Gunslinger 01, page 7
part #1 of Gunslinger Series
The word had run through the place like a brush-fire in summer. Jack Ryker the bounty-hunter was what they wanted to see. Not John Ryker the respected dealer and maker and repairer of guns. Still, that would soon change and be forgotten.
‘Mr. Ryker. Mr. Goldburgh will see you now if you’d just walk this way.’
The clerk showed him in with a strange mincing step that brought a rare smile to Ryker’s lips. ‘Hell,’ he said to himself. ‘If I walked that way I’d get arrested.’
The office was luxurious with a rich carpet on the floor and deep leather armchairs set in front of a desk. Sown with good seed that desk was big enough to raise a herd of longhorns.
Behind the desk was a grey-suited, grey-faced man, who held out a hand. Ryker took it, feeling that he was holding nothing more substantial than dusty air.
‘I’m Julius Goldburgh, Mr. Ryker. Pray take a seat. May I say how distressed we all were to hear of your father’s sad passing-on. It grieves me deeply to know that the head of a family has gone to that great shepherd in the sky. But for him there will be no more pain nor will there be suffering, where the brooks flow only with pure water and the music of the celestial spheres is all that one hears. Oh, how I envy such—’
‘Mr. Goldburgh,’ interrupted Ryker. ‘I have to be making tracks back home. I’m mighty obliged to you for the thoughts. My pa was murdered and now he’s in the ground. I aim to take him and rebury him next to pa. I’ve got some of the money towards that but I need a little more to cover my living for the journey and the transport. So I was wonderin’ if I could take out a few hundred dollars against pa’s house or my place.’
He leaned back, holding his hat by the brim, rubbing at the shining dollar with a forefinger. Goldburgh sat and watched him, his eyes showing no more emotion than a sun-basking lizard. Then he moved his mouth and the leathery skin around it creaked into a semblance of a smile.
‘I take it you are jesting with me, Mr. Ryker. Very amusing.’
‘What the …? I’m afraid that I don’t understand you, Mr. Goldburgh.’
‘Nor I you, Mr. Ryker. You come in here and make a jest which I must say that I find in somewhat poor taste, and then refuse to explain yourself.’
Ryker snapped the hat on his knee in anger, ignoring the cloud of red dust that flared from it. ‘Just wait on, Mr. Goldburgh. I come here in good faith after my pa passed on, and I ask you for a loan on his house—that’s my house now, and the store—that’s also mine now.’
This time the smile that appeared on the banker’s lacy cheeks was more real. He was actually genuinely amused by Ryker’s words.
‘My dear young man, I believe I can see why we have become crossed in our discussion.’
‘Well now, maybe you can tell me about it.’
‘Of course. You give away the clue when you say that the house and store in … where is it? … Ah, yes ... in Settlement, both now belong to you.’
‘Well? They do.’
‘No.’
Goldburgh smiled again, making a steeple with his fingers and watching Ryker over them.
‘What the hell do you mean by that? No?’
‘No.’ The flat monosyllable hung in the air between them. Ryker could feel his short-fuse anger creeping up on him, and clasped his own hands together to stop the tendency of the right one to creep round towards the butt of the Navy Colt.
‘Why, Mr. Goldburgh? If they don’t belong to me, then just who do they belong to?’
‘Me. Or, rather, I should say that they belong to the bank that employs me.’
‘You better tell me how you figure that out, or those two sons of bitches waiting to get into Boot Hill aren’t going to be the only men I kill today in Tucson.’
‘Mr. Ryker. I suggest that you do not try and browbeat me, or threaten me. I assure that I have the law on my side in this matter.’
‘The law won’t help you, Goldburgh, if I put a .36 caliber ball through your damned skull.’
The banker stood up, several inches smaller than Ryker, his face livid with restrained anger and his eyes flicking nervously from side to side with what could only be fear.
‘Your father, Mr. Ryker, was a no-good drunk, and he mortgaged both the house and your penny-ante store right up to the hilt. On his overdue demise, they both pass to my bank. I would have allowed you a month’s grace to clear up your affairs in Settlement, but after your outrageous behavior and threats I shall be sending you a letter instructing you to be out of our properties and off our land by the first of August in this year of eighteen hundred and sixty-four!’
‘You send me a letter, and. I’ll wipe my ass with it! You bastard robber! My pa was sick and you must have trapped him into a deal when he wasn’t well!’
Both men were on their feet shouting at each other, and Ryker felt the tension pressing behind his eyeballs. The retaining thong was across the top of the Colt. He clenched his fist hard to prevent himself from flicking it off and drawing the pistol.
‘Your father, Ryker, was a no-good drunk, and from what I hear of your butchery this morning in the saloon, you are turning out even worse. It will give me great pleasure to see you homeless. And there are debts linked to the mortgage that you have inherited. Your blood money will not carry you far. Ryker.’
Goldburgh was shrieking, his face flushed with rage. His eyes popped like the stops on a mission-hall organ and saliva flecked his white lips.
Like a striking rattler, the tall man leaned across the desk and his hand flicked out. He hit the banker twice across the mouth with the open palm. Hard enough to shake his eyes in their sockets and grate his teeth together. A trickle of blood came from the corner of the man’s mouth, and his face whitened with shock.
‘You ... you hit me.’
‘Damn right,’ said Ryker, already feeling better. ‘You know something, Goldburgh?’
Voice shaking, the little banker drew out a white handkerchief and dabbed at the blood. ‘What is it?’
‘You make me want to throw up.’
It only took Ryker a couple of minutes to leave the bank and stride across to the sheriff’s office, where Nolan was tucking into a great ham sandwich and slurping at a mug of coffee black enough to float a horseshoe. When the gunsmith walked in he belched and rubbed his stomach apologetically.
‘Sorry, Ryker. Suffer real bad from gas this time of the day. What can I do for you?’
‘Just one thing, Sheriff. You can tell me where that place is.’
‘What place?’
‘Desolation.’
Chapter Eight
THE BOUNTY FROM Desolation was simple. Or so Sheriff Nolan said. Shoo some deserters away from the small township, way up in the hills to the north of the Territory, not all that far away from Settlement as the buzzard flies.
‘They’ll run like hares as soon as they hear that big Sharps you carry.’
That was what Nolan had said. Ryker might be young, but he had already seen enough of life during the Civil War to know that not all deserters were cowards, frightened by the noise of gunfire. Some of them were hardened killers, banded together in small groups, using the confusion caused by the fighting to rob and plunder where and how they could. He had no illusions about what he might be taking on if he rode that way.
The flyer on the town said there were a half-dozen well-armed desperadoes, but that a brave posse might take them all and earn one thousand dollars in gold for the job when every last dog was shot down or hanging from the tree on the trail in from the south to Desolation. As Sheriff Nolan pointed out, that was the only trail in or out of the mountain-locked settlement up there.
‘You apply to one of the three men named here. Folks called Hall, Riley and George. They got the money banked right here in Tucson. All you got to do is clear up their nest and the gold’s here.’
‘What if they’re dead by now? Seems these deserters might not take kindly to having a price put on their necks.’
Nolan had laughed, nearly knocking over the steaming mug of coffee. ‘You’re damned right there, Ryker. By God you are! But you do the job and the gold’s for you. Don’t matter if those three are alive and kicking or dead and rotting. Don’t matter at all.’ As an afterthought. ‘Except to them, of course. Except to them.’
The last sound that followed Ryker from Tucson was the laughter of Sheriff Nolan.
After what had happened in the bank, Ryker had no illusions that Goldburgh would be moving fast against him to claim the mortgaged property. So, before he headed towards Desolation, there were things he had to do back home.
It took him only a couple of days’ hard riding to reach Settlement again, driving both himself and Nero to the limits. Ryker figured that Goldburgh would have the possession order out within the day, and would send out men to enforce it. His newly-gained reputation as a killer meant that people like the little banker would treat him with greater caution.
