The Loner 10, page 2
“Damn you, Berry,” he cried hoarsely, “you’re a liar, and a cheat and a thief! You ain’t got nothin’ out there for any decent man to want. And you ain’t payin’ in nothin’ but bullets for the work done. By hell—”
The old man’s words were cut off as another blast of gunfire ripped into him and he fell back, dead. Blake came slowly to his feet, watching the man called Berry very closely. He saw the anger rise in his face, mixed with uncertainty, and then he heeled about, and shouted, “Gilbert, Hopgood, get them in! I want all their guns left out and see nobody pulls out on me.”
Danny Damiani, standing with a confused Curly Bromage, was the first to react to this order. His hand went down towards his gun, but before he could clear leather one of the riders bore down on him and sent him flying against the back of the wagon.
Curly Bromage threw himself at the rider but was knocked aside by a swinging gun butt which caught him on the side of the jaw. The others from the saloon were all trying to get space enough to fight in but they were suddenly hemmed in by the three horsemen and the guns that were lowered to cover them.
Berry came off the boardwalk after stepping over the old man’s body. None of the saloon drinkers had come out and only the barkeeper’s worried face showed to Blake’s glance as he checked out the saloon. Then Berry had a gun in his back and said, “You, too, Durant. Get into one of them wagons.”
“I’m not part of this crowd,” Blake told him. “I’m on the drift.”
“Get in, damn you!” Berry shouted angrily and pushed Blake roughly forward.
Blake went only a pace forward with the push and swung about, his left hand sweeping in a circle to catch hold of Berry’s wrist. Berry swore violently and tried to wrestle his hand free, but Blake pulled him closer and slammed a fist into his stomach. When Berry doubled over, Blake turned him about and drove his gun-loaded hand up his back. He had almost prised Berry’s fist open when a horse crashed into him and threw him sideways.
Before he could regain his balance, a big man hurled himself out of the saddle and he was smashed to the ground by the weight of the man’s body. Blake felt the breath crushed from his lungs by the impact and then a gun butt came down onto the side of his head. He felt blood run as the pain exploded behind his eyes. Then the daylight was gone and all sound stopped.
Watching from the corner of one of the wagons and wiping blood from his mouth, Danny Damiani gave a grunt and elbowed Curly Bromage out of his way. His companions stood there, gun belts at their feet. Damiani’s vicious stare slashed over them and his lips peeled back in a snarl of defiance as he turned back to face Berry.
“By hell, Berry,” he said tightly, “what the blazes do you think you’re doing? You can’t handle this bunch. By hell, we’ll tear you and those scum of yours to pieces.”
“Silence him!” came the order from Berry.
Before Damiani could turn, a gun butt put paid to him from behind. Curly Bromage, still looking dazed, picked him up and pushed his unconscious body into the wagon and then he and the other hands from the saloon were herded into the wagon.
Berry had Blake Durant picked up and thrown into the other wagon and then had Durant’s big black stallion caught and tied to the rear of the wagon. Going to his own horse, Berry gave the order to move out, and the Maple townspeople, who until this time had stayed behind cover, now began to come hesitantly into the street.
The barkeeper was among them, standing taller than anybody else. He said gruffly, “Glad to see the last of that wild bunch. By hell, this town can do without the whole shebang of them.”
Nobody answered him as the two wagons with their accompanying riders ranged on each side, headed out of Maple, taking a course directly towards the west.
Chapter Two – The Stockade
Torp Berry mopped his brow where a heavy film of sweat had formed, despite the coolness of the night.
“Bundle ’em in!” he shouted. “No beg-pardons. Just put ’em away and get those gates closed!”
He kept moving about across the front of the high-walled compound, his gun always shifting, covering the movements of everybody about him. Lantern light showed his features drawn and pinched, his eyes warily searching, as if, even with everything seemingly under control, he suspected that a change for the worse might come if he let it.
Bart Gilbert, a lean man with a scarred cheek and a permanent limp, stood by the gate of the compound, rifle lifted, ready to shoot down any of the cowhands who gave trouble.
