Double eagle, p.7
Double Eagle, page 7
Deal kept one eye on the house, but there was no indication that anyone was at home. Maybe the rancher was off somewhere visiting, Deal thought hopefully. But where would there be another fool trying to make his beans at the end of nowhere and still be close enough for a neighbor?
The three of them were saddling the fresh horses when the front door of the squat little house suddenly burst open. A reedy figure in long johns washed now by faint dawn light appeared. In one hand was a double-barreled shotgun. The other hand gripped an ear trumpet.
“Who’s out there?” The voice of an older man, cracked and frightened. “Speak up! Speak up loud, you hear?”
The man turned and saw them then by the corral. He let the ear trumpet clatter to the porch, then lifted the shotgun. Deal shot him twice. Gun echoes racketed against the hills. The man fell back into the house.
“I’ll go see if there’s anybody else in there.” Deal was at a run.
He stepped over the body and tracked blood into the house. There was no one else inside. He would have liked to use the place as a hideout and get a day or two of rest. But he didn’t dare, not with Cantrell huffing and puffing at their backbones.
As red and gold flecked the last of night gray from the sky, they were pounding away along a set of wheel tracks that wound off across a mesa.
“We’ll wait for a good chance, then set up an ambush!” Deal yelled against the wind in his face.
Lanyard, hunched in the saddle, mustache ends blowing, squinted at him. “You make it sound too easy.”
“Nothin’ with that half-breed will be easy,” Dave Yokum shouted above the clatter. The other two had to agree. How many men had Cantrell tracked down and brought to frontier justice? Justice in his case being delivered from the muzzle of a .44. But they could not agree on a site for ambush.
When they pulled up to let the fresh horses blow, Lanyard gave a nervous glance at their backtrail that curved up through a thick stand of cedar to a boulder-strewn gap in a cliff. Distant peaks glistened with lingering snows. “Mebbe we better lose ourselves in Canada for a few months.”
“If we got to keep on runnin’, let’s double back an’ head for Mexico,” Deal said with a shake of the head. “Hate them Canada winters.”
“Yeah, but Canada’s a heap closer’n Mexico,” Lanyard pointed out. Yokum agreed. They pushed on.
Two days later they were running low on supplies taken from the isolated ranch house. It was past mid-afternoon, the sky beginning to blacken. Lightning flashed in the distance. That was when they spotted a flat-roof structure. There was a crude sign: POP GRIMSBY’S TRADING POST.
“I like the Pop part,” Yokum said and laughed. “Let’s hope the old bastard’s all alone.”
As they got closer they saw three horses in a corral next to a barn.
“Three’s all we need,” said Deal with a hard grin.
The horses taken from the mountain ranch hadn’t held up. Of course they had been pushing them, but even so, good horseflesh shouldn’t be giving out this soon. Many times during the wild ride Deal had cursed the dead rancher for having such poor stock.
“Looks like we got some luck at last,” Lanyard said. “My belly’s shrunk to my backbone.”
“How we figure to do this, Brad?” Yokum rubbed the deep scar on his cheek. “Pay for what we take?”
Deal matched Yokum’s sly grin. “We help ourselves.” He gestured with a long arm at the horses. “We sure as hell ain’t gonna pay for them.”
At least the interior of the trading post was warm and got them out of the wind which was starting to knife through there.-heavy coats. An older man with a few sprigs of gray hair and moldy-looking chin whiskers shuffled from a back room and in behind the counter. “Never figure on nobody comin’ by this late in the day,” he grumbled. He rubbed his eyes as if awakened from a nap. “What you fellas want?” Deal named the supplies they needed. The old man did a lot of swearing under his breath and grunting. He started to put the order together.
“Better add some beans, Pop,” Deal said. He had been waiting for the old man to turn his back. Grimsby weighed up the required amount, poured the beans into a gunnysack, and folded over the top.
“We’ll clean out his money box too,” Deal hissed. He clamped a hand to his gun, started to draw. Lanyard jabbed him in the ribs.
“Don’t do it,” Lanyard whispered hoarsely.
“Why the hell not?” Deal whispered back, a little miffed at the elbow in the ribs. The old man was at the end of the counter, frowning over the bill he was trying to total.
Lanyard nodded toward some crates. “Look close,” he whispered. “That’s why not.”
Deal made a pretense of yawning and let the gun drop back into its holster. He tried to be casual as he turned. What he glimpsed through a gap in stacked cases of tinned goods at the rear of the cluttered trading post froze his spine. A boy of about sixteen or so sat on a high stool, the kind used by lookouts in a gambling hall. The boy gripped a rifle.
Just that one glimpse told Deal that the kid knew how to use it. Deal swallowed and lifted his right hand, keeping it away from the gun so that the kid wouldn’t blast away because he suspected some threatening move.
