Twisted Hills, page 21
They turned to the horses. Before getting into their saddles, Burke uncapped a canteen, washed blood from his hands and dried his hands on the front of his shirt.
“Not that it matters, Jones,” Burke said, “but what about that gold?”
“What about it?” Sam asked him.
“If it’s not here anywhere, where is it?” Burke asked.
“It’s where I told you and Galla the first time,” Sam said. “I left it in the crevice. When the Apaches hit the camp, I lit out.”
“You wasn’t just making that up?” Burke said.
“Not a word,” Sam said.
“Damn, we should have listened,” said Burke, chastising himself and Galla. “Now that things are more or less settled between you and me,” he said, “how would you feel about going back there and finding that gold? Split it right down the middle?”
“I don’t think so,” Sam said. “The Apaches will be crawling all over the hills for a while. Anyway, like we said, I’ve got a score to settle with Segert.”
Burke stopped short and said, “I hope you’re not harboring a mad-on at me, for being in on that dragging.” He gave a slight shrug. “I was only doing my job.”
“Naw,” Sam said dismissingly. “What’s a dragging more or less?”
“It’s big of you to feel that way,” Burke said, taking Sam’s words seriously. “Fact is, we was told not to kill you, just scare you some, make you think we was go-ing to.”
Sam just looked at him.
“It’s true,” said Burke. “Segert said teach you a lesson about stirring things up at the Fair Deal, costing him the money Graft paid every week for us for keeping down trouble.”
“All about business, huh?” Sam said.
“Yep,” said Burke. “Most likely had things gone on the way they were meant, you’d be riding for Segert right now.”
“But it was Lilith—” Sam stopped and corrected himself. “I mean the peddler woman who saved me,” Sam said.
“Only because Segert told her to,” said Burke.
“Then she set me up?” Sam said.
“I figure Segert got jealous of you and her, saw she was falling for you, decided to get rid of you in the end,” Burke said. He shrugged and grinned. “Just my opinion, for what it’s worth.”
“Falling for me . . . ?” Sam murmured. “She was going to let them kill me.”
“I have learned in life that none of us are perfect,” Burke said in a sage tone.
“I’m with you there,” Sam said.
Chapter 23
On their way to Agua Fría, Clyde Burke told Sam about all the banks, railroads and payrolls he and the other men riding for Segert and Madson had robbed over the past two years. Sam listened to names, banks, towns, gunmen involved, men murdered. He tried to absorb as much of it in his memory as he could as they rode on through the night. Burke also told him about how the two gangs were set up. In truth, there were not two gangs at all, he’d admitted. As Sam had suspected, Madson was the real leader. Sam had already decided as much. It was going to take some time getting to Madson.
Segert was just Madson’s segundo—his second-in-command, Burke had gone on to tell him.
“Anyway, none of it matters much now,” Burke said finally. “Madson’s taken his best men and pulled out of here. Built himself a fine hacienda somewhere thirty miles west above Twisted Hills. I’ve never been there, but they say it’s built like a fortress, stone walls and all. It would take an army to get inside it.”
They rode on through the night. Near dawn they had stopped at a water hole to water their horses and fill their canteens. While the horses drew water, Burke stood beside Sam, the two of them gazing off across the desert. In the east a silver-gold mantel crested the horizon.
“It’s too bad how things turned out here between Segert and me,” Sam said. “I really wanted to ride for him. Still would, if he hadn’t treated me the way he did.”
“If you don’t mind me saying so, Jones, you came on a might too strong to suit Segert. He’s used to people bowing and scraping. You come in kicking ass and thumping heads.”
“Yeah,” Sam conceded to him. “I think you’re right, looking back on it,” he said. “I’ll remember that the next time I go looking for gun work.”
“I can’t help thinking that you wouldn’t be looking for gun work for a good long time, if you played your cards right,” Burke said. He gave Sam a wry grin as they rode along.
“You’re still talking about the gold for the rifles, huh?” Sam said.
“I can’t turn it loose,” Burke said. “It’s too much gold just lying there, nobody getting any good out of it. He took a sidelong step away from Sam. A small gun cocked in his hand.
