by John Long
‘What a low-down dry place to end up!’ Symes mildly exclaimed, sending a stream of tobacco juice across the mortuary floor.
A great roar of laughter greeted the remark.
‘Ah, but I’m serious,’ Gowl gravely argued.
‘You’re sand-crazy,’ snorted Bruce. ‘Here, have some more coffee.’ He reached for a steaming can.
‘You leave me alone,’ warned the cook, glancing towards a hatchet.
‘Say, don’t you get worked up?’ Bruce muttered. ‘Take care, Mister, because my fists have grown hungry since pounding that sham gunman’s bones.’
‘Jeengo, but Rand was sure soft and messy under the fist!’ scorned Mex, dabbing a greasy rag at his shaven chin. ‘I can feel him now.’
‘His gun-dragging days are over,’ the boss firmly declared, relishing his memories. ‘I crunched his finger-bones dead.’
‘Shut up!’ Symes’ face wore a menacing look as he sprang upright on the piano. ‘Quit that talk, Brucy boy! It makes my hands itch!’
A tensed silence followed, with Bruce flushed, looking surprised, as if he had foolishly sat on something hot and didn’t want it to get around. He wanted to be angry, only fear lowered his temperature.
During the silence they heard a far-away banging of a shutter. Thereat Bruce released his passion, by shying a can of beans at Clay.
‘Next time I order you to fix something, do it!’ he roared. ‘Listen to that infernal shutter.’
‘Gives me the creeps, so it do,’ whispered Tom.
‘Me too. Winds hereabouts are queersome things,’ agreed Mex.
‘Hush! Listen! Shut your jaws!’ snapped Symes, squirting tobacco juice at the bean can meant for Clay’s head, then cupping a hand to his ear.
‘What’s the matter? Hear something, do yuh?’ whispered Bruce.
‘Loads o’ skeletons, boys, right under your feet,’ Gowl spitefully repeated in a low voice.
Nobody paid any attention to him; all listened to the banging and squeaking. It seemed to be drawing nearer and nearer. Presently the commotion developed with a wicked frenzy. A tremendous hissing broke out close by. Next instant a terrible power started to shake the old mouldering building.
‘Just the fool wind,’ Bruce laughed forcibly.
Now the sand came, fizzing like fine grain through every slit betwixt the wall-boards. The sun went out. A peculiar humming came from the doorway; the doorway became choked by a whirling cloud of sand – and the cloud grew denser.
‘Look! Good God! Look there!’
Everybody jolted where he sat or sprawled; everybody stared as Big Bruce, screaming to be heard above the racking din, pointed with outstretched arm.
‘What in hell is it?’ someone yelled, terror in his voice.
The sand cloud was retreating; the sounds were subsiding. But now a tall and haggard figure, appearing then fading alternately, mutely watched them from the doorway of the Hurdy Gurdy House.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Bloodshed, huntger, thirst, a long trail of sufferings, not to mention the present sojourn in Sweetwater, had been endured for the obtaining of ‘easy money’. But exactly how worn down was the Bruce Gang’s nerve at the present stage of its existence, only became apparent now on beholding that grim apparition in the doorway. Such was the shock produced, that Jeff Rand might have just risen from the grave.
‘Who killed Miller?’ Rand’s voice revealed his identity, lashing them back to realities.
‘Hi-there, Jeff!’ Symes recovered first, and, still squatting on the piano, he waved a hand in friendly style. ‘Knowed somehow you’d pay a call.’
‘Which of you lousy snakes killed my pardner and stole my gold?’ Rand repeated in the same booming tones; and taking one forward step he more fully revealed himself.
Nobody answered. Everybody watched. They knew death was waiting hungrily in that place. Bruce had now balled his huge fists and his white face leered at the accusing visitor. Mex slyly rested a hand in readiness on his knife. Clay, Winters, Tom and Gowl kept tensed, close to their guns. Symes alone looked at ease, watching the scene with a ridiculously stupid face, feigning innocence.
‘Come back for your share-out, have you, Sham?’ Bruce spoke with utmost scorn, striving to control his rage.
‘Who killed Miller?’
