by John Long
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A flaming wrath surged in Rand, and set him instinctively fingering his guns. But he could do nothing. Heated feelings subsided before a cold flood of disappointment. His gold was gone forever. The clerk behind the scales called excitedly for Hank Williams, the gang’s assistant employed in the Express Office. Hank skipped forward briskly, and was told to speak to the president, to make an emergency appointment for a Mister Bruce Crater. Hank obediently disappeared through an office doorway immediately behind him. Rand licked his lips, his eyes darting this way and that, searching for an opportunity even now to grab his gold and run. The ruthless murder of Miller had a cunning motive behind it; this gang had needed a rich bait for the present raid, a bait not only rich but lifted at a safe distance from the gold-diggings at Flintstone.
Hank Williams reappeared to summon the big easterner into the president’s office. Despair struck Jeff as he watched the four assistant-fellows regather the dead man’s gold, that long-sought and honest-earned little fortune of poor Jim Miller. Rand could almost have sobbed as his rage mounted once more, and only by a supreme effort did he refrain himself from lunging forward with furious accusations and flaming guns. The four attendants followed Bruce and the clerks into the office. Bruce’s pompous style had seemed comical to Rand before, though now it irritated him indescribably as he watched him meet the president, and the president was seated behind a wide desk, dressed lavishly, over-fed, and beaming magnanimously with greedy expectation. Rand caught a glimpse of iron-barred cells behind the desk, while the president extended a big hand to Mister Bruce Crater. The door closed. Then it began: an ordeal of waiting, an interior torment of tension, a sweating and a choking in a suspense only equal to a lull before a battle.
The big clock on the wall ticked the seconds with increasing loudness; the streaking of pens grated on ones nerve; the large fan circling in the middle of the ceiling kept sighing like a person in the agony of dying. Perspiration trickled down Rand’s chest and sparkled on the backs of his lean, well-kept hands. Under the prolonged waiting it grew more and more difficult for the gang to keep its innocent masquerade of curious visitors conning the rules and regulations on the doors and walls. Silence, throbbing and nerve-wracking, gradually roped them all in; and every man’s head kept turning in anxious expectation to the president’s door, and to the bowed heads of the clerks. The Bruce Gang, in spite of all previous instructions, was beginning to break and give sign of its evil intention.
‘Next, please! Look sharp there! Come on! Can I help any of you mining boys? This ain’t some saloon you men can lounge around in. Who is next?’
It was the cashier who finally addressed them, raising a puzzled face from his ledger, sighing between words and mopping his hot neck. They all looked at him with mingled expressions of uneasiness, contempt and hate.
‘Say, are you all together? Are you – you – you …’
They fixedly watched him become motionless, the handkerchief to his throat where his irritable words trailed into horrified choking noises. He was a small, hunch-shouldered and nervous man ordinarily full of suspicions, and sharp to discover anything amiss.
‘What the hell? What goes on here?’
The gang was striving to recapture its look of careless innocence; the men grinned then scowled darkly and, like Symes who was about to load the cashier with hot lead, gradually assumed a violent mood. Mister Sturdy made a brave effort to save the situation, by first startling everyone with a burst of cheerful laughter.
‘Seems you’ve gotten yourself a bunch of well-mannered callers, neighbour, who won’t step one man afore another’s turn. Sure I’ll be next. I’m not heat-struck so’s I cannot recollect my business with you, neighbour.’
Mister Sturdy sauntered forward, raising his hat to Symes and his boys.
‘Hi-dee! Kind of hot, mister. Hopes you’ll excuse my hurry as I have a horrible bad thirst flaming at my heels.’ He stopped at the counter and leaned forward, wagging his hat before his face and breathing warmly on the partly reassured cashier. ‘Listen, buster, my affairs are only fit for your president’s ears. Understand?’
‘Yes, yes. Confidential. I understand yuh,’ mumbled the cashier blinking rapidly at the hat-waving, legal-looking gent. ‘But the boss is busy just now. Best make a special appointment.’