Deal straightened out his voice, then said, “How much we owe you, Pop?”
Grimsby gave Deal change for a double eagle, then got a sly look on his wrinkled face. “Lot of owlhooters loose in these parts. Don’t figure to be robbed by any of ’em.”
“Can’t be too careful,” Deal agreed with a straight face. He smiled to let the old man see that he was not the least suspicious or angry by what had been said. He didn’t want the old codger to have any idea they might be thinking of sneaking back and shooting that grim-looking kid off the high stool.
Deal planned to leave innocently enough and make a few plans, and then return for the much-needed horses in the corral. But upon emerging from the trading post, wind cutting into their faces, they received an additional surprise.
A stocky man in a windbreaker was near the barn door, rifle under his arm. He just stood there, some sixty feet away, just looking at them from under the brim of a stained hat. Even at that distance Deal noted a faint family resemblance to those in the trading post, Pop Grimsby and the kid with the rifle.
Probably three generations watching the store, Deal mused as he stowed their new purchases in saddlebags. Grandfather, father, and grandson.
They mounted up. “Guess we oughta forget about them hosses,” Deal said under his breath.
Lanyard agreed that they had better give up their idea of sneaking back. The kid and the old man would be easy enough to handle, but the hard-nosed one with the rifle by the barn made it too close.
“Seems you can’t walk in a place these days,” Lanyard complained, referring to the kid, “without somebody practically shovin’ a gun in your face.”
Yokum gave a dry chuckle. “Depends on who does the shovin’. Them or us.”
But Yokum’s reasonably good humor quickly faded when a storm, propelled by a stiffening wind, roared in on them. Cold spring rain was dumped onto hats and hastily donned slickers.
After a little over two miles, Deal had had enough of the cold and wet. There didn’t seem to be any shelter they could spot in the rolling country ahead.
“Let’s go back an’ get warm,” he said thinly. He turned his weary horse.
Rainwater ran off the ends of Lanyard’s cornsilk mustache. He didn’t like Deal’s idea, storm or not. For once, Yokum didn’t find something to laugh about. They argued about it.
Then Deal settled the matter. “Dave, we’ll claim your hoss threw a shoe an’ we got to hole up till the storm’s over. We know what to look for this time.”
“That still don’t make good odds,” Lanyard complained.
“We’ll pull our guns. Keep ’em under out coats. It’ll look like we’re only tryin’ to keep our hands warm. Dee, you get that bastard by the barn. Dave, you can handle the old man. I’ll take care of that kid. One thing, by God, we’ll have dry beds tonight.” And in the morning they’d have fresh horses.
Deal rode on ahead, anxious to finish the job so they could get out of the miserable weather. Every bone in his body suffered from chill and dampness. Although time couldn’t be accurately judged by the sun because the whole sky was black as an upended coal scuttle, Deal figured full dark was probably less than an hour away. As their tired horses floundered at a walk through the mud, the rain tapered off. Finally it stopped altogether. Rivulets of rainwater spread like veins down long slopes. The going was slow.
It took them an hour to get within sight of the trading post once again. Deal was intent on the building. Yokum, at his side, was hunched in the saddle, watching for any sign of movement ahead.
As planned, Lanyard dropped back, drawn gun under his coat. He squinted toward the barn, looking for the stocky man with the rifle. He was passing the corral when he noticed a new horse, a big black one. Lanyard blinked, wondering. Had there been four horses in the corral all along? Hell, no. Lanyard knew that the powerful-looking black horse hadn’t been in the corral on their previous visit. For a moment sight of the horse surprised him so that he failed to react. And then all of a sudden he connected the horse up with things he’d heard about Cole Cantrell. Of course there could be dozens of big black saddlers in the high country …
Deal was already out of sight. Yokum was just reining in by a corner of the building. Yokum swung down and pretended to study his horse as if a shoe had come loose.
Right then Lanyard caught movement in the barn door. A tall, dark-faced man in buckskins was holding a bridle, as if he had been about to hang it up. The man was squinting through the late-afternoon gloom at Lanyard sitting his horse out by the corral fence.
‘That’s one of ’em was here before, Cole!” shouted a voice from deep within the barn.
Panicked, Lanyard thrust his gun through the front of his coat. He fired, fired too quickly. His bullet peeled a long sliver of damp wood from the barn wall, struck a hinge, and ricocheted, the sound hideous in the shadowed shank of the day.
In the barn door Cole flung aside the bridle. He snatched his .44 and sprinted into the open. Horses in the corral began to mill and snort. He ducked to his right, still at a hard run, hoping to draw fire away from Trooper and the other horses.
Another shot came winging from the mustached horseman, who was screaