The Four-Way Split, page 4
‘You can introduce us when the time comes,’ Rickman said, almost purring, ‘and me and your pa will get together to discuss that reward.’
‘The reward for capturing Flint D’Arragon?’ She shook her head. ‘That’s not my father’s concern.’
‘No, but you’ve set me thinking,’ Rickman said slyly, ‘that a powerful man like John Parker is certain to cough up a whole lot more for the safe return of his daughter.’
‘Ah!’ She flashed a contemptuous look as sharp as daggers at Flint D’Arragon. ‘Rather like you,’ she said, ‘these ruffians seize on any opportunity that will improve their lot, without any thought to the harm they might cause.’
‘Which little mouthful,’ Rickman said, ‘just about sums up what’s happenin’ here, and puts an end to this pow-wow.’
‘So we now know exactly where we stand?’
He grinned at D’Arragon. ‘Sure you do. After a slight hiccough you’re once again pointin’ in the right direction, headin’ for a cell in Yuma. An’ pretty little Fran Parker’s, she’s suddenly become what you might inelegantly call cash on the hoof.’
‘All right, that’s it,’ Blackie Donovan said. ‘We’ll rest thirty minutes, enough time for hot java, but no grub. That done we’ll mount up, see how fast we can get this sorted out so everybody – exceptin’ maybe Mr D’Arragon there – comes out of it tolerably happy.’
By the time they were ready to move out, D’Arragon estimated that it was pushing three hours since he and Fran Parker had ridden away from the Concord. That would put the coach pulled by its weakened team already an hour into Yuma, and although he had suggested to Fran it would take two hours to raise a posse, he knew that was taking little account of Mick Imlach’s efficiency and determination. The gritty lawman’s long experience would warn him time was of the essence. If he’d spoken eloquently, played on emotions but tempered his words with common sense, a posse would already be hammering out of Yuma. And with the two groups of riders racing towards an inevitable encounter, that left D’Arragon an hour at most to make his second break for freedom.
They clattered away from the dry wash with the rising full moon a yellow, baleful eye wedged in the gunsight that was the notch in the high cliffs, the riders’ shadows cast long to their left flanks as they cantered towards the west. The two Apaches led the way, followed by Pike Rickman, then D’Arragon and the girl again riding bareback, with Blackie Donovan’s formidable presence bringing up the rear.
But that suited D’Arragon. Mick Imlach’s gunbelt with pouched six-gun had been taken from him in the cottonwoods when he was overpowered by the Apache, and was now looped over Donovan’s left shoulder. Maybe the man figured wearing it like that befit a bandito, served as a deterrent – or maybe he just wasn’t thinking. The fact was, if D’Arragon slowed, Donovan would be forced to drop back with him. If Fran Parker played her part and began to lag, they would become detached from Pike Rickman, and in those favourable if risky circumstances. . . .
D’Arragon gave it a mile, then gradually picked up the pace and drew alongside the girl’s horse. Rickman sensed his approach, glanced back, saw no danger and faced front. Donovan was less accommodating.
‘Drop back, D’Arragon.’
‘Just asking how she is.’
‘She’s fine. Now fall back into line.’
Fran’s face was pale in the moonlight as she turned to look at him. Out of the corner of his mouth D’Arragon said softly, with as much intensity as he could put into the words, ‘Begin to fall back from Rickman. Nothing sudden. Nice and easy.’
‘D’Arragon!’
‘All right, all right.’
He tugged lightly on the hackamore and brought his horse back to fall in behind the girl, then eased back some more. Gradually, Fran Parker did the same. Done in that way the two of them remained locked together, and they had covered almost a mile before Donovan realized they’d fallen a full 100 yards behind Rickman and the Indians.
‘Keep up,’ he growled, moving his horse up to crowd D’Arragon.
‘We’re riding stage horses, bareback. I’m feelin’ it, and I don’t think the girl can take much more.’
In weak moonlight that was broken up into irregular patches by the rough terrain there was no way Donovan could check D’Arragon’s words without coming in close. He did so, using his horse’s weight to shoulder push past and approach Fran Parker, at the same leaning forward in the saddle to look closely at the girl.
