dressed men, first drawn outside by the sounds of the quarrel, had seen it happen. Now they stood gaping, stunned by the sudden explosions and the swiftness of death. Big Bruce, with a towel round his neck, outstretched half his body through a window, and with sagging underjaw he stared at the scene.
‘Rand!’ he presently called, sounding hoarse, gradually overcoming his shock. ‘Thought I ordered no killing round here? Quit it, do yuh hear?’ Bruce grew red, because his voice rattled nervously on those last words. He began to snort in mounting rage, and he kept sawing at his neck with the towel. ‘Rand! Plug up that tomfool washbowl. Let other men wash, won’t yuh? It makes me real mad to lose good men thisaway. Hi you! Rand! Are you deaf? Fix that tomfool washbowl!’ With a muttered curse Bruce jerked his head inside.
Before Rand arose, a movement at the nearby corner of the cabin caught his attention. He whipped about, gun cocked. There he saw Mister Sturdy, neatly dressed and holding a long-barrelled weapon under his coat. Following the direction which the weapon secretly pointed out he next noticed Symes. Throughout the whole incident since Jeff first appeared outside, Symes had been seated on a ledge above the gulch. Doubtlessly he had anticipated the performance, and risen early to take a ringside seat. Symes, noticing he was discovered, vented a devilish laugh. But what puzzled Jeff was Mister Sturdy’s unexpected protection; and even when Sturdy echoed Symes’ laugh, that hidden gun remained directed and ready to talk in a different humour.
‘It looks kinda bad, Jeff, when a man can’t wash in safety,’ Symes yelled down, watching Rand arising and woefully regarding the muddy state of his weapons. ‘Say, Jeff; how about that there strike in hell? I’m sorta interested, naturally. But I’ve a gnawing problem. If Crocker’s now found rich diggings, how’s he gonna wash his pay-dirt?’
Rand remained deaf to these and other jibes of the same nature, which Symes, chuckling continually, made as he climbed leisurely down to the gulch floor.
‘I suppose I’m an inquisitive cuss, Jeff.’ Symes released a long sigh as he stopped and smirked at Crocker’s body. ‘And also a cuss what packs special dislike for back-creeping gun-blasting skunks!’ Malice entered his voice; he drew back his foot to kick the corpse.
‘Stop that!’ Rand commanded, snapping like a teamster’s whip.
Another of those battles of looks resulted. ‘Sure, Jeff. I’ll quit. I’m amiable; I can deny myself for a friend like Rand,’ laughed Symes. ‘What a pity you had to waste such a load of lead, though; but never mind, the crow-meat’s all yours, and easy come by. Actually poor Jake didn’t stand a chance, being almost blind with tears for brother Ted.’
This cunning remark brought a low growling from the men. Rand watched them scowling darkly at him as he wiped his gunbelt.
‘Still, it’s a rotten shame you can’t wash in peace, Jeff,’ Symes repeated. ‘Like me, you’ll have to lead a dirty life, I figure.’
Symes began to approach Rand, swaggering and smiling broadly, and glancing up and down his mud-smeared form.
‘A dirty fight, Jeff. A real dirty fight,’ he mournfully whispered, shaking his head.
Just how fast with a gun was Symes? The question pulsed again in Rand’s mind as he watched him pass by.
‘I like you, Jeff. You’re the easy type. Keep slugging and you’ll make yourself a pile.’
Symes passed on a few more paces, suddenly recollected something, and looked back with one hand on his six-shooter and the other rasping his chin.
‘By the way. Did I tell yuh to quit killing the boys? But sure, you’ll quit. It would be derned shameful for me to kill you!’
No laughter, not even a grin came from Symes now. Turning stiffly he strolled away towards the horses.
‘Rand!’ Big Bruce was again stretching himself through the window, and his bawling betrayed a return of courage, caused perhaps by Symes’ behaviour. ‘Rand, don’t let me ever catch you without those guns.’ Bruce smote the window ledge with his fist. ‘Now get that tom-fool washbowl fixed!’
‘Do as the boss sez,’ advised Mister Sturdy, solemnly picking up and holding out a piece of wood.
Rand turned and with puckered brow he fixed a thoughtful gaze on Jim Miller’s killer. Meanwhile Smily Merrick stole from the cabin and took the offered piece of wood.
‘Leave it to me, Jeff,’ he whispered; and at once he began expertly to whittle a bung for the bowl. ‘Fancy Jake making a dirty pass at you like that, Jeff. Poor fool.’ Smily muttered half to himself, disappointed to have missed the gunfight, awed by the sight of death, and secretly hoping Rand might explain. ‘Just how did it happen, I wonder?’
Nobody answered him. Mister Sturdy smiled grimly at Rand then gravely ordered two of the men to bury Jake, which burial he departed to supervise.
‘Well, I never did like Crocker; a scorpion if ever there was one,’ sympathised Smily, hammering in the bung.
Still Rand did not appear to hear him; expressionless of face, he kept watching a certain man who whistled blithely as he groomed his horse, and that man was Symes.
For the remainder of the morning Jeff Rand was absent; he had the diplomacy to take one of his lonely rides until peace restored itself to the gang. Maybe it would have been wise to have kept riding, never to return again, for if he had been disliked before, he was now deeply hated. The gunfight, Bruce’s longing to punch his face out of recognition, Symes’ cunning manner of turning every man against him, and above all Symes’ last departing threat, should have been sufficient reasons for a quick ride into the running desert. Yet Rand could not do it, and live peacefully with himself afterwards. Sure enough he was uneasy, in fact right down scared, though by midday he was riding quietly back into Grapevine Gulch. The queer and unexpected behaviour of Mister Sturdy caused him much confusion, seeming to shatter his private plan. Why did Sturdy protect him? Did Sturdy really murder Old Jim Miller? Finally – where was that gold?
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Bruce gang drank thirstily at Clay’s news of the outside world. They heard how Flintstone was booming, how a new saloon and chop-house had appeared in the last week, and how emigrants were arriving by the hundreds. Whisky, music, girls, gambling – entertainment no end was now possible in Flintstone: but the new sheriff was in dead earnest and the town was becoming refined. Folk even bathed at a special bath-house; one fellow, the president of Bulmer’s Bank, did it every day. But other far more unhealthy extravagances were taking place; and despite some folk a-going to church come Sundays, and the wearing of boiled shirts on weekdays, the town was pretty much the same underneath, and just as rip-snorting as Deadwood. Sure enough, Flintstone was booming, and sure enough Bulmer’s Bank was growing sinfully rich.
Big Bruce was likewise refreshed and encheered by Clay’s lively gossip; and after the midday meal he summoned the whole gang outside. Leading the men to a smooth stretch of sand down the gulch, he proceeded to map out in detail the coming raid. All were told what positions and duties they would adopt on entering Flintstone; and all were given alternative orders in the event of trouble arising. Everyone was made to comprehend that, after rushing the shipment of dollars out of town, the gang would divide, one company coming under Symes’ command, the other following Bruce. Later both companies would unite at a different hideout.
The entire scheme sounded simple yet shrewd, and the men could not conceal their pleasure and admiration. Big Bruce felt their heightened respect for him, naturally; and so, with sheepish eyes straying to the mildly watching Mister Sturdy, he repeated the whole set-up. He then questioned members of the gang as if he were a kind of school ma’am, and soon got to bullying them with curses and threats of physical violence into remembering their individual parts. Yes, Bruce made most of his moment of glory, while Symes smirked insultingly at him, and while Mister Sturdy looked on with a tolerant smile.
In the meantime Smily Merrick stole towards the empty main cabin, where he borrowed a can of coffee and a plateful of beans and biscuits. S
mily had seen Jeff riding back into camp, looking sadly haggard and hungry. Unfortunately Rand was carefully bandaging his bad foot, over which injury he was uncommonly sensitive, when Merrick entered with the food.
‘Say, I didn’t know Crocker had wounded yuh, Jeff!’ Smily exclaimed, his eyes widening as he beheld Rand’s foot.
‘I didn’t neither,’ Jeff answered coldly.
‘Can’t see no blood though,’ mused Smily.
‘Yeah, it’s a pretty dry do, ain’t it?’said Rand.
‘Guess that wound is old, huh?’
‘A genuine antique,’ replied Jeff, firmly tying the bandage and almost allowing himself to smile. ‘Just don’t talk it around the camp. There are some folk who would use another’s weakness to advantage, if you see what I mean. Thanks for the grub, kid.’
Smily waved a hand and grinned, then stood pondering and rasping his chin.
‘What’s the pow-wow out there?’ Rand carelessly inquired. ‘Is someone punching Bruce’s head?’
Within a few minutes Smily acquainted Jeff with all the information which, judging from the bawling and preaching, Bruce was repeating a third time in pursuit of vain-glory. Then once more Smily stood pondering, shifting his weight from one leg to another, finding no lasting support on either of them.
‘Well, what’s your problem?’ Jeff finally asked him.
‘Nothing much.’ Smily looked embarrassed. ‘I keep wondering how you managed it, that’s all. They say Crocker drew first, and behind your back. And yet – well – see what I mean?’
With impressive slowness Rand raised his head from the coffee-can, whereat Merrick’s words faded into silence. The boring regard of those pale blue eyes occasioned a strange thrill of fear.