Sam turned, facing him.
“Don’t try nothing, Jones,” Burke said. “I’ll kill you graveyard dead.”
“Um-umm,” Sam said. “After me not killing you, giving you a horse . . .” His disappointment expressed itself in his voice.
“It was my horse to begin with,” Burke reminded him. “You just gave it back to me.”
“Still,” Sam said.
“Still, nothing,” said Burke. “I ain’t leaving gold to waste. You ought to understand that, being an outlaw yourself.”
“I’m not taking you to it,” Sam said. “So put it out of your mind.” He tried to dismiss the matter and turn away.
“You say that now,” Burke replied, reaching out, poking his arm with the gun barrel, causing Sam to turn back to him. “But you’ll think about it along the way, all the whores you can diddle in Vera Cruz, all the dope, the whiskey. We’d be living in what they call ex-tasy.” His eyes grew excited just talking about it. He smiled to himself and let his gaze drift upward toward the sky.
Sam’s rifle butt came around and smacked his gun hand soundly. His hideout revolver flew into the water. He yelped like a kicked dog. He started to charge at Sam, but he saw Sam’s rifle cock and level at his chest.
“Hold on, Jones! Let’s talk this thing out,” he pleaded.
“I thought we just did,” Sam replied. “I’ve gone as far as I can with you.”
“Please, no, don’t kill me!” said Burke. He fell to his knees, clenching his throbbing hand. He sobbed and bowed his head. “Please don’t . . . ,” he said, weak and pitiful.
Sam glanced all around the black jagged silhouettes on distant hill lines.
“This whole country sits around waiting to hear a gunshot,” he said. “Get on your feet. I’m not going to kill you.”
“You’re not?” Burke sniffled and stood up, dusting his knees, looking embarrassed. “You could have said so to begin with,” he said stiffly.
“I’m saying so now,” Sam countered. “I’m taking your horse. You’re on your own.”
“My horse?” said Burke. “Jesus, Jones! I’d’ve been better off if you took it at the ruins. What am I going to do now?” He swung his arms around, gesturing at the vast endless desert hills.
“You can sit here and figure it out,” Sam said. “Fish your gun out and dry it. If I catch you near me again, I’ll kill you before we say howdy.”
“Even if I can find the gun, it’s a Navy cap and ball,” said Burke.
“If you live long enough, you’ll find another gun,” Sam said reassuringly. “They seem to drift around everywhere.” He turned to the dun and swung into the saddle as Burke cursed and bent and pulled off his boots.
“I ain’t forgetting this, Jones,” Burke warned, rolling up his trouser legs. “You’d better hope you never see me again.”
“I’m already there,” Sam said. He turned the dun, rifle in hand, and batted his boots lightly to its sides. He heard splashing and cursing behind him as he rode away.
• • •
At midmorning, Reuben Grafton stood out in front of the Fair Deal Cantina, looking at the single rider coming into town from the hill trail leading down to the desert floor. Grafton’s eyes were still puffy and purple from a beating he’d taken at the hands of Jon Ho and some other Segert men after Burke, Dolan and the two Mexican vaqueros had dragged Sam away on the end of the lariats.
As Grafton stared, he watched the lone rider pull his horse over to the hitch rail out in front of the mercantile and step down and spin its reins. Only as the rider stepped out onto the street did Grafton recognize him.
“Oh, hell, Jones—” Grafton said under his breath, seeing Sam tip his hat up on his forehead. The cantina owner rubbed his hands nervously on his bar apron and looked around at his cantina with a grim worried expression. Seeing no one watching from the cantina’s brand-new wooden double doors, he ran along the middle of the street, keeping silent, but waving his arms at Sam.
Sam walked on, rifle hanging in one hand, his right hand close to the butt of his bone-handled Colt standing behind the leather bullet belt around his middle.
When Grafton got close enough to not be heard in the cantina, he called out to Sam in a guarded tone.
“Jones, go back, go back! Four of Segert’s men are in the Fair Deal. They’ll kill you!”
