“Curly, you all right? Damn you, say something.”

  Danny Damiani shook Curly Bromage roughly by the shoulder. Warlow and the other men, and May Soncum with them, had withdrawn to the other side of the tower. They stood there, closely bunched, watching a worried Danny Damiani beg his trail friend for a sound.

  Bromage opened his eyes, gritted his teeth against a drive of pain and looked Damiani straight in the eyes. “Danny, you’re loco,” he said hoarsely. “You got the same fever Berry has.”

  “I got good common-sense, that’s all,” Damiani defended himself. “So don’t you go fancy on me, Curly. It’s you and me and we’ll pull this off, you’ll see.”

  Bromage shook his head and said nothing more. Damiani rose from his side and went to the crossbeams. He peered out into the noon heat and squinted to see past the shimmers and sun glare. Nothing moved and there was no sound. Then suddenly the day erupted with noise. Danny Damiani jerked upright and stared harder. The sound of hoofbeats rose above the day’s deathly silence.

  “They’re pulling out!” he cried out. “We’ve licked ’em, Curly. You hear me, mister. We’ve won out!”

  Curly Bromage still said nothing. None of the others moved but Josh Warlow muttered, “I think he’s right. They’ve had enough maybe and decided to move on. Let’s get to hell out of here.”

  “Everybody stays put,” Damiani snarled, turning and levelling his gun on Warlow. “Nobody goes any place, unless I say so.”

  With that, he moved out through the beams and stood on the clearing with the sun full in his face, highlighting his bruises and swollen lips, gashed brows and straggled, grimy hair.

  But just as suddenly as the hoofbeats had disrupted the day’s silence, they died. Damiani scowled darkly across the clearing, and saw one horse making cover behind the other house. He lifted his gun, was tempted to fire off a shot, but thought better of it.

  He tried to work out what they were up to, but his thoughts were confused. Durant had run for his life, cut out on them. He himself had a gun with one bullet left in it. One bullet, but he told himself he was still armed with a lot of bluff and soon he would get himself a gun belt and God help anybody who got in his hair then.

  Larry O’Shea looked about this place which had known so many killings and would have more. Then, with a resigned shrug, he muttered to himself, “I’m heading out. I only want to forget this place and forget the whole stinkin’ mess.”

  Larry O’Shea went to his horse, swung tiredly up and looked off into the distance. Then without another word he put his horse into a run. He had just cleared the end of the house when a shot rang out through the noon’s silence.

  O’Shea pulled his horse up, turned it. Torp Berry, standing against the stockade wall and refilling his gun, glared insanely back at him.

  O’Shea dug his heels in and put the horse into a run. A shot slammed into his shoulder and almost toppled him from the saddle. But he managed to pull himself upright, then drew his own gun and bore down on Torp Berry.

  Berry, in sudden panic, realized that he was a perfect target for a killer, standing there with the sunlight beaming down on him. He dropped to the ground and punched off another four shots, but O’Shea kept coming. Berry, saliva running from his mouth, down his chin, rolled over twice as bullets cracked into the ground and the wall.

  Then O’Shea, his face deadly white from the pain burning through him, mouth set so firmly that he seemed to have no lips, and his brows crowding his eyes almost out of sight, came thundering in.

  “Your turn, Berry!” he called out hoarsely, but Torp Berry fired off one last desperate shot which smashed into O’Shea’s face and sent him bucking from the horse.

  O’Shea landed on his back, bounced once, his legs flying high, and landed with a thud on his side. He hung there for a moment before a grunt came out of him and he dropped onto his back and his lifeless face stared at the cloudless sky.

  Danny Damiani watched the horse career by and swore violently because he knew he had no chance of reaching it. With a horse he could really be master of this situation.

  Just as he was lamenting his lost opportunity, Blake Durant broke from the other house porch and went racing after the big black. The horse saw him and, wild-eyed, stepped up its pace until inexplicably it slewed about, pawed the air, then came to a halt with black sides heaving. Damiani saw Durant lift a hand and quieten the horse, then swing into the saddle and ride from sight.