And it was at that moment that Rickman’s warning cry rang out, his loud halloo coming to them as eerie echoes off the slabbed rock, assailing them from every direction.
‘Riders, coming in hard and fast from the west!’
Chapter Seven
The warning was caught and carried away on the thin breeze, its echoes fading like an elusive, half-remembered dream. An answering shout came floating through the night: like a pack of wolves, the approaching riders had pricked their ears, caught the sound and the scent and were in full cry.
And already the small window of opportunity was slamming shut for D’Arragon. Far ahead, the two Apaches had melted into the shadows. Pike Rickman had swung his horse about and, at full stretch, was pushing it back towards the group.
Now – or the chance has gone!
With a mighty intake of breath, D’Arragon kicked hard with his heels. His horse started, leaped forward. Donovan was caught, wedged fast between the two stage horses as D’Arragon clung to the hackamore, heaved his horse across hard into the big man and pulled to a halt. Then, swiftly, he leaned across, twisted his body and slammed his elbow in a terrible blow across the nape of Donovan’s neck. The man grunted, and started to go down. D’Arragon caught his left arm, lifted it, wrenched the loooped gunbelt from the dazed man’s shoulder. Then he swung again with his elbow, another vicious, pole-axe of a blow, and knocked the big man out of the saddle.
‘Stay here,’ he said to the girl. ‘That’ll be your pa coming, you’re safe now.’
Her face was pale in the moonlight. ‘Don’t run away,’ she said. ‘Truly I don’t know what to believe, but running is no answer and I’m willing to talk to my pa, get him to listen to your story—’
But Rickman was hammering towards them, light glinting on a six-gun held high, and D’Arragon reached across to touch her shoulder as he swung easily from the bareback of the stage horse into Blackie Donovan’s saddle. His right knee brushed a booted Winchester as the horse danced sideways; his boots found the stirrups as he held himself erect, buckling Mick Imlach’s gunbelt. Then he picked up the reins and kicked the excited horse into a gallop and was away, swooping recklessly downhill as he raced towards a maze of gullies and ridges where wan moonlight fought a hopeless cause against deep shadow and a desperate man could choose from a hundred different routes and lose himself in each and every one.
Chapter Eight
‘Ain’t no one I know – but whoever he is, he’s coming round.’
Dave Regan was down on one knee alongside a big man who lay flat on his back, rolled his head and blinked sightlessly at the stars. Mick Imlach was soothing the downed man’s jittery horse while John Parker, still in the saddle, looked off into the night with tormented gaze. Sweat glistened on his face. His head was cocked. A long way off, like the lazy rumble of a far distant storm, there was the fading beat of hoofs.
Parker gave a perplexed shake of the head and reined his horse close to Regan. ‘Leave him. We should be riding, not talking and wasting time on a ruffian who was up to no good,’ he said. He was erect in the saddle. There was purpose and strength in his words, but Mick Imlach knew he was talking for effect, unsure what to do but intent on giving the impression that he was a man in full control of a difficult situation.
‘A few minutes’ll make no difference,’ Regan said. ‘It looks like this bunch was coming straight at us, heading towards Yuma. We’d already decided D’Arragon wouldn’t do that, but we also know there are men out looking for him. This could be one of ’em. I’d like to know what’s going on.’
‘I don’t agree,’ John Parker said. His horse was swinging its stern, tail switching as if it sensed Parker’s impatience. ‘Whoever this feller’s companions are, they hightailed when they heard us coming. I say we push on.’
‘Wait.’ Mick Imlach could understand Regan’s lack of observation, he had gone straight to the downed man and was giving him his full attention – but he would have expected John Parker to see at once what was staring him in the face. ‘This feller was riding bareback,’ he said. ‘So what does that tell you?’
‘My God!’ The businessman swung out of the saddle, stepped around Regan and the semi-conscious man, reached out to the restless horse and grasped the bosal to hold it as it backed away. ‘Are you saying this is one of the horses taken from the stage?’ He ran a hand absently down the nervous horse’s neck, thought for a moment, then shook his head in disbelief. ‘No, Marshal, D’Arragon and my daughter were riding those horses, that can’t be right.’
‘I watched the driver use a pocket knife to cut his reins, make that hackamore. There’s no mistake.’