Sam kept walking.
“Buenos días, Grafton,” he said without slowing a step.
“Good morning, yourself,” said Grafton, tagging alongside backward beside him. “Do you hear me, Jones? Four of them, four of his best—half drunk and killing mean.”
Sam kept walking.
“Who are they?” he asked.
“Tom Mullins,” said Grafton. “Dirty Tommy . . . ?” He continued tagging along backward, facing Sam.
“Don’t know him,” said Sam.
“Sudio Arpai, the Argentine?” said Grafton.
“Never had the pleasure,” Sam said, still walking.
“Jon Ho, the Chinese half-breed?”
“I’ve got him,” Sam replied.
“Some new man,” said Grafton. “I’ve never seen him before.”
“That’s four all right,” Sam said, staring straight ahead.
“Wait, Jones, damn it!” said Grafton. “You can’t go in there. They’ll kill me too!” He grabbed Sam’s arm.
Sam stopped and looked at Grafton’s hand. Grafton dropped it quickly. Sam looked at his bruised, mending face.
“Kill you for what?” Sam said.
“Jon Ho told me if I ever see you coming and don’t warn them, I’m a dead man,” he said firmly.
“So what are you doing here?” Sam asked.
“What do you mean?” Grafton asked.
“I mean, get on in there and warn them,” Sam said. “Do us all a favor.”
Grafton gave him a stunned look.
“You mean . . . ?” His words trailed.
“Yep, that’s what I mean,” Sam said. He started walking again.
Grafton stood in the street, watching him walk on.
“Don’t you go fighting and shooting inside the Fair Deal, though,” he called out. “I’ve got myself new oak doors, a brand-new mirror—this one has a fancy Spanish frame. Wait till you see it.”
“I’m happy for you, Grafton,” Sam said flatly over his shoulder. “I’ll be real careful.”
But before he’d gone three more steps, a shotgun blast from inside the Fair Deal sent the middle of the big double doors flying in chunks and splinters out onto the street. What was left of the doors swung back until one fell off its hinges. A hand shoved the other broken door open and three men walked out and spread out along the street facing the Ranger.
“Looks like they know I’m here,” Sam said.
“There was no call for doing that,” Grafton said angrily. “All’s they had to do was walk out.”
“Better clear out, Grafton,” Sam said, still walking, “unless you want some of this.”
“For two cents, I would take them on with you,” Grafton said, seething in anger. But when the tall Argentinean with the smoking shotgun broke the gun open to reload one of its double barrels, Grafton slunk away to the side and called out to the three. The Argentinean stared at Grafton, then at Sam from beneath a lowered black sombrero brim trimmed in silver and red embroidery.
“Believe it or not,” Grafton called out to him, “I was on my way to find Jon Ho just when you fellows stepped out,” he said quickly as he moved away toward an alley. He offered a wide, frightened grin. “How’s that for coincidence?”
Jon Ho . . . Sam looked at the gunmen as Grafton disappeared around the corner of an alley. There were only three, he reminded himself. Where was Ho? He looked all around. Jon Ho was not in sight. But on a balcony on the second floor of the adobe and stone hotel, Sam saw the woman and Raymond Segert, the two having come out to investigate the shotgun blast.
“Well, well, look, darling, it’s Jones,” Segert called out aloud for both Sam and Lilith’s benefit. “I bet he come to save you from me.” His voice had a slurred whiskey edge to it. An Army Colt conversion hung in a shoulder holster under his left arm.
Sam kept the three gunmen in the corner of his eye and looked up at Segert.
“Where’s my gold, where’s my men?” Segert asked bluntly, his hands spread out on either side supporting him on the balcony rail.
“The gold is where I left it,” Sam said. “Your men got attacked by Apaches. My guess is they’re all dead.”
“Damn the luck,” Segert said. He pounded a fist on the railing.
“Joe, I am so pleased that you’re alive,” Lilith said, near tears, her voice trembling.
Sam just stared up at her. He wanted to hear what she said, but he wasn’t going to let the three gunmen catch him off guard.
“Me and this she-bitch has fought all night and all morning over you, Jones,” he said. “All she’s done is cry and take on over you—me, the one who’s given her everything!”
“You gave me nothing!” Lilith screamed. “Nobody has ever given me anything!” She swung her arm wildly. “Except for this man.” She pointed down at Sam. “He is the only man who has done anything for me without demanding something in return. I’m only a peddler girl! Who cares what happens to me?” She swung her arm again, as if to wipe the world away. “All of you, go to hell.”
Sam could see that she too had consumed her share of whiskey.
“Nothing, ha!” Segert screamed in reply. “Look what she done to me, Jones!” He half turned, his arms spread wide. Sam saw the handle of a dagger sticking out of his shoulder, a wide stream of blood down the back of his wrinkled white shirt.
“Please tell me you came here to kill this pig,” Lilith called down to him.
Sam didn’t answer her. But he did say to Segert, “You need to put something on it, Segert, and get on down here.”
“Put something on it,” Segert said as if in disbelief. “You mean some salve, some ointment?” He laughed aloud. “A poultice maybe?”
Sam just stared at him.
“You still make me laugh, Jones—whatever the hell your name is,” Segert said.
“Come down, Segert. It’s time,” Sam said with finality.
“Please! Please kill him, Joe,” Lilith sobbed. “Please kill him for me. . . .”
Sam only stared, keeping watch on the three gunmen who had also started watching the spectacle play itself out on the balcony above them.
“Listen to her, Jones!” Segert raged. “But I warn you now, she is no angel. Not this one! Angels can fly!” He grabbed her and lifted her over his head in spite of the knife stuck deep in his shoulder. “She can’t fly!”
Lilith screamed long and shrill as he hurled her off the balcony. Sam winced as she hit the hard stone-tile street out in front of the hotel. Her scream halted. She lay as still as the stones beneath her.
Sam turned his rifle up and aimed at Segert. His shot sliced through Segert’s throat and took out the intricate nerves and tendons that served to hold his head erect. His head fell onto his shoulder like some broken child’s toy. Blood, tendon and bone matter splattered on the adobe behind him.
Sam wasted no time. He spun toward the three gunmen, his big Colt coming up fast from behind the bullet belt, cocked and ready.
The gunmen looked stunned, stunned at what Segert had done to the woman, stunned at what Sam had done to Segert—all of it happening so fast it wouldn’t be easy to recall except as one instinctive reflex, relentless and mindless in its violent conclusion, even to men such as these.
Yet, as Sam’s Colt leveled at them, the three gunmen snapped out of it. Sudio Arpai, the Argentinean, fired first. The shotgun bucked in his hand, even as Sam fired and put Dirty Tommy Mullins flat on his back beneath a looming mist of blood.
The Argentinean saw his buckshot dig up the street ten feet short of his target. He charged forward with a loud yell, shortening the distance to make his next shot count. But as he yelled and charged, Sam’s big Colt bucked again. The blast sent a bullet straight at Arpai. It hit the tip of his gun barrel, dinged off it, tore through his eye and out the back of his head. Arpai staggered sidelong, reaching up, knocking the big embroidered sombrero from atop his head. He stared dumbly at Sam for a second through one eye and one bloody black socket. Then he swayed and melted to the ground.
The third gunman, a new man, stood frozen in place, his hands chest high.
“Don’t shoot,” he said. “We ain’t reached no agreement yet.”
“What?” Sam asked. He held the smoking Colt ready to fire again.
“We never talked about how much I get paid or nothing,” he said. “It’s all still open to discussion . . . far as I’m concerned I ain’t took this job yet.”
“Get out of here,” Sam said. “Don’t stop, don’t look back.” He waved the Colt toward the edge of town. The new man ran as if Sam might change his mind. He glanced sidelong at his horse standing at a hitch rail as he passed it by and kept running.
Sam looked all around, then walked to where Lilith lay in the dirt. He quickened his pace when he thought he saw her move a little. Watching, he saw it again, the slightest movement of her head there on the dirt.