‘It’s this away, buster. I represent the Penrose Federation of Miners,’ began Mister Sturdy in a real slick and admirable style while glancing round airily at Symes and company. ‘Yeah, and due to pitched battles atween certain mine owners and strikers, I’m a-going to organize one of our peace-bringing branches in your overheated city. Now these sulky boys behind me here. No, not that bunch of idlers; these fellows here.’
‘Yes, yes. I understand, sir,’ lied the warmly confused cashier, twisting from side to side.
‘Well, we want to pow-wow with the president of this bank. We want a copy of returns from certain grades of ore from certain mines hereabouts. I carry written permissions.’
‘You’ll have to wait, mister,’ the cashier told him, not much convinced by all the talk. ‘Can’t say as I ever heard of bad blood at the diggings, or of any grouching miners since Jacob Crispin fust struck rich seams here. The men get large dividends, and the owners can easily meet expenditures, heavy as they are. You boys are all wrong.’
The crafty cashier gleamed round suspiciously at all the hard, tensed and narrowly watching faces – and he noted that not a single man there wore mining garb.
Mister Sturdy, maintaining a smile that was obviously paining his jaw-bones, continued to represent the Penrose Federation of Miners in high and haughty terms: but it got him nowhere with that naturally doubting man. Even while Mister Sturdy rattled on, reciting some of the good work of the federation, that cashier edged away. There was a sudden gleam of understanding in his little eyes. He darted like a jackrabbit for the president’s office. The sudden move left the gang confused. Sturdy had made a grab but all too late. Nobody could do anything; to shoot would rouse the whole town.
The other clerks had given attention to the proceedings at first, until Mister Sturdy had announced his business, where-after they had carried on with their clerical duties, half-dazed by work, late dinners and the sweltering weather. They did not witness the cashier’s behaviour, his sudden change, gasp of fear, and final retreat. Maybe the shock had struck the fellow speechless, for he uttered no word of alarm as he reached the president’s door. He flung it open. Everyone of the gang saw the scene inside that office: everyone could see Big Bruce wrenching, gasping in fiendish fury as he strangled the president. One clerk lay dead across the broad desk, with Hank Williams’ knife in his heart. The four attendant raiders were working busily behind the bars, unlocking the safes. Only for one moment did the door remain open. Then the terrified cashier, open-mouthed in his shock, was swept inside by Hank before he could sound the alarm. The door closed softly. A moment passed. A sickening thud reverberated through the building. The clerks outside all looked up, inquiring looks on their faces. Hank Williams immediately appeared, briskly rubbing his hands. He yawned and nodded to the clerks, who shrugged their shoulders, involuntarily yawned back, and exchanged signs to the effect that the president was in a rip-snorting bad mood. Hank at once greeted Mister Sturdy in a breezy and business-like style. Together they discussed the Penrose Federation of Miners, with a loudness which tortured the other brain-flogged officials, and a few newly-arrived miners passing through the Express Office with lists of rules they struggled to read. Although the gang’s relief was great, it was certainly not complete. After what they had seen through that office door, every passing second became a private little hell, hotter than the last, and all boiling up the danger.
The waiting seemed unending; the strain was becoming unbearable. Unless Bruce and his boys came out soon, something disastrous would surely happen. The heat and pent-up feeling got mixed up tremendously, until one could feel one’s heart and brain and every vein pulsing like mad.
What in tarnation was keeping that big fool? Had something gone wrong inside there? Had the bank guards, who hadn’t appeared nowhere, left the saloons, their cabins, or wherever they were, and sneaked in by the rear? Maybe it wasn’t this dratted heat that kept folk at home, kept that town quiet, the bank empty, and those tomfool clerks dozing at their work. Was it all a trap? Perhaps the front of this bank was covered even now by every citizen able to carry a Winchester. Yeah; maybe the miners from the diggings were lined up, merely awaiting them to step outside, there to cut them down by a shattering volley.
The strong sense of alarm hushed the discourse between Mister Sturdy and Hank Williams who pretended to be pondering an account book on the counter. For some reason the great fan had quit swirling; the creaking of pens had stopped and the clerks were gazing round with worried looks. All tended to break the nerves of the more sensitive members of the gang. Tom was first to draw his gun, slyly hiding it in readiness behind a flap of his rawhide coat. Symes had tensed, half-crouching, ready to give the signal which would bring a roar of sudden death. Just as he raised his hand to blast that row of clerks into eternity, the door opened.
‘Good day, Mister Bummel!’ Bruce bawled jovially as he swaggered forth from the president’s office, beaming brightly to right and left. ‘I’ll get my geological expert through here. The full shipment will arrive next month. Good day, sir. Look sharp you boys, as I guess you want a drink afore we ride to the creek.’
Waving his cigar, genially urging forward his four boys, who appeared to be carrying twice as many saddle-bags and gunny-sacks as when they entered, and all twice as heavy, the big easterner swept through the small gate and headed for the door.
‘Good luck, Mister Crater!’ sang out Hank Williams, receiving a cigar from the great man, which he boastfully waved to the other clerks as he escorted the entire company outside.
It was in a manner oddly stiff and slow and akin to a burial ceremony, that the Bruce Gang passed outside into main street. Then at once they noticed it – there was definitely something wrong, something uncanny and forbidding in the air. The heat met them and seemed to wrap choking claws around their throats. The brilliant sunshine had become a sickly yellow light, playing deceptively with one’s eyesight. The two groups of horses, one outside the best saloon and the other outside the general store, had been gradually herded forward by two sets of lookouts. The mounts came opposite the bank steps at the exact moment they were required. On the bottom step sat two kids in bare feet and shirts, glumly staring at a now empty jar. Except for these urchins the town was deserted, silent and gloomy as an open grave, just as if some terrible disaster impended. Stealthily the gang came down the steps, deliberately retarding their movements, which increased the interior torture of suspense. It was like walking along a razor’s edge, as Rand anxiously mused, bringing up the rear of the party. At each downward step they expected either shouts of alarm from behind, or a shattering volley from the front. Nothing happened, however. The kids gawked at them, drinking in every detail, enviously watched them mount up, and sighingly watched them plod away in a manner admirably lazy and carefree. The Bruce Gang headed out of Flintstone.
‘Storm a-brewing,’ Hank Williams tremulously whispered, having leapt up behind Rand. ‘Think we’ll make the desert?’
Rand did not reply. Hank leaned away to look at him, and anxiously wet and rolled the unlit cigar in his lips. Rand’s face was as chill, expressionless and dead as a marble plaque.
Slowly and watchfully the men rode down the street. Nothing stirred. A baby was still howling in a shack somewhere to the right. A thirsty tinkling of water could be distinctly heard long before they thudded across the bridge over the creek. Gunfire was expected to explode that sinister silence at any moment: yet it did not come. The buildings thinned out, concluded with a saw-mill, then came a few ragged tents draped with ragged washing, then an area of potholes, abandoned diggings, broken and rusted picks and shovels, heaps of rubbish, and finally a bush-strewn plain, stretching in a fever of sickness beneath the queer sun. They were outside Flintstone, and still safe. The gang began to trot, to gallop, and soon raced along at a tempestuous pace, while the town dwindled into a haze of deep silence, and the horizon ahead began to grow that thankful line of little hills which introduced the running desert.
The rushing air, the quick action and releasing of strained senses brought an exhilarating relief. When finally reaching a trail which wound between the little hills, the raiders slowed down. Many and anxious had been their backward glances as the miles passed by, though now those glances had turned upon the stupendous loads of wealth slung across the four leading horses. The sight of such bulging bags of dollar bills was mighty encheering; they feasted their eyes greedily; they became intoxicated by the spirit of success. They shouted, laughed, praised one another, and joked over the more exciting particulars of their robbery. They had waited a long, long time for this moment, and they meant to squeeze every drop of satisfaction from every detail, come what may. They drew rein at Sulphur Springs.
Stretching before them was the desert, a spectacle real awe-inspiring under the drunken-eyed sun: that sun was filling every man with a half-recognized feeling of uneasiness. Behind them, racing in silent pursuit, gorging earth and sky and fearful to behold, came a mighty wall of grey dust, all thick and billowing and pierced by vicious streaks of crackling fire.
‘Hell’s a-coming!’ shouted Bruce, his horse prancing round the water-hole. ‘Best get all the water you can carry, boys.’
‘Will you chance it?’ queried Rand, solemnly jerking a thumb behind him.
‘You bet,’ laughed Bruce. ‘It will cover our tracks in fine style; you’ll see. We divide here, Symes, splitting everything evenly. We’ll meet at Sweetwater. Just keep to the desert, and devil take the storm.’
‘Nothing suits me better,’ shouted Symes, leering wickedly as he personally took charge of a loaded pair of saddle-bags. ‘I’ll see you sitting pretty in old Sweetwater.’
‘Say, but wasn’t it a smooth thing? Never knowed a bank hold-up work so slick,’ chuckled Tom. ‘Why, I had more trouble getting apples when I was a kid. Did you see that cashier’s face, though? He just yanked open yon office door, then goggled like he was a derned fish on a hook.’
A great roar of mirth revealed everybody’s appreciation; yes, even Tom’s jokes were side-splitters now.
‘Fish on a hook nothing,’ argued Mex, whose laughter made speaking difficult for him, ‘Jeengo, but that fella died sudden! He gasped like a flattened toad.’
‘Cleanest bank job I ever took a hand in.’ Hank Williams chuckled, trying to look modest under Mex’s praise. ‘A straight million dollars, I wager. You know what? I’m a-going to live in cool luxury. Damn me! What a pay-off!’
They heard a strange hiss. Hank heard nothing, however: a bullet was boring through the back of his skull and entering his brain.
CHAPTER TWELVE
There came a mighty explosion of guns. What with the storm a-brewing real bad, it seemed like an earthquake.
Hank Williams slid lifeless from behind Rand. Other riders, with their mounts rearing and whining, cursed and tumbled before the tempest of lead. Then Tom and Larry began to return the fire, and were soon joined by the barking guns of Symes and Rand, who hazily recognized, in the churning dust and sinister light, a ruthless line of bushwhackers behind the little hills on either side of Sulphur Springs.
Totally unprepared for a gun-battle at this late stage in the big venture, and being in a rejoicing frame of mind, it clashed upon the Bruce Gang with a tremendous shock, throwing them into devastating confusion, and threatening them with a massacre.
Jake was second to die; he died in the saddle, his horse running wild, carrying the limp body into the desert to God knows where. The horses kept milling in a frenzy round the water-hole, some threshed on their backs in the cacti thickets, staining the thorny vegetation with their blood. Mercilessly the guns thundered, pouring a continuous stream of lead
into the mass of living flesh. Then, Tom, poor Tom lay screaming like a kid, clutching his saddle-bags from which fluttered a trail of bullet-pierced dollar bills. Now other men were crawling away through the sand, dragging themselves on their elbows, swearing, moaning, yelling, wildly blasting their weapons at those death-spitting hills. To stay and fight would be suicide; to break away would need a miracle; yet Rand suddenly glimpsed a free passage into the desert. He was about to dig spurs into his horse when Clemens, the old-timer with the tapering beard, the fellow who was a-going to do something mysteriously special with his share-out, cried his name.
Rand swirled around: Clemens was floundering for his life in the pool; Rand was about to assist him. At that instant Mister Sturdy’s horse reared, creased by a bullet, crazy in pain: its hoofs crushed into the old man’s appealing face. Jeff Rand’s heart shook in horror.
It was growing darker. Some awesome change was coming over the world.
The flashing and pounding of guns as the gang retaliated in blind fury, the breath-catching whine of bullets, and the colliding and wrestling of man and beast, grew worse. The enemy lay hidden; he could not be sought out; nobody tried to identify him; everybody just kept madly seeking escape from that orderly repetition of gunfire. Big Bruce shouted like a man insane, shouted commands that no one understood, that no one could obey if they had understood. A few moments ago when he had looked back, seen the storm blowing up, and told Rand hell was a-coming, he had not known the truth of his words. It was here, ravaging them with all its satanic forces. The whole dreadful tumult, beginning at close quarters, suggested some devilish machine, grinding faster and fiercer, not solely bent on wiping out the Bruce Gang, but on bursting to pieces the whole mad world.