Near the two drawn-up wagons Will Hopgood prodded and pushed and dragged the men, until he had all of them inside the walls. Then he backed off, closed the gate and put three lengths of timber in place across it. Then he took hold of the gate and tried to shake it. When it did not move an inch, despite his immense strength, he breathed a sigh of satisfaction. “All fixed, Torp,” he said.
“Fine,” said Berry. “Stand two guards right through the night. This is the wildest bunch we’ve had and I don’t want them given any quarter at all, you hear. And no rations until I’m satisfied they’ve seen who’s boss here.”
“I’d like me a slice of Damiani, Torp,” Will Hopgood said as he wiped the sweat from his broad, heavily lined brow. He moved away from the stockade gate with a stamping, bow-legged gait that pounded sound into the sunbaked mud of the clearing.
Torp Berry left Hopgood to place the guards and went off with Bart Gilbert across to the main ranch house. A hundred yards away, it stood solid and seemingly indestructible under the pale wash of the night’s moonlight. There was a guard on duty at either end of the long verandah. The roof was slanted upwards with a parapet running its front length in which foot-wide holes had been cut to allow up to fifty men to lie flat and overlook the clearing itself. Torp Berry’s stare lifted to those fortress-like openings and he rubbed his jaw thoughtfully.
He went up onto the porch and stood at the rail, with Gilbert alongside him. A few minutes later Will Hopgood joined them. Hopgood pulled himself up onto the rail and let his bowed legs swing, his bootheels continually drumming out sound on the palings.
Berry eyed him intently for some time before he said, “Will, this is not only the wildest bunch we’ve had, but the biggest and the toughest. They’re just what we want to get all the timber we need and then cut through that mountain. But, by hell, you’ve got to keep your eye on Damiani. If we can tame him we can tame the rest.”
“Except Durant,” Will Hopgood told him. “From what I heard he isn’t part of this bunch. And he’s tough, fast, and hard.”
Berry’s gaze went flint-hard. “I’ll handle Durant if he steps out of line, Will. I got a score to settle with that drifter that I ain’t going to forget. But what we’ve all got to keep in mind, is that we need men strong enough to get up that mountain. We got to feed them enough to keep their strength up but at the same time keep them trimmed down so they can’t fight back. With the others we’ve had here, it’s been easy, because their spirits broke in a couple of days. This bunch is going to take longer, but I don’t want it too much longer. We got to get through the hill before the rains set in. If we don’t, we’ll have a half year to wait.”
“They’ll work,” Will Hopgood assured Berry and, grinning evilly, went on, “Or by hell, I’ll flog them till they can’t stand up.” He turned to Gilbert, said, “Bart, you stick close to me at all times. If some of them get loco ideas I don’t want them shot down. Just nicked maybe to keep them in line. My whip will do the rest.”
Hopgood pushed himself to his feet, eyed the guards outside the stockade gate and then looked questioningly at Torp Berry.
“Time for a little celebration, Torp, eh?” he said smilingly. “The men earned that today. Not a thing went wrong.”
Torp Berry frowned and hesitated for a moment before he nodded agreement to the suggestion. “Okay, but keep away from the Soncum girl, Will,” he said sharply.
Will Hopgood looked disappointed. “But hell, Torp, you said, after you’d finished with her, I could ”
“Well, I’m not finished with her yet,” Berry cut in. “And I don’t want her to know her father didn’t make it. Tomorrow, we’ll question the men left behind and see how in blazes Soncum got away in the first place. I want to know the name of the man who was responsible. Right?”
“Okay,” Hopgood muttered, hiding his scowl behind a hand that rubbed at his stubbled jaw. He stayed silent, still scowling, until Torp Berry went off into the house. Then, with a sullen look towards a second ranch house standing forty yards up the clearing near the barn, he growled to Gilbert, “Get Al and Joe, and four bottles. Might as well pick up them saloon tramps as you come. Guess we could do worse.”
“I get a chance at Bess?” Gilbert asked eagerly. Hopgood studied him bleakly for a moment before he snapped, “What the hell you want with that old bag, Bart? Hell, the stink of her is enough to turn a man off his drink.”