Once more the question snarled across the room. Yet Rand was trembling inwardly. There seemed to be so many of them, not to mention that gun-wizard Symes. Nor had Jeff entered with drawn guns; in fact his shock on finding them in this building had equalled if not exceeded that of the whole outfit. But guns, drawn or holstered, did not matter much just then; he could not kill them all. Bruce and Symes would satisfy him. He might not even get any of them: Symes created that secret terror. Yet Rand had resigned himself to death from the beginning, even before he left the ranch-house. Whereas the idea was fresh and shocking to these fellows, who looked forward to a luxurious future. What a fine old man was Keller! How grand was the old lady! Queer he should think of them at this terrible moment. Maybe they were thinking of him, Teresa too. Maybe this moment was part of a preformed plan of his life, all starting off when he was a kid, revenging his poor kinfolk. What a heartbreak for a fellow, after so many years gunfighting and careful watching, to end up right here with this pack of wretched hoodlums. Rand prepared himself to die.
‘Bruce!’ The name came like a bark. ‘Busting that bank, using my gold, opened the gates o’ hell. But by mauling me, busting my hands, you have drawn out the flames. Make your play, Mister, and burn!’
‘You streak of filth! I shoulda broken your neck as well!’ Bruce almost shrieked in his wrath; his bared chest was bulging and heaving in passion. He first poured forth all the profane language he could before emotion choked him. ‘A gun – gimme a gun, somebody!’ he then hissed viciously. ‘Look! See his hands! Just hunks of rotten meat. Ha-ha-haa! His stinkin’ paws couldn’t hold sticks, let alone his guns. I’ll finish him myself. Blast yuh, Clay! Hurry! Gimme a gun!’
A six-shooter was spun across. Bruce caught it adeptly, laughing in fiendish joy. Then it happened. Rand vanished. He stepped back into the curtain of sand, and Bruce fired instantly. Two flaming streams of lead ripped back from the doorway.
Rand suddenly materialised again, a changed man, a merciless wild beast. His face was taut, his eyes were staring and blazing, and his claw-like hands clenched two guns, belching death.
‘I’m with yuh, Jeff!’ A voice raised itself impressively in the thunderous uproar, followed by the crashing down of a piano. ‘Come on, Jeff! We’ll clean up these filthy savages together!’
Sand flew, gunsmoke whirled, someone was laughing hideously, someone else kept shrieking in agony. About a dozen guns open-fired, resounding their terrifying message in the walls. The uproar, grinding in one’s ears, was simply stupefying. Every man’s heart contracted, quaked in fear for his flesh, as he took part in the battle.
Rand had lunged in fearlessly, sending bullets slicing into Bruce’s barrel of a chest. Bruce staggered, hideous in shock, hideous in the dying sensation that possessed him. He was sinking down, pressing a thumb into an oozing hole.
‘Symes!’ he groaned, trying to re-aim his gun. ‘I kill you! You cheat – fraud – damn thief – hell!’
His massive body crashed to the floor, shaking the house.
In the same instant a knife was shattered in mid-air. Rand’s guns were on Mex; and Mex, now weaponless, felt something hot tearing softly through his neck.
The bullet-pierced mirrors of the Hurdy Gurdy House multiplied the enemy. There was no place to hide except behind the fallen piano – and Clay was there; and except behind the bar – and Gowl lurked there. Rand ceased firing. He staggered, looked stupefied, and stood swaying groggily, ready to pitch down headlong. Vaguely he was aware of someone beside him; someone who laughed crazily; someone who stood boldly erect, feet astride and unmindful of shots ripping through his fine clothing. It was Symes. What was he doing? He was holding his guns care
lessly, yet firing with enjoyable deliberation, steadily killing his own friends. Now the bodies thudded down, visibly bleeding, writhing and taking more lead. Now the enemy shrieked in mingled surprise and agony. Yes, it was Symes before them, Symes on Rand’s side, and Rand was scarcely less shocked than the Bruce Gang meeting death. A great hush embraced the Hurdy Gurdy House. What? Was it all over already? Rand, who had not even emptied his guns, was answered by that all-smothering and unearthly silence. It was the end.
A last piece of glass tinkled from the mirror behind the bar. An eddy of sand hissed round a paper bag, and a flexible whisp of powder fume trailed through a slit in the wall-boards. It was cold in here now. Outside the storm still raged pretty bad, but it seemed strangely remote, buried deep by this interior silence.
Something started to moan real gruesomely behind the bar. A blood-smeared figure slowly rose up, wheezing, and gaping in terror at the two gunfighters who stood out there, grimly reviewing their terrible work.
