The old miner had his right arm resting inside the front flap of his tunic, as if he were in need of an arm sling.
“All you had to do was turn away, let me go. That’s all you had to do, Tibbs. All I did was help Thorne steal money. I didn’t even have it. Ain’t nobody got harmed too bad back then. All you had to do was nothing. Simplest thing in the world to do is nothing. But you couldn’t even do that right.”
His snarled beard quivered in counterpoint to his twitching bloodshot eyes. Skin’s voice was low, even, and deadlier sounding to Gunnar than it had ever been.
“You bastard. I will never forgive you.” Then the killer smiled. “Lucky for me I don’t have long to wait. Now get on down there and stand by the last of that old log. I expect it’s the same one we both know well.”
“Yeah,” said Gunnar. “It’s the one you tried to get across on. Years ain’t been kind to it, though. Looks about as rough as I feel.”
Skin snorted. “You’re about to feel a whole lot worse than that, you old donkey.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
As fortune would have it, it was Skin’s ailing side that faced Gunnar, the one he had seen the outlaw favoring, rubbing gently. He figured the man had received some sort of wound, maybe a glancing blow with a knife or a bullet grazing, or maybe something he’d earned in prison. Gunnar didn’t know or much care.
That Varney had a visible ailment, one he took no pains to disguise from Gunnar, told him all he needed to know. It gave him an extra edge of confidence. He wasn’t ready, still had his hand on his Barlow nested in his tunic, but he had no time to reconsider. He’d take the chance when he got it or forever live in regret. That notion had served him well in life so far. He was still alive, after all. No time to abandon such a time-tested belief.
Gunnar dove for his captor, ramming the killer hard in his ailing side. The blow caught Skin in the waist, above the belt. Gunnar’s moccasin slipped on scree and he lost a pinch of momentum. When he hit the big killer, his own shoulder buckled and Gunnar felt something inside pop, but he kept on.
His right arm was still nested in his tunic, with the Barlow knife gripped tight in his palm. Now he’d have to wait to get away from Skin before he dared pause to jerk open the blade.
His lunge folded Skin Varney like a poor hand of cards, and the big brute collapsed as if gutshot. Skin’s grunt of shock and raised eyebrows told Gunnar the killer could hardly believe it was the old man who’d driven himself like a wedge into Skin’s midsection. Gunnar had bent low and sprung at him sideways, hadn’t offered a shout or growl to warn Skin he was about to take a fast, short journey.
Gunnar hoped to gain a few precious seconds, enough to disorient Skin and give himself time to ready the small knife. They rolled together to the ragged lip of earth atop the ravine, a tangle of limbs as the thrashing killer’s surprise turned to seething rage. Varney bellowed as he snatched at his attacker.
Gunnar tried to roll from the clawing man’s big hands. As he shoved away from Skin, he felt wetness against the side of his face. He jerked away and saw on Skin’s shirt the singular seeping dark redness that came only from a bleeding wound. He scrambled with renewed effort to get away from Varney, his mind savoring the facts that Skin was indeed wounded and that Gunnar had just reopened whatever wound had been troubling the killer.
Varney regained one knee, but wobbled, fell down on his backside once more, then collapsed to lean on one elbow, his back to the open air of the ravine. His hands clutched at the sopping reddening wound in his left side. His right hand snatched for his revolver, then up again to hold the wound, then down once more. He did this several times while groaning and cursing, “Aah, aah,” over and over, sucking shallow breaths through tight-set teeth.
If it had been anyone else, Gunnar might have felt bad for them. But for Skin Varney, he managed a grim smile as he worked with fumbling fingers to open the Barlow’s blade. That was as far as he got.
Skin’s flailing legs smacked into Gunnar, and when the killer felt he’d connected with his foe, despite his own pain, he jerked his feet hard. Gunnar fell to his left, pitching down the graveled drop, and he felt the Barlow fly from his grasp. He jammed his feet downslope and slowed himself to a dust-clouded skid.
As Skin struggled once more to regain his knees, Gunnar’s departure had knocked him off-kilter, and Skin leaned too far to his right. He jammed an arm outward to catch himself, but he was turned around and his outstretched mitt grasped nothing at all.
