by Joe Millard
Cora peered out through the rear flaps, then stepped on out and disappeared. Laura waved to her mother and stepped out the front.
*****
Bug-Eye Kibbedge was hot, hungry, bored and resentful. Apachito had sent him out at daybreak to keep watch on the circus people and report any suspicious activity. His breakfast, he had been promised, would be delivered to him shortly. But not one morsel had he received. Worse, the breeze was right to bring the aroma of roasting venison and freshly baked bread from the circus cookfire to his quivering nostrils.
The only break in the monotony was when he trailed the circus man and saw him hide a package in a thicket behind the wagon park. He had rushed to report to Apachito and found him lolling with the others around the big fire where a quarter of beef was roasting and coffee boiling. The swarthy chieftain listened to his report and nodded.
"Just about what I expected. All right, Bug-Eye. Get on back and keep watching."
"Dammit, chief, I'm starved. Why can't I wait and get my breakfast before I go back?"
Apachito's brittle temper, already ragged from the loss of his prisoners and a supply of weapons, boiled over.
He yelled, "Because I told you to go back now! You'll get your breakfast when I'm goddam good and ready to send it out to you. I promised the boys there'd be a hanging for the last act of the circus today. You give me any more trouble and, by God, I won't have to look any further for the neck to fit the noose."
Bug-Eye scuttled back to his post, but nearly two hours had dragged by with still no sign of the food. Instead he had heard a volley of distant shots, then a wild commotion and loud, angry yells, interspersed with long periods of silence. He shifted the rifle across his lap and tried to find a more comfortable position on the hard log.
Behind him, dry leaves rustled and a twig snapped. He snatched up the rifle and started to turn around.
A soft voice said, "You wouldn't shoot a girl for wanting to meet a handsome fellow like you, now would you?"
Bug-Eye completed his turn. His mouth flew open and the bulging eyes that had given him his nickname bulged still further. The girl in the body-hugging tights undulated her sensational figure and her smile was an open invitation.
"How did you know I was here?" Bug-Eye blurted.
"You've been watching us all morning," Cora said, wagging a chiding finger, "but you didn't know that all that time, I was watching you. You do something to me, handsome."
"I d-do?" Bug-Eye croaked. "Wh-what?"
"Oh, I couldn't tell you. It wouldn't be ladylike and proper." And that's no lie, Cora told herself. If I told him the truth, my language wouldn't be either ladylike or proper. She added, "But maybe I could show you if we were in a really private place, just you and me."
Bug-Eye licked his lips, laid the rifle aside and beckoned urgently,
"Come on and show me."
"Oh, not here. It's much too close to our wagons. And besides, I have to get things ready for the performance now. But I could meet you later in the woods behind the wagons, where the bushes are so thick nobody could see us."
Bug-Eye was too bemused even to think of his assigned post.
"Wh-what time?"
"What time is it now?"
He hauled out a great turnip of a watch. "Quarter past eight."
"I'll slip away and meet you there at eight-thirty. Now don't you dare disappoint me by not showing up, will you?"
"I'll be there," Bug-Eye promised hoarsely, "right on the dot. Just be sure you're there."
Cora blew him a kiss, gave her hips one final seductive grind and flitted away among the trees.
At almost the same moment, on the far side of the canyon, one Split-Ear Gaunt dropped a wooden bucket of water he had just dipped from a spring at the base of the cliff. He hauled out his watch with a shaking hand. His breathing sounded somewhat like a steam engine with a broken governor. "Just eight-fifteen."
He made a frantic lunge. The girl in the body-hugging spangled tights eluded his amorous grab.
"You behave, now," Laura chided. "I told you, my Daddy'll be coming for water any time now and if he caught me doing that he'd skin me alive. You do like I told you and meet me in those thick bushes behind your wagons at eight-thirty. And don't you dare keep me waiting after getting me all worked up like this."
She patted his cheek, dodged another grab and was gone.
Promptly at eight-thirty Split-Ear pushed his way into the thicket behind the wagon park. He peered around frantically.
"Pssst! Baby, I'm here. Where are you?"
There was a loud snort and a human figure reared up from the ground directly in his path. Split-Ear, unable to stop in midstep, rammed a foot into the yielding obstacle and lunged over it in a perfect dive. He crashed down on his face, rolled over and scrambled up, swearing, to confront an equally furious Bug-Eye Kibbedge.
"You sonofabitch!" Split-Ear yelled. "What the hell's the big idea of hidin' in here and trippin' a feller who's just passin' through?"
"Sonofabitch, yourself!" Bug-Eye yelled back. "What the hell's the big idea of bargin' in and kickin' a feller in the side when he's layin' there tryin' to get a spot of rest. Just what the hell are you doin' here, anyhow?"
"It's none of your goddam business, but I'll tell yuh. I got a date with a girl—the one from the circus with the tights and the big zum-zums. She made the date just fifteen minutes ago by my watch so she'll be here any minute. You trot along. We don't need nobody to watch us."
"Whereabouts did she make that date?"