‘Fetch a – fetch a doctor!’ Gowl groaned in a joggling voice, appealing to them. ‘Please – hurry – bring a sawbones, someone!’
A low chuckle answered him.
‘No, no, Mister! Don’t kill me! You get the money, every cent. I get a doctor; just fetch a doctor.’
‘Sure, neighbour. Doctor a-coming up!’
Lazy footsteps thudded towards the bar.
‘No, no, no!’ Gowl screamed.
The footsteps arrived, and stopped.
‘Quit that, Symes!’ Rand called out faintly, shielding his glazed eyes, and shaking his fuddled head.
‘No, mister, no! Dear God, no, Mister Symes!’
As Gowl begged in naked terror, looking stark and staring, he felt his hair grasped. His head was jerked down upon the counter, and the counter smelt rotten and mouldy, spiced like coffin-wood. Releasing another chuckle, Symes shot Gowl through the skull.
‘No gang, no risks, no shares!’ he lilted, spinning and holstering his weapon. ‘Pull yourself together, Jeff. We two make a rare army. There’s a fortune in yon piano-forty, so let’s load and ride. I’ve got the guns, you’ve got the guts, so we both get the money.’
Gleeful and business-like, Symes stepped over Big Bruce’s body and, lifting the piano lid, he began to haul out saddle-bags, heavy with dollars.
‘Funny thing, you showing up right on time, Jeff, same as if prefixed atween us. Mind you, I had it all figured out this way back at Grapevine. Though I didn’t care to spring the plan and give you the layout till we bust the bank and sat pretty here. Then unluckily you fell foul of snake’s flesh there. But never mind, Jeff. We don’t care one cuss now. Jest look at this! The jackpot!’
Still dazed, the gun-battle continuing to thunder in his head, Rand watched and listened, hardly believing in the altered situation, barely able to credit that he had escaped through it unscathed. Sure enough he felt baffled and drunk, a natural thing after an illness. But – but what about Symes? Just listen to him yapping like a fool kid playing hookey, catching fish. What was he saying, anyhow? Why was he flinging those bags out on the veranda?
Realization rushed in of a sudden, clearing the mental cloud like sunshine, levelling his course, and exposing danger. His position was no better than if these dead men had risen and confronted him with reloaded guns. Symes still lived.
‘Get some water-bags ready, Jeff,’ called out Symes, ‘and bundle together a few supplies. I’m off to get horses; they’re penned up in the Belmont.’
He headed for the door as he gave the orders.
‘Hang on a moment, mister!’ yelled Rand.
He was too late, however; Symes had already hurried into the street and the deafening wind. When Rand reached the veranda, almost stumbling over the heap of saddle-bags thereon, and nearly blinded by flying grit, Symes was halfway to the roofless Belmont Hotel, the gang’s stable.
‘Sy-y-ymes!’ he called, cupping his hands to his mouth. ‘Come back, you big-headed fool! Stop!’
The freak sand-storm was easing off, yet already the flying dust had piled like snow against the heap of bulging saddle-bags, and was blowing irritatingly up Rand’s rawhide pants. The main street, previously hoof-marked, was again like an untouched Christmas scene, except where Symes left his criminal footsteps as he hastened over to the hotel.
‘Sy-y-ymes!’
Rand shouted once more, and on this occasion the wind caught up and freighted his call, rising and falling. The distantly swaggering gunman halted. Puzzled and ever cautious he stood in crooked thought for a second or two, previous to turning slowly around. Rand then came down the broken steps and struck out towards him, yelling loudly as he went.
‘The money’s all yours, Sy-y-ymes! Every rotten dime is yours. I ain’t after nothing, ’cept my own gold. You are riding out alone.’
Symes heard and bowed his head. He traced a toe in the sand and reflected a while.
‘Jeff, I admires kind natures like yorn.’ He suddenly looked up and yelled back. ‘But you see, sonny, I knows the money’s all mine. Your hand-out is the gold. After services I make the pay-off. You ride with me.’
Rand, plainly astonished at this reply, halted about twenty-five paces from him.
‘You know what, Symes? A fellow might distrust them services you mention, and the pay-off. A fellow might figure you aimed to leave him just this side of the border, with empty saddle-bags, and saddle. With nothing but a bullet in the back!’