Varney uttered a short, loud bark of anger and surprise as he tumbled downslope, headfirst, end over end, before skidding toward the bottom of the ravine twenty feet below. As he thundered downward, he caromed off head-size boulders and jags of spiny rock exposed by floods of the past. Grunts and moans marked the last few feet until he collapsed in an unmoving sprawl at the rocky base.
Gunnar also lost the fight, despite clawing efforts to snatch at something, anything that might slow his fall down the near-vertical drop. I am a fool and a half, he thought as he slid, slammed, and rolled, unable to stop himself. I caused this and deserve every damned broken bone I get.
That was all the time Gunnar had for thinking because he slammed once more into Skin Varney at the base of the slope and bounced off the big brute’s unmoving body. Then the old miner’s wispy head smacked something bigger and a whole lot harder. The day’s crisp gray-blue sky turned grayer and grayer, darker and darker as he gazed upward. Then he knew no more.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Gunnar came to with a jerk, as if someone had tossed a bucket of water on his slack bearded face. But he felt no water, only brightness and warmth. He cracked an eye. Yep, had to be he was still alive. There was the sun, hot and bright high up in the big blue sky.
He lay unmoving. This is getting to be a habit, he thought, recalling how he had begun what had become this, the most troubling day of his life. Then he remembered where he was—at the bottom of the dry ravine with Skin Varney.
Gunnar scrabbled in the gravel, his head not liking the effort one bit. His vision blurred, cleared, then blurred once more. If he’d had anything in his gut, it would have worked its way up and out by then. Still, he retched and crabbed, the heel of one hand pinning for a moment his buckskin tunic to the earth. He shoved himself up onto all fours and swayed like a strange bony bear, swinging his head slowly to rid himself of the dizziness and buzzing and headache. Nothing he did worked.
He finally did see Varney, though, sprawled not but six feet upslope of him. The bastard was hunched, flopped on his side, maybe dead. He didn’t look too good. But no, Gunnar saw the killer’s right boot twitching, and his fondest wish was whisked from him. But was the brute’s boot actually twitching? Everywhere Gunnar looked showed something jumping and jerking.
Varney had to be alive—Gunnar had not gotten so close to be robbed of this prize. Gunnar needed to kill Varney himself. He needed to see the man’s life drain away in front of him. It was the only way. He crawled toward Varney, upslope, sliding as gravel gave way, and finally reached the killer.
Gunnar’s vision doubled, trebled, and he reached a callused hand toward one of the three black boots before him. His fingers closed on air. He reached again, and his fingertips brushed the killer’s boot toe. He crabbed forward and snatched at rocks, at Varney’s leg, and dragged himself up to the man.
Gunnar shook his head slowly, but all that did was make the cannon fire inside his skull boom louder and threaten to crack his head wide open. He finally noticed one of Varney’s revolvers a few inches from his shaking hand. Gunnar lurched forward, felt his fingers close over the butt, and tugged to free it, but wouldn’t you know it? The man had it tied down. A long piece of leather looped over the hammer.
The old man gritted his teeth and tried to make his twitchy fingers do his bidding. They felt the rawhide thong as he fumbled with it, but it wouldn’t slip free. Then a big grimy hand slammed downwar
d and smacked Gunnar’s own flat as if it were squashing a fly.
“You!” thundered Skin Varney, shoving himself up to a sitting position. While still retaining a grip on Gunnar’s hand, he swung a wide, looping roundhouse of a punch with his other big fist.
The old miner saw it coming in hard and fast, and jerked his head down like a gun-shy turtle. The big mitt whistled over and Skin grunted with the effort. The grunt turned into a growl as Gunnar yanked his hand free and jabbed a fist once more at the big man’s bloodied side.
As Gunnar’s hand smacked into the middle of the bloodied patch on Skin’s shirt, the killer’s fist swung hard again and connected with Gunnar’s cheek. This sent the bearded old buck sprawling backward.
He reached the bottom and, with a buzzing and clanging in his head, caught sight of the gasping Varney rising up. The big murderer appeared to be in better shape than Gunnar thought.
“You son . . . of . . . a . . .” Skin’s curse trailed off as he freed a revolver and slicked back the hammer in one smooth motion.
The shot whipped wide and spanged off a boulder on the far side of the ravine. Gunnar jerked low and scrabbled to get behind the largest thing close by—the remnants of the big old log.
It was not enough to prevent himself from receiving a second shot. It caught him high on the right shoulder and he howled and spun, snatching at his shoulder and watching hot red blood pump through his clamping fingers.
“Curse you, Varney!”
Gunnar’s lifelong bet with himself that he’d make it to his grave without ever having tasted another man’s thrown lead had finally been spoiled. This was the first time he’d been shot, and it hurt, stinging and throbbing and lancing inside like lightning trapped inside him, worse than any bodily pain he’d ever felt.
Varney’s laughter snagged out into a ragged cough. He spat and dragged a wrist across his bearded face. “You’ll taste more of the same before this hour’s up, old man!”
He shoved to his knees once more, in full view of Gunnar, confident that the old miner was now weaponless and incapacitated.
“You’re about to taste what Horton Meader got, what that foul marshal and his simpering wife got, and what that old whore Millie Jessup got—death delivered one way or another by Skin Varney, a man who keeps his promises . . . even if they are twenty-four years in coming!”
I have to keep him distracted and talking, thought Gunnar. It might buy me time to think of a plan. “Why are you so bent on revenge, Varney?”
“Why? Just look at you and those idiots back in town. Hell, I didn’t figure anybody was fool enough to stay around a place like Promise. Boy, was I wrong. I got me a hell of a surprise when I came back. Not much has changed. Not many from the old posse still alive, but the town’s still a dusty little hole full of fools and dreamers. Makes my job easier.”
Gunnar clamped his hand tighter on his bleeding shoulder and eyed the man. “Yeah? How’s that?”
Varney smiled. “I’ll tell you, since we got time and you asked so nicely. Once I’m done doing to you whatever it is I feel you deserve, I am going to do the same to the rest of the idiots in that foul little town. Figure I’ll lock them all in the saloon and light them on fire. Perch myself on a rise and cut down anybody who runs from my flames of vengeance!” His dry chuckle echoed in the long, high-sided gulch.
“Sounds like . . .” Gunnar sucked in a breath as pain washed through his body. “Like you’ve put all manner of thought into this, Varney.”
“You bet I have. Had plenty of time to do it, too. And you’re to blame.”
“Bah! What is it you really want, Varney?”
“Don’t play the fool with me, Tibbs. You know what I told you all them years ago right here.” With a long finger he poked the dusty earth beside him. “When you broke off from that posse and followed me, you had to know something was going to happen. Ran me aground like a hound on a squirrel. But it all worked out.” Varney smiled.
Gunnar saw for the first time that the man’s teeth were blackened and greened and pitted, like wormy apples.
“You told me all I needed to know,” said Skin.
“How’s that?”
“You don’t remember, do you? Ha, that’s rich. That day in this here gulch, you told me you was glad Millie sent Thorne packing that night of the robbery.”
Gunnar’s guts tightened at what he was hearing. “That . . . that don’t mean a thing.”
Skin snorted and shook his head. “Why sure it does!” He laughed. “It told me Millie was maybe the last person in town to see Sam before he left. That got me thinking that she might well know something of use to me. Something to give me a direction to begin my search. So I started with her! All thanks to you, Tibbs.”
Varney’s laughter was a vile thing to hear. Gunnar felt his grief rise up his gorge and threaten to choke him. He grabbed a handful of gravel and squeezed. “No! I’d never betray her like that! I couldn’t. It don’t mean a thing!”
“Comfort yourself with that thought as I tell you about the fear I saw in that old whore’s eyes. You should have seen them eyes as I dragged my keen blade across her old chicken throat!” His cackling laugh grated like sand against glass. He eyed Tibbs as rage shook the old man like a wind-worried branch.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s about right. That angry feeling boiling up inside? That’s how I felt all them years ago when you and that useless old grubber Horton Meader rousted me up in the high rocks that day. You came up on me at my raw camp whilst I was squatting over a hole, relieving myself of a mistake of a meal of bad meat. No lie! It about killed me. And then all you posse folks treated me like I was some sort of farmyard vermin.”
“Good reason for that. You are vermin, Varney. You’ve left a trail of death behind you your entire life. You . . . you’re filth.”
“I can take a lot of things, even foul names, but not from a stupid old man.”
“You’ll take it and you’ll like it, demon!” Tibbs lunged, raging and weaponless.
Before Gunnar managed to reach more than a few inches, a shotgun blast thundered loud, cracking the air of the ravine. Lead shot sizzled a path between the two shouting men, pelting and spattering against boulders, pinging shards of rock, gravel, and earth like grapeshot from a cannonade rooster-tailing into the air.
“Gaah!” Skin Varney cursed, spinning to his right in an effort to avoid the vicious missiles. He squinted down at Gunnar. “But you ain’t got your shotgun! I left it back yonder where I found you!”
“Wasn’t me!” Gunnar felt a flutter of hope in his breast. The old mountain goat dropped to his knees and cradled his right arm, sucking in breath through tight-clenched teeth. A dark stain had spread over the old supple buckskin sleeve of his tunic. Soon he spied movement high up, behind a cluster of boulders, a twisted-trunk pine leaning across the near face of the biggest one.
Varney hunched low behind a tumble of rock and broke his careful scrutiny of the old man. Somebody else had crashed their party with a shotgun. He looked over his shoulder. “Well, it damn sure wasn’t me, you old bastard!”
“Got a surprise for you, Skin!”
“Oh?” said Varney, drawing his revolver once more. “What’s that?”
“You’ll find out soon enough when you’re barking at the gates of hell!” Gunnar shouted, despite how awful he felt.
“I’ve had enough of you!” He leveled on Gunnar and let loose with a shot. It buzzed and whined off a rock to Gunnar’s right. “All them years in prison messed with my aim.”
“Not mine,” said a third voice.
“Who’s there?” Even as he shouted, Skin swiveled his head back to face Gunnar, then beyond, then back behind him.
“Why, it’s me, Skin,” said a man’s voice.
“Who’s that?” shouted the big killer, trying to look in all directions at once.
“Me . . . Sam Thorne
.”
Gunnar smiled as Fletcher stepped out from behind a Ponderosa pine, holding his father’s pearl-handled hideout gun before him. He had the wee derringer cocked and aimed at Skin Varney’s broad chest.
“Ha! What’s that, boy? You going to scare off a bluebottle fly with that thing? And who in the hell are you anyway?”
“Why, Skin, you don’t recognize me? I’m—”
But Tibbs broke in, smiling a tight, grim smirk between huffing breaths. “He’s your worst nightmare, Varney!”
“Well, that must mean I don’t dream near as bad as I used to ’cause this little fool looks to be a child.”
“A child, yes,” said Fletcher. “The child of Rose McGuire and Samuel Thorne.”
“What?”
It was the first time that Gunnar saw Varney’s squint-eyed, smirking gaze alter. His eyes widened and his lips parted, revealing tight-set stained teeth, two of them were black, dead at the root, and others were already well past that stage, stumpy and painful-looking.
“Ah, I see it now, sure. You got the mangy look all right. You and that double-crossing, treasure-thieving bastard could be brothers! And since you are the spawn of that filthy animal who left me to swing all those years ago, where’s my money?”
“Why, right here, Skin.” Fletcher waved a hand at himself.
“What?” said Varney. “You waste it on ugly clothes?”
Fletcher shook his head. “You people have no sense of fashion. I’m the treasure. I see it now.” He glanced quickly at Gunnar. “Me, my education.”
“All them years stuck in that hellish hole, all them years, and you tell me this?” Varney waved a dismissive hand toward Fletcher. He gritted his teeth and fiery rage once more filled his bloodred eyes. “By God, you’ll taste my lead, you son of a whore!”
Ralph Compton Guns of the Greenhorn Page 22