“Don’t smell to me,” Bart Gilbert said. “Don’t reckon I want it spoken about her like that either, Will. Hell, I waited my turn long enough, ain’t I? I done everything you wanted this far.”
Hopgood grunted something under his breath and stepped off the porch. He looked back into the house where he could see Torp Berry talking quietly to somebody inside who was cut off from his view by the heavy window drapes. He knew the Soncum girl was in there. He ran his tongue over suddenly dry lips as he pictured her, full-bodied and young, as pretty as any woman he had ever seen in his life before. He ran a hand over his face, and his eyes narrowed at the thought of getting his hands on her. Hell, he wanted her bad, he thought fiercely, and he meant one day to have her, and to hell with Berry and all his slow going.
Hopgood moved up the clearing towards the second, smaller ranch house and watched Bart Gilbert go off at a run to fetch two of the other hired guns and the four saloon women they had brought with them from their last visit to Lusc. Hopgood thought about each of the women in turn but always, despite their availability, and the fact that as ramrod he had first choice of them, his mind continually went back to the picture May Soncum had made getting out of her father’s rig, with her skirt high and all that smooth white flesh showing and her bosom threatening to burst right out of her thin cotton blouse. By hell, he told himself, one day, and soon, he was going to see what else she was made of.
He climbed up to the verandah of the smaller ranch house and, after unlocking the door, called out to the women inside, “Okay, we’re going to have a party. Get the place cleaned up and rustle up some grub. It’s Bart, Al, Joe and me and you better enjoy it, or look like you do because we had us a real hard day in town.”
Hopgood didn’t wait for an answer, but turned about and crossed back to the porch rail. He thought of the first time he had met Torp Berry when Berry was a small town lawman down Santos way, bleeding the town dry and getting out just ahead of a lynch mob. That was three years ago and in their travels together, Berry had emerged as boss man with Will Hopgood as his top hand. Will hadn’t minded that until now, but tonight the thought of May Soncum put rebellion into his heart.
He tried to shake the feeling off, remembering how strong Berry was with the rest of the men, giving them a better life than any of them could possibly get elsewhere, with plenty of good food, easy women, some action now and then, and the promise of untold wealth for every man when they completed their work on the mountain.
He was still there brooding to himself when Bart Gilbert, still on the run and carrying four bottles, came across the clearing. Will Hopgood turned into the house and prepared himself for as good a night as he could expect with the company at his disposal.
Blake Durant lay on the hard ground and watched the clouds shift across the face of the pale moon. His head ached and the blood had dried on the cut on his forehead, making it feel as if a sawbones had put stitches in it. But he was sure that no sawbones had visited this hell hole that evening. Nor did he think, on putting two and two together, that a sawbones was ever likely to visit.
Rising on one elbow when he heard sound on his right, he peered through the gloom to find Damiani and Curly Bromage coming towards him. Damiani looked ready to tear the stockade wall to pieces with his bare hands. He drew up alongside Durant and after a moment’s disdainful study of Blake, he went down on his haunches, picked up a stick and began scratching in the dirt with it.
“What we’ve found out, Durant,” he said quietly, “is that we’re prisoners here. Seems we ain’t the first, either, who have been carted out and held here. Two derelicts back along the far wall have been here four months and are no more’n skin and bone and won’t even talk against Berry and Hopgood. They ain’t got a single inch of their backs which hasn’t been whipped raw one time or another and the stink of them would turn a buffalo skinner’s stomach.”
Blake eased himself into a sitting position. Despite the knock on the forehead, he felt himself to be in pretty good shape, though still a little cramped in the limbs.
“So, Damiani?” he asked.
Damiani dug the stick viciously into the ground and gouged out a lump of clay. He glanced at Curly Bromage who was sitting off to one side and said, “So we ain’t stayin’ about until we get like them old fools. What we know is there’s only two guards on duty and there’s eleven of us. We just held a meeting and we figure we can knock that wall down if we all charge it.” He brought his fist down on the lump of clay he’d dug out of the ground and squashed it flat. “It’ll go down easy as that.”