‘Lordy, lordy me!’ Symes seemed to appreciate Rand’s vivid imagination. ‘What a wicked bad mind you have, Jeff!’
‘Sorry,’ Jeff apologised, not smiling, but pale and agitated. ‘You see, Symes, I am also an evil-minded thinker. You’d be safer without a cuss like me. Just hand over my gold and I’ll ride.’
‘Fiddlesticks, Jeff! Don’t be cruel mean with yourself,’ Symes appealed to him. ‘You’re my only witness, old pardner; so don’t get awkward and go and commit suicide on me.’ He paused, kicked sand over the design he had traced with his toe, then proceeded in altered accent. ‘We ride out together.’
‘Mister Symes,’ said Rand.
‘Yes, Jeff?’asked Symes.
‘I don’t like you. I ain’t a-coming, because you make me sick.’
At that remark Symes’ body tensed, and he instinctively sought a firmer footing in the sand. Their argument had reached a deadlock. A desperate and frightening war of looks was waged, more intense than ever previous.
Rand stood bent-shouldered, and as perfectly still as he could in the streaming wind. His face had turned expressionless, no longer grimacing at the stinging grit; and his awful hands, hooked like claws in his waistcoat pockets, instinctively flexed themselves, like two separate evil creatures.
‘Who killed Miller?’
The question was launched shakily yet loudly.
Symes received the question and instantly he crouched lower.
‘Who – killed – Miller?’
More loudly and less shakily the words ran on the wind. Symes snarled inwardly, and he seemed to be bristling like a wild-cat in deadly readiness.
‘WHO – KILLED – MILLER?’
With unbelievable volume and passion the words roared from Jeff Rand’s throat.
A brief pause ensued. Then came the answer.
‘There’s your man,’ shouted a familiar voice, stern with authority. ‘You are facing him.’
Both men glanced sharply aside, and were momentarily astounded to see Mister Sturdy standing there on the sidewalk. Beside Sturdy, holding two horses by the bridles, and beholding the scene with deepest gravity, was the sheriff of Flintstone.
‘Bruce robbed the old prospector, Mister Rand, and Symes shot him down in cold blood.’ Sturdy tried to keep the hatred out of his voice. ‘I bear witness to the malicious killing of James Miller.’
Livid with fury, Symes posted Sturdy a venomous look, a look that gleamed with a desire to kill him. He quickly returned his attention to Rand, keen to see how he received the information. Rand’s fa
ce was blank, yet his hands had become stiffly extended.
‘Throw down your guns, Mister Symes,’ commanded the sheriff. ‘I carry a warrant for your arrest, brought by a US marshal.’
The sheriff had dived a hand into his pocket for the document, but some silently-thrilling communication between both these men out there, warned him not to withdraw that hand. He could do nothing, except anxiously devour the terrible play being enacted before him.
Rand did not think to question the mysterious change in Sturdy, now on the side of the law; he did not need to question Sturdy, he wanted no more evidence than that which Symes had already given by silence. Despite his exterior coldness as he now awaited the moment of action, Rand was sickened with fear. His eyes kept glazing over so that Symes faded before him. Moreover he felt a queer paralysis extending down his arms. He couldn’t help picturing how Smily had died before the matchless Symes. How could he beat such swiftness? How could he even move? But wait! Had he remembered to reload after the battle? He did not recollect. Sweat, itching trickles of salty sweat ran down his face. Symes was ready – any moment now – then death.
‘He won’t make it! Jeff can’t beat him! Look at his hands!’ Mister Sturdy could not contain his excitement as he whispered to the sheriff, gripping his arm.
‘Poor man! Hands like a damned hawk!’ the horrified sheriff muttered fiercely. ‘Yeah; a gun-hawk!’
For perhaps the first time in his bloody career, Symes was assailed by a passing doubt as he watched Rand’s pose. Yonder fellow certainly had a load of real courage; but he was a fool. He had watched Rand in action against Crocker, and found him barely average. But now, with fingers like gnarled roots, what chance had he? Symes was nonetheless strangely fascinated by those hands; from their distorted appearance he conceived a sickly haunting dread. He looked this fear full in the face, and scorned it. He was too experienced to be caught that way. It died a natural death. Symes started to laugh balefully to himself. Then drew.
His guns leapt up, sprang to him, and roared in rapid succession.