‘But this is not Flint D’Arragon?’
‘Hell, no.’
‘So what are you saying? What does it mean?’ He looked from Imlach to Regan, his frown demanding answers, the look in his eyes telling both lawmen he was out of his depth.
Dave Regan sat back on his heels. ‘Common sense is telling me D’Arragon set your daughter free, John, and pushing for home riding bareback over this rough terrain she got thrown – but then we’re left explaining this feller here, and suddenly I’ve got a bad taste makes me want to spit.’
He leaned forward, grasped the man’s shirt front and pulled him to a sitting position. As he came up, head lolling, Regan slapped him across the face, twice, hard, forward and back. The man swore softly, groaned. He reached up, tried to rub the back of his neck. His eyes blinked open.
Regan placed a bony fist under the man’s chin, held the head steady, then thrust his face close.
‘Sheriff Dave Regan,’ he said, ‘out of Yuma,’ and grinned coldly into the wet black eyes that were still glazed. ‘Talk fast, feller, start with your name, then tell me why I shouldn’t hang you for riding a horse stolen from Hatch & Hodges.’
‘Donovan,’ the man said hoarsely.
‘And. . . ?’
‘The last thing I remember, the man riding that horse was crowding me, hitting me over the head with something felt like a fence post.’
‘Flint D’Arragon!’ John Parker said bleakly.
‘That’s right. We found him and the girl, were bringing them in,’ Donovan said, and turned to look blearily at Imlach. ‘I saw you earlier, remember, before sundown? You were at the stage, as groggy then as I am now.’
Imlach nodded, mentally cursing his own lack of observation: he didn’t know Donovan, but should have recognized him from the stage, and he caught himself wondering if it would be construed by Regan as a deliberate slip if things went wrong. ‘I remember. You, that tall, scar-faced feller with hair to his shoulders, two Apaches. You came by, promised to keep your eyes and ears open.’
‘That’s right, me and Pike Rickman. And we did.’ Donovan nodded vigorously, then winced and held his neck. ‘The Apaches picked up their trail, we ran them down then held back and waited till they rolled their blankets in some cottonwoods on the edge of a draw. Then the Injuns moved in and caught them cold.’
‘Wouldn’t it have made sense to hold off longer, wait for daylight and help?’ Imlach said, biding his time, thinking it through, knowing that this man was using portions of the truth to mask something much deeper.
‘The way things turned out,’ Donovan said, ‘hindsight’s telling me we should have left them where they slept and rode straight on. But we’d given our word,’ he went on with an unctuous smile, ‘and we all knew the right thing to do, the honourable thing, was to take that killer on to Yuma.’
Regan had gone to his horse, and now came back holding a heavy canteen. Donovan took a long drink then rested, hands dangling between spread knees as if exhausted. To Imlach, it was a pose. The man’s strength was returning fast , but he was doing his best to feign weakness. Instinctively, from long experience with his kind, Imlach knew he was sure to cause trouble, but until the man slipped up, made some kind of move. . . .
Then John Parker spoke up in a way that made Imlach warm to the big businessman.
‘Sorry, feller, but your story’s as full of holes as a Californian miner’s sieve,’ he said bluntly.
‘Yeah, sure,’ Donovan said scathingly. ‘I was out walkin’, found this horse wanderin’ loose, rode into a tree and knocked myself out.’
‘All right,’ Parker said, ‘then what about the girl? What about my daughter?’
Donovan shot the big man a quick, calculating look, then strove in vain to look blank. ‘What about her? She was with D’Arragon.’ He shrugged, tossed the canteen to Regan.
‘This is the picture I’ve got,’ Mick Imlach said carefully. ‘You and this Rickman apprehended the fugitive and his hostage, set out for Yuma, D’Arragon took his chance, knocked you senseless and got away – on your horse?’
‘That’s it, exactly,’ Donovan said, and almost sneered at Parker. He struggled to his feet, stood swaying for a moment, then straightened and thrust out his massive chest. ‘And being an honourable man just like me, my partner – figurin’ I’m not too bad hurt – he turns around and goes after him.’
‘Then why take the girl?’
‘Huh?’
Regan was also up on his feet, his hand drifting close to his six-gun, the gleam in his eye telling Imlach that his question had got to Donovan and knocked the ground from under his feet.