"Right by the spring over across the canyon."
"That proves you're a goddam liar. Just fifteen minutes ago by my watch she was over by her Daddy's wagons, makin' a date with me. So you just trot along and get lost somewheres."
Split-Ear howled, "Who you callin' a goddam liar, you goddam liar?"
There was a crashing through the bushes and Mose Hintley burst through, red-faced and hot-eyed.
"I heard that, and you're both goddam liars! At twenty minutes past eight by my watch she was standing over by the blacksmith shop, waiting for me to get through watering the horses so she could make a date to meet me here. She told me herself she'd been waiting a good fifteen minutes, which just proves you're both damn liars. She sure as hell couldn't be out by the circus wagons, across by the spring and over by the blacksmith shop all at the same time. So why don't you just make yourselves to hell scarce before I get mad and kick your dumb asses clean over the wagon park?"
"Listen to him," Split-Ear bawled. "With that face, he couldn't get a date with any woman unless he paid double."
"Why, damn you to hell!" Mose roared and grabbed his gun.
The three weapons thundered almost as one. Split-Ear clasped both arms across his middle, teetered briefly and fell on his face. Bug-Eye took three rubber-legged backward steps and landed heavily on his back. Mose stared from one body to the other, then down at the pistol in his own hand. A thin, foolish smile tugged at his lips. He laid the gun down very carefully, then fell on it.
In the dressing tent, the three gunshots were muffled by distance and the canvas sidewalls, but unmistakable. Laura staggered and caught the edge of the dressing table, the color draining from her face. Cora, seated at the mirror applying her clown makeup put out a quick hand to steady her.
"What is it? Are you all right?"
"I will be in a moment," Laura said. "It's just that—I don't know—planning it was kind of fun. But hearing those three shots and knowing it worked out just that way makes me feel a little sick."
"I know, honey," Cora said, patting her arm. "Try to do what I do. I try to keep remembering what Mother says—they aren't human beings. They're animals."
"I do try," Laura said, "but you know how I am about animals. I still cry when I think of what must have happened to poor old Elmer."
*****
Deep in the woods, Shadrach and the hunter heard the three shots and stopped short, staring blankly at one another.
"Now, what in
the devil would that mean?" Shadrach demanded, frowning. "You didn't throw any more shells on a fire."
"You've got me," the bounty hunter said. "Not that I mind if they want to start killing one another off, as long as I—uh—we get to collect the bounties."
"I'm so glad you corrected yourself," Shadrach said dryly. "My feelings would be terribly hurt if I thought you'd forgotten our partnership."
"How could I ever forget a relationship so deep and sacred?" the hunter murmured. "And incidentally, just what is our relationship, now that you don't need me any longer to lure Apachito into your clutches or help locate his secret hideout?"
"Closer than ever, old boy. You said you had a hunch as to where Dandy hid the bank's money and I've come to have deep respect for your hunches."
"Remind me not to talk in my sleep," the hunter said.
They reached the narrow slot where the road entered the pass through the high rock cliffs that enclosed the canyon. It was a tunnel of gloom against the glare of the morning sun and they had to wait long moments for their eyes to adjust. Here the day came late and the night fell early. Only for a very few minutes at high noon, when the sun was directly overhead, did its light ever reach deep into the gash between the towering rock walls.
Shadrach strode down the center of the road, his rifle at ready, his head swiveling from side to side as he searched the gloom. The bounty hunter followed more cautiously, keeping to the side where fallen rock lay jumbled against the base of the cliffs.
Presently, crouching behind a mass of fallen sandstone, he called, "By the way, Shadrach, you'd better give me your permanent address so I'll know where to send the body."
Shadrach stopped short, staring back. "What body?"
"Yours," the hunter said, "since it's obvious you've forgotten that Apachito sent two men to guard this way out."
"Hell riding side-saddle!" Shadrach yelped and dived for the cover of rocks a split second before a rifle crashed somewhere ahead. The slug kicked up a spurt of dust from the road and screamed away, the cliffs flinging the echoes back and forth.
Simultaneously, the bounty hunter threw up his rifle and fired. Up on the clifftop a man dropped his rifle, straightened up and staggered to the rim of the cliff. He stood for a moment, teetering, then plunged over. After long moments there was the squashy thud of his landing among the rocks below.
"I hope he wasn't worth one of the good bounties," the hunter said, levering out the spent shell casing. "Nobody can ever identify him now."
They moved on along the slot with new caution, one of them diving from one rock cover to the next while the other stood ready to shoot at the first sign of movement ahead or up on the cliff's rim.
They rounded a sharp curve and stopped short, gaping at the barrier that marked the end of the road.
The hunter gasped, "When Apachito and his gang rode out, there was a rumbling noise and then a slam. The same thing happened when they came back. So I figured it had to be some kind of a door, but this is absolutely the damnedest door anybody in this world has ever seen."
*****
Dandy burst into the tent, out of breath and pale as a ghost. He stopped short, gaping at Cora, still at the dressing table, her elaborate clown makeup only beginning to take its final appearance.
"Oh, my God, you're only half made up and Apachito with a dozen of his thugs are charging out here, and it's a sure bet they aren't paying a social call." He slapped his forehead dramatically. "When he sees both of you together, we're ruined. No matter what happens after that, our act is dead."
Laura jumped up and grabbed her sister by the arm.
"Get in the coffin—quick! You know what to push."
"But what about you two?"
"We'll bluff it out," Laura snapped. "Hurry!"
Cora tumbled into the coffin, holding a towel around her face to prevent leaving telltale streaks on the silk lining. Laura slammed the lid, there was a faint, soft thud, and she opened it again. The coffin was empty.
Bending over it, Laura said softly, "Remember to breathe shallow. We'll get them out as fast as we can."
The tent flaps burst open and Apachito charged in, his gun in his hand, Lupo at his heels. He glared around, peered into the empty coffin, then whirled on Dandy.
"Damn your hide, what have you been up to?" He caught the dapper circus man by the shirt front and shook him violently. Dandy grabbed Apachito to recover his balance. "You've been up to something. Three of my best men don't kill one another over nothing. You put them up to it somehow, damn you! What did you tell them or promise them, you slick-tongued bastard?"
Lupo slapped his pistol back into its holster and flexed his huge hands. "Give me a few minutes with him, chief, and I promise you he'll spill everything."
Laura sprang in front of him. "Don't you dare lay a hand on my father, you big, dumb ape. And you, too, let go of him. You're stupid, both of you."
Apachito instinctively let go of Dandy's shirt and gaped at her. Dandy whirled and grabbed Lupo. "You know I couldn't have had anything to do with any killing. You had that man out there watching me all the time."
Lupo swung his hand in a short, vicious arc. Dandy staggered back, a crimson blotch on his cheek. Laura leaped forward and slapped Lupo across the mouth.
"You big, stupid, ignorant ox!" she screeched. "I'm the one responsible if they killed one another. They were fighting over me. They all wanted to get me back in the bushes, but I put them off. I was hoping you, you stupid clod, would wake up and take me. I practically sent you an engraved invitation, but you were too dumb to get it."
"Hey, hey, hey," Apachito bawled. He stared at Laura as if really seeing her for the first time. His small, dark, Indian eyes took in her lush figure, so enhanced by the tight-fitting costume. He wet his lips. "If anybody's goin' into the bushes, it'll be me. Only I don't have to go into no bushes. I got my own cabin and a first-rate bunk."
"Just say when," Laura said softly. "What time is it now?"
Apachito reached into his pocket and his whole expression changed. "My watch! It's gone! The finest watch anybody ever saw in this country. I killed a man to get it and I'll kill the man who dared steal it."
"Oh, forget your silly old watch," Laura said, wrinkling her nose. She turned to Lupo. "You can tell me what time it is, I'm sure."
Lupo pawed an immense hand into his pocket and brought out an elegantly engraved gold timepiece. He was gaping at it stupidly when Apachito roared like a wounded bull.
"My watch! You thieving sonofabitch! You stole it, the same way you figure on stealing my place as leader."
"I told you," Laura shrilled. "I warned you he'd figure out you were planning to take over."
Lupo was gaping dumbly, his sluggish mind struggling to catch up. But the murderous rage in Apachito's eyes brought an automatic reflex. He grabbed for his gun, but Apachito's weapon was in his hand and cocked. He needed only to move it a scant inch and pull the trigger. Lupo was dead before his big hand closed on the butt of his own pistol.
Dandy grabbed Laura and hugged her close. "My baby."
Apachito whirled on him, snarling, "Now, you son—"
From the direction of the exit road came two closely spaced rifle shots, followed a few moments later by a fusillade of rifle fire. Apachito cursed furiously and charged through the tent flaps. They could hear him outside, yelling for his men, then the pound of their running feet fading into the distance.
"Baby," Dandy said again, "you couldn't have played it better if I'd written the whole script and we'd rehearsed it."
"How else could I play it?" Laura demanded. "I saw you lift Apachito's watch out of his pocket and plant it on Lupo as you were making the big thing out of hanging on to first one and then the other. So how else could I play it but the way you set it up?"
Dandy slapped his forehead again. "You saw me pick his pocket? Even if you are my daughter who I trained myself, I must be slipping."
"Your only daughter," Laura said, "if we don't hurry and get Co
ra out of that trap."
Together they tilted the coffin back. Cora, disheveled and sweaty, her clown makeup smeared, scrambled out of the narrow space in the lower part of the catafalque, a space concealed by mirrors set at an angle to reflect the front legs of the stand, giving the illusion that the viewer was looking on through empty space to the back legs.
"You two," she said. "I'm in there stifling while you stand out here jawing about who saw who picking whose pocket."
"All right, all right," Dandy shouted, waving his hands. "Hurry up and finish your clown makeup before that other clown comes barging back, hollering for us to get on with the show."
CHAPTER 24