  Danny Damiani looked sidelong to find May Soncum frowning after the disappearing Blake Durant. For the first time he understood her real feelings towards Durant.

  “Okay, now you seen that, didn’t you, Miss Soncum?” said Damiani. “What’ve you got to say now about Durant and all his high talk? You ready to trust him still when you seen him get a horse and beat it to hell outa here. I’m telling you, ma’am, Durant’s a coward and when I catch up with him one day I’m going to make him answer for what he just done.”

  May’s look clouded as she heard the hoofbeats die away. Suddenly a deep desperation took hold of her. She realized with a deep disappointment that she had put a lot of faith in Blake Durant. He had seemed to her to be the only one here who really thought things out. The others, and especially Danny Damiani, acted too rashly, reminding her of her father when he was alive.

  Her shoulders slumped and she ducked under the crossbeams and crossed to the far wall. There she felt Warlow’s look fixed on her while Curly Bromage studied her grimly.

  “It was Mr. Durant,” she explained. “He got a horse and rode out.”

  Warlow pinched his lips and Bromage sagged back and let out a gasp. When he closed his eyes, May realized that like herself, these two men had put all their faith in Blake Durant. And Durant had let them all down.

  Torp Berry’s mind worked feverishly. He realized he had been loco trying to get across the open country. So he went right around the high stockade wall until he reached the far side. There he piled brush and small logs against the wall and started a fire. When the flames came, he fed more timber onto them until he had a fire roaring up the wall for ten feet or more. Then he hurriedly stacked more timber for yards along the wall towards the south where the wind was heading.

  Standing back, he watched the fire take hold until the whole section was covered with black smoke. Satisfied the stockade would eventually burn to the ground and would take hours doing that, he made his way along the trail, heading for the hill Bart Gilbert had blasted for him.

  He was careful when he got near it to check about him, with the thought in his mind that perhaps Shepherd had betrayed him and had brought the other guards here and they were at that moment loading his gold into saddlebags.

  While this thought began to worry him more and more, Berry increased his pace. Never a person to exert himself too much, he soon found his feet aching badly.

  But he kept going, with the sight of that big hole always in his mind. His gun was full, and he felt he could still beat the lot of them ... Durant, Warlow, Bromage and Damiani, and his own men, too, if they’d turned against him. The gold ... that was all that mattered.

  The sun burned him and the heat sapped his strength. He began to stagger and his mind began to wander. He found himself thinking of the days back east when he had courted some of the most beautiful women in the towns he passed through. They had always given him a good reception at first, but always, too, money troubles had come to make him shift on.

  He decided that one day, as soon as he got his gold, he would deck himself out in the finest clothes he could buy, get a good rig and return to spit in the faces of some of those snob-nosed women who had despised him. He would spit in the faces of a lot of men, too, who had expressed their scorn and distrust of him.

  He went on with firmer tread until he sighted the first of the boulders Durant had prised clear of the slope. Reluctantly he was forced to admire Durant’s strength and determination. He doubted if any other man in his knowledge could have worked under such difficulties as Durant and still kept his temper in check.

  Then he was on the slope and found himself surprised at being there. He realized again that the heat was playing tricks on him. His sight was wavering, things were becoming indistinct.

  He looked anxiously about him and the silence worried him. The wind was still coming across his face but although he could feel his hair blowing wildly, the wind did nothing to cool him down. He began talking to himself as he dragged himself up to the hole Durant had unearthed for him.

  He climbed for ten minutes before he found himself on the very top of the slope. And he had missed the hole. He came down again but reached the bottom without finding it. He was exhausted now and he sat down and hugged his head between his knees. He forced himself to keep thinking. This was the hill ... The hole was here ... The gold was here ...

  He pushed himself to his feet and saw a big shape directly in front of him. Through his blurred vision, he made out the features of a man, the build of a very big man.

  Torp Berry lifted his gun and tried to keep it steady. Then an explosion went off in his head and terrible pain blinded him. He pawed the air before crashing on his face.

  He was sobbing when Blake Durant dragged him by the collar and took him off into the shade of the brush halfway up the rock-strewn slope.