‘If D’Arragon had split seconds to overpower you, take your horse and make his getaway, he would have left the girl behind. So why has your partner taken Fran Parker along for the ride?’ Regan said, hammering home the point Imlach had made. ‘She’ll slow his pursuit of D’Arragon, there was an injured man here to be looked after – you, my friend – and in any case she was so close to Yuma she could near as dammit walk there.’
For an instant the man called Donovan seemed to be searching for an answer that would take away the heat. His eyes were lowered, but shifty, flicking from one lawman to the other then off into the shadowy moonlight.
Weighing up his chances, Mick Imlach thought – then tensed and dropped into a crouch as, with a muttered curse, Donovan turned as if to walk away in disgust and stabbed a hand for his pistol.
Regan was too close, too fast. A short stride brought him level with Donovan. His six-gun came out, up and down in one smooth movement, and the dull thud as the barrel hit Donovan’s shoulder caused Imlach to wince with cloudy memories of an earlier gun whipping. Then Donovan was bent over, cursing softly. His limp arm swung helplessly, his hand close to his holster but incapable of grasping the pistol’s butt. The nervous horse was shying and backing away to the length of the hackamore as Parker grabbed for it and hung on.
‘Seems like I was right all along,’ the big rancher said when the dust had settled, and his jaw muscles were bunched as he faced Regan. ‘We’ve been wasting valuable time; in doing so allowed D’Arragon to get even further ahead—’
‘But now your daughter’s not with Flint D’Arragon,’ Imlach cut in.
‘As good as!’ Parker swung away, fuming, swung back again to stab a finger at the two lawmen. ‘This man’s actions were those of a violent man riding on the wrong side of the law. His partner will be cut from the same cloth – and you believe that man and two savages now have hold of my daughter.’ He paused to catch his breath, his eyes inward and withdrawn as he gathered his thoughts, then went on in a more reasonable tone but with a noticeable quiver in his voice, ‘A young woman, all alone, held captive first by one man, now by three. And we’re wasting time in pointless talk.’ He glanced up at the cold orb of the moon, shivered, said quietly, ‘If you’re right, Marshal Imlach, D’Arragon’s making for the San Pedro and that stolen cash; and we all heard this man’s partner’s heading in that same direction. I think that tells us what we must do.’
Mick Imlach took a breath. Parker was stating the obvious, but he was right about time being wasted so maybe it needed saying. He looked at Dave Regan, and nodded.
‘Right, let’s go get them.’
Chapter Nine
Within five miles, Flint D’Arragon was lifting his eyes to the night skies in silent prayer as Blackie Donovan’s horse finally snorted wetly, wearily, and refused to take another step.
D’Arragon had not pushed him hard. Instead he had used the undulating, scarred terrain and its vast areas of deep shadow to make his way steadily east, threading his way through arroyos and dry washes, riding with his shoulder brushing the rocky walls – doing everything he could to put difficulties and obstacles in the way of Pike Rickman and the two Apaches, because there was no doubt in his mind that the rawboned man would lead the chase. So he picked his way carefully, treading a fine line between the softer ground where dust drifting in the moonlight would betray him, and the flat slabs of rock where dust was no problem but the hard ring of the horse’s hoofs would carry far through the night.
But the big, heavy man who had been astride this horse before him had ridden him into the ground, and it was that merciless ill-treatment that had taken its toll. The horse was worn out, tendons taut, muscles sore and quivering, and it was with a feeling of raw bitterness tinged with a good measure of sympathy that D’Arragon slid from the saddle, ran his hand absently along his lathered mount’s streaming neck and took stock of the situation.
After downing Blackie Donovan he had cut away from the confusion and ridden steadily, without haste, putting concealment before reckless speed. He had glanced over his shoulder several times but there had been no sign of pursuit, and he guessed that, if it was John Parker at the head of a posse hammering down the trail from Yuma, Rickman and the Indians would need time to talk to them, Donovan a spell to recover and Parker a few moments to decide what to do with Fran. But that would not delay them for long and, with D’Arragon now forced to rest his horse for several hours, the race to Redrock seemed lost, his own freedom in jeopardy.