Blake looked at the wall and shook his head. “It’s made of adobe reinforced with stakes and I reckon it’s wired, too. It’d hold against a battering ram with all our weight behind it.”
Damiani glared furiously at him, snapped, “Well, we’re going to try, damn you! You buying in or staying out?”
Blake pursed his lips and shook his head. “I don’t think it can work, Damiani. In fact, I think it would be loco. Some of your men will get killed.”
“To hell with you,” snarled Damiani as he pushed himself to his feet. He stood there still glaring furiously at Blake Durant, then he went on in a rush of words, “I’m obliged for the message about my ma, Durant. But that’s all I’m obliged to you for. From what I seen back there in town, you ain’t worth a spit in a fight. You had a chance and missed it.”
Blake did not argue with him nor did he bother to remind Damiani that if anybody had been made a fool of in Maple, it was Damiani himself.
“Good luck,” Blake drawled and Curly Bromage took a step towards him, his other foot going back in preparation for a kick. But Damiani pushed him away, saying, “Come on, Curly, we don’t need him. First through that wall will have the best chance. Those left behind will sure enough be made pay for the others getting away.”
Damiani turned and drew Curly Bromage back with him. The dark had just swallowed them when a high-pitched squeal of laughter came from outside the stockade wall.
Blake heard the footsteps stop, then Bromage say in a surprised tone, “Hell, they got womenfolk out there.”
“And drink,” Damiani put back. “Which suits me right fine. We’ll give Berry and his jackals an hour to get themselves boozed up, then make our move. Come on.”
They went off, leaving Blake Durant to listen for the next hour to laughter that became more and more raucous, punctuated by bottles smashing, now and then some shots being fired off, and bursts of bawdy singing.
He could also hear the guards doing their rounds of the stockade wall, meeting just by the gate and then turning back on their sentry walk. He rose and brushed down his clothes. The air was cool and he felt a chill beginning to penetrate his clothing. That in itself told him he was in high country, possibly a long way from the plains. But how far from Maple he did not know.
Then he heard somebody call drunkenly, “Will, get over here.”
It was only about a minute later that a young woman’s voice cried out through the night, “No, for God’s sake, no!”
“It’s him or me,” a man said roughly. “Take your pick, damn you! I ain’t puttin’ up with no more of your damned sass.”
Blake heard the sound of a slap, a muffled cry, then sobbing from not far away. He rose to his feet and went towards the stockade wall. But although he searched along it for several minutes he could find no hole to peer through to see what was going on.
Then a man’s gruff voice said, “Bart, you and the others clear outa here. Take those other damn women with you, too, and keep them quiet. I’m havin’ me some comfort tonight for once.”
There was another long time of silence before Blake heard a door slammed shut. Then another scream broke the night’s stillness. He felt a chill run down his spine. A second scream came and then a third, followed by muffled groans and finally a deathlike stillness.
Behind him he heard Danny Damiani call out, “Now! Full go, and no stopping!”
The pounding of many feet sounded across the stockade clearing before a solid mass of bodies crashed into the gate. The gate shook a little but did not look like giving. Then Blake heard the guards running back towards the gateway.
He yelled out, “Get down, you fools! They’ll cut you to pieces!”
Even as he spoke, two rifles opened up and a volley of bullets tore through the gate. Blake heard one of Damiani’s men howl in pain. Four others hit the ground and lay outstretched, unmoving. Damiani summoned the others to him and they flattened themselves against the wall just off from the gate. They were conferring in urgent whispers, when a voice called, “You in there, try that again and we’ll drag a couple of you out for flogging. Back now and behave.”
“Now!” Damiani called again and seven men charged at the gate, this time two of them forming a stepping stone for Curly Bromage to climb onto and reach out for the top. But just as Bromage’s fingers took hold and he began to draw himself up, lantern light found him.
Blake heard the guards stepping back just before a vicious blast of gunfire sprayed the top of the wall and Bromage dropped down again, groaning in pain. Danny Damiani grabbed him and pulled him off to the side as another blast of gunfire tore through the gate.