  Danny Damiani had made up his mind. There was one way to get the gold and that was to dig it out. He forced Warlow and the others outside the tower structure and kept May Soncum alongside him. His pains had all left his body and he felt suddenly very much alive.

  “Okay, move out!” he told Warlow and the others.

  “We’re going for a little walk and do some work. And when that’s over, you can all come back here and have all the grub you like, all the sleep you like and all the whisky you like. Me, I’ll have moved on.”

  Curly Bromage stood against the latticework of the structure and eyed his one-time trail friend bitterly. His disappointment at Blake Durant having let them down had long since died.

  Curly Bromage, who had been a loner until he had tied up with Danny Damiani, decided he was one again. He did not even care much what happened to Warlow or the others, or even much what happened to May Soncum. She was, he had finally decided, a young woman who could look after herself well enough.

  “Danny, listen to me once more, will you?” he asked Damiani.

  “Sure, Curly. Speak it out, but be fast about it. We got a lot of work to be done, but if you don’t feel up to it, don’t worry about it. I still got an opening for you in my outfit, only I ain’t about to trust you until I’ve got everything I want from this caper.”

  Bromage held his stomach with his hand. A dull ache still pounded away inside his body but May Soncum had expertly dressed his wound, and he felt sure that, given plenty of rest, he would pull through.

  “What if there is no gold, Danny?” Bromage put to him.

  Danny Damiani wheeled on him, grabbing him by the shirt. “What if there is, damn you? That’s what you got to think about, Curly. You say one more word like that and so help me I’ll kill you. I mean it, mister, there’s enough others to do the digging without I should have to worry about you.”

  Curly Bromage licked his lips and rocked back on his heels. “Forget it then, Danny,” he said painfully and moved alongside Josh Warlow who put an arm under his armpit and helped him along.

  Painfully and slowly the procession of men and one woman made its way through the day’s intense heat. Even with Damiani urging them on all the time, it took them over an hour to reach the diggings. There they found the place just as they had left it so many trouble-packed hours earlier.

  Damiani immediately sent Warlow to inspect the hole. Warlow labored up the slope and looked about for several minutes before he cupped his hands about his mouth and called down, “There isn’t a hole here, Damiani.”

  “Don’t he to me, mister,” Damiani called out, pushing May Soncum roughly aside and striding forward angrily.

  “I’m telling you, damn you, Damiani, I ain’t blind,” said Warlow. “There isn’t a hole that I can see. Come look for yourself.”

  Damiani turned on the others. “Stay put,” he snapped. “Any of you try to run out, I swear I’ll hunt you down and kill you. You go along with me and we’ll all get a cut.”

  With that Danny Damiani broke into a run. He had to dodge many loose rocks and larger boulders but finally reached Warlow. Warlow was still looking at him thoughtfully, wearing a puzzled frown.

  Danny Damiani’s gaze searched the whole slope as he moved anxiously about, kicking rubble out of the way and muttering to himself.

  “Like I said, Damiani,” Warlow told him. “There isn’t any hole. Maybe there never was one.”

  Damiani shook his head, refusing to believe this. “I seen Torp Berry go down on his knees. O’Shea, too, and Shepherd. And Berry called out that he’d found the gold.”

  “Well, I ain’t standing in the sun looking any longer, Damiani. If you want to, that’s your business. Me, I’m seeking shade and I’m going to rest before I fall apart.”

  “Don’t move,” Damiani ordered him. He moved restlessly back and forth across the slope until he suddenly stopped beside a huge boulder. His eyes lit up and a smile broke onto his bruised mouth. Then pointing to the side of the boulder, he said excitedly, “See that, Warlow. Somebody shifted it back in place. Got dirt on this side, the side which shouldn’t ever have touched the ground. So you get those fools up here with bars and shift it away. We’ve got to the end of the trail, mister, and nobody’s going to stop us from here.”

  Warlow went tiredly down the hill again and organized the prisoners with iron bars. He told Curly Bromage about the filled-in hole and Bromage looked curiously at May Soncum.

  May held his stare for a long time before she asked hopefully, “Could it possibly be Mr. Durant, Mr. Bromage?”

  “Who else could budge those rocks, ma’am?” Bromage said, smiling, and his gaze swung to take in the range beyond the slope.

  “Where is he then?” she asked.

  Bromage’s smile remained fixed on his face. “Like he’s proved often enough, Miss Soncum, Durant’s a patient man. He don’t take chances. When he does something, it comes off, and my guess is he’s just biding his time now, waiting for the best moment to attack. I think I best get up near Danny so I can maybe help Durant out some.”

  “Be careful,” May told him and Bromage looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. When she lowered her eyes, and color rose in her cheeks he mumbled something to himself. Then he struggled up the slope and stood just behind Danny Damiani.

  Damiani gave him a curious look but when Bromage folded both hands about his middle and looked to be suffering, he returned his attention to Warlow and four helpers.

  Warlow pulled back on the bar and urged the others to give it all they had. Slowly, inch by inch, the big rock rolled up, shook a little as its full weight went onto the iron bars then began to roll.

  Warlow dropped his bar and jumped out of the way and Danny Damiani, after watching the rock gather speed, went down onto his knees on the rim of the wide, dark hole in the ground.

  His eyes sparked with excitement as he peered down but the blackness of bare earth was all the reward he got. He rose, dusted his hands and knees and looked crazily about him.

  Josh Warlow moved urgently away from him and Curly Bromage, stunned by the savagery in his former trail friend’s face, said, “Take it easy now, Danny. Take it easy, man.”

  Damiani wheeled, bringing his gun to bear on him. An insane look of cunning burned now in his dark eyes. “Got it, Curly,” he babbled. “Got it all, and for myself and nobody else. Now you get down there and line up those men. Ain’t nobody going to get away from here to tell what happened.”

  “There’s still Blake Durant,” Bromage told him quietly.

  Damiani frowned heavily. “He’s gone.”

  “No,” Bromage told him.

  Damiani stuck the gun hard into Bromage’s middle. “I said he’s cut out, Curly. I seen him go.”

  Bromage shook his head and pointed to the hole. “Who else could have rolled that stone into place, Danny? Maybe me when I wasn’t shot up. But nobody else and you know it. It would take a man of Durant’s size and Durant’s strength to do it and you know it.”

  Damiani went pale and shook his head desperately. “I seen him go,” he said again, but then he looked anxiously about him. Curly Bromage moved away from him but even as he moved Damiani brought the gun to bear on him. “He’s here then, Curly?” he asked wildly.

  “I reckon so.”

  “Where then? Where, damn you?”

  “I don’t know, Danny. But he’s close by. He got here first, rolled that stone back in place and he’s waiting to see what you do from now on. Maybe he’s got a gun.”

  “I do have a gun,” came Blake Durant’s voice from the top of the slope.

  Bromage and Damiani both looked up to find him standing there with Torp Berry’s body planted in front of him as a shield. Damiani jerked his gun up and without warning pumped off a shot.

  Torp Berry let out a cry of pain as the bullet slammed into him, then went limp. Blake Durant tossed him idly aside and stood with feet planted wide.

  He said dully, “That’s your last bullet, Damiani. Might as well drop the gun.”

  Damiani punched the gun forward as his finger dug at the trigger. But Blake Durant’s count proved to be correct.

  He spared one last glance for the unmoving Torp Berry, then made his way down towards Danny Damiani.

  Damiani lifted his hands and made fists of them, clearly not yet willing to admit defeat. Curly Bromage moved away from him, biting his lip, even now feeling sympathy for a man he had once liked a great deal.

  Blake Durant came on steadily and Damiani backed off. Then Blake said, “Watch the hole, Damiani. You’re too close to it.”

  Damiani sneered viciously at him and went back another step. But his bootheel did not make contact with anything. With a cry he lost his balance and fell backwards and disappeared from sight. Curly Bromage was first to reach the side of the hole and went down on his knees to peer down into what was now a gaping hole.

 

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