His home township was nearly deserted, with only Lindy, in her usual place on her stoop, looking at him as he rode in dead-beat and weary.
‘You look bushed, Jack. Sure you wouldn’t like to come in for a spell and rest up? I’m on my own again.’
He shook his head. ‘Guess not, but thanks, Lindy. I got me things to do. Maybe some other day.’
She watched him go, her eyes hooded against the sunlight. Ryker was the only single man in Settlement, and if he was to move on, then her only chance of a little fun was going to be passing cowboys and salesmen. And there weren’t a whole lot of them.
The ladies of Settlement had been in the house while he’d been in Tucson, and it was spotless from top to toe. Every battered piece of furniture had been polished until it shone, and the drapes and carpets were beaten clean. The sampler hung straight on the wall, and the old clock ticked on the mantel.
‘Guess Mr. Goldburgh’d be pleased to see his investment in such good shape,’ said Ryker to the empty rooms.
It didn’t take him long to go through the house, taking only the clothes that he wanted, enough to pack into a saddlebag. Clean underclothes. Couple of shirts. Jacket. Slicker. Socks. Shaving gear. Everything else he left where it was. His father’s clothes and possessions. The books and medical bag, long unopened. His mother’s trunk, that he looked into, the heavy smell of camphor bringing back the past as vividly as any picture.
In the trunk he found his father’s gold half-hunter watch, and he took that, fitting it on the fob of his brocaded waistcoat and checking it against his own pocket-watch that he packed into his bag. It was just on fifteen minutes after six.
There was still a deal to do before the light closed down. Nero was watered and fed, relaxing in the small stable at the back of the house. Tomorrow’s ride would start early, but it should be easier. He’d checked with Sheriff Nolan on the best route to Desolation, which turned out to be the only route to Desolation.
Although he intended to be in bed early, Ryker next did a strange thing. He went round every lamp that he owned and filled each one to the brim with oil. But he only bothered to light one of them.
From the house he walked across to the store, carefully checking that none of the big padlocks had been tampered with. The sun was starting to slip away to the west, and so he lit one of the lamps in the store. He also took care to fill the other lamps there as well.
He had never carried a big stock of weapons. That would have made him too vulnerable. His business was mainly repairing rather than selling guns. The Deringer had been an exception.
There was an old Spencer, and a couple of beat-up Army Colts he’d been intending to repair. A Dragoon from the Whitneyville-Hartford period, with plated trigger-guard and grip strap. The end latch on the loading lever was damaged and he’d never bothered to mend it. Taking the pistols and the rifle, picking up a scattergun with no hammers, Ryker carried them to his workshop at the rear of the store.
He placed each of the weapons in turn in the big vice and proceeded to shatter them with his twelve-pound ball hammer. He did the same with all of the larger tools, systematically wrecking the equipment that he’d painfully built up over the previous three or four years.
He kept the small tools that he always carried and loaded up the other saddlebag with spare ammunition and the molds and powder. All the rest of the powder he tipped from the barrels into a neat heap in the center of the floor, among the scattered remnants of his tools.
Then he looked round to make sure that nothing had been missed, and walked out of the store, carefully replacing the locks on the door.
Stepping through the fine dust that lay between the store and his house, he looked over to the Daughton home. There was a lamp burning brightly in the window at the side, the room that he knew was Lindy’s bedroom. The drapes weren’t pulled all the way across, and he stepped. Lindy was undressing in front of the light, so that her shadow was thrown out along the beaten track of the street towards where he stood and watched her.
She was naked above the waist, her breasts sagging a little but still a fine sight that roused him. Part of his mind tried to withdraw, pressing him with self-disgust. But the fire in his loins was stronger and he moved a few steps nearer.
She leaned a hand on the window frame to tug off the flimsy pair of cotton drawers, and he saw the yellow light of the lamp as it played across her body, shadowing the valleys and tipping the hills with gold.
Ryker glanced from the woman in the window across to his father’s house. The bank’s house at this present moment, he reminded himself. And it looked cold and empty, with the solitary lamp in the parlor window.
Despite the rising lust he felt for the half-hidden figure, his self-control was just greater, and he was turning away ready for his early night, when the voice called out across the emptiness of the Settlement evening. ‘Jack! You think I don’t see you, skulking out there. You got something for me, then you come right on in and give it to me. If you’re man enough for it!’
It was well after midnight when Ryker left her, feeling drained and exhausted by her repeated demands on him. He could taste her body on his lips and smell her sweat on his clothes. But he felt oddly elated by the experience. All the long months in Settlement, even during the bitter horror of the winter, he had resisted her, knowing that it was a form of surrender to where he was and what he did. Now all of that was over. He’d soon be gone.
Forever.
‘And that’s one hell of a way to say good-bye,’ he said to himself.
He rose promptly at four, the time that he’d set himself before finally dropping into sleep. Ryker hadn’t got any idea of how he was able to wake himself as and when he wanted, but he knew that he slept light and woke easy.
First thing he did was go and brew up some coffee for himself, and eat a good breakfast, frying up some meat and slicing some hash browns with grits to put a good lining on his stomach ready for the long ride ahead of him. He took some corn dodgers with him and some jerky, making sure that both water bottles were filled. Elementary precautions when taking any trip. To omit any one of them could leave you dead before the sun rose the following morning.
Then it was the guns. John Ryker took a full hour to strip and clean his four guns. First the big Sharps, pulling through a soft piece of wool dipped in thin oil. Then again with a dry hunk of cloth to clean off the surplus oil. Testing the action. Checking the sights to make sure they hadn’t taken a knock on the journey to and from Tucson. Finally making sure the ammunition was where it should be in his jacket.
Then the Navy Colt. The usual time to strip and reassemble the thirty-six. caliber pistol was in the region of fifteen minutes. Ryker did it in six, including removing all of the ammunition and reloading it, checking each charge with the greatest care.
Twenty-two grains of black powder for the thirty-six Navy. The round ball. Eighty-six to the pound, each one weighing eighty-one grains. Under charge and you lose accuracy and distance. Too much powder and you risk the pistol exploding in your hand.
Sitting close to the lamp, by the table that still bore the scar of the killer’s knife, Ryker set to loading the Navy Colt.
Having inserted the right amount of powder, Ryker took each of the hand-cast bullets and placed them in the mouth of the chamber, pushing them home with the lever rammer. It was safer to load singly, but Ryker had enough confidence in his own professional ability to load every chamber with powder and then fill each one in turn with the bullets, packing the space in front of the lead with grease.
He had plenty of the right kind of grease, but at various times he’d used substitutes, including even butter. It helped when reloading and also lessened the risk of flash-over from one chamber, to the next.
During the loading, Ryker held the pistol pointing to the ceiling, with the hammer at half-cock.
Once every chamber was filled, and the grease inserted, he kept the hammer set at half-cock and capped the nipples of the gun. Finally, he carefully lowered the hammer between the nipples. With that done, the pistol was again completely ready for action.
Ryker took particular care over cleaning the double derringer that he’d used in the What Cheer saloon, washing it out with very hot, soapy water, and drying it thoroughly. He tested the action several times, cocking the strong mainspring without undue difficulty. Then he loaded both the little pistols, and tucked them away in their hiding places.
That was his armory prepared. The food was ready and packed and so was the saddle-bag with the clothes. Nero was watered and fed.
There was only one thing left to do before he rode away towards Desolation on his first intentional bounty hunt.
Settlement was still sleeping when he walked Nero from the stable and tethered him to a fence a way down the street. Quietly, his heels crunching in the soft sand, Ryker went to the store and unlocked the door, taking a couple of handfuls of the powder and leaving it as a thin trail to the rear of the building. The main heap of the powder still lay humped in the middle of the workshop among the broken tools and shattered remains of the few guns he’d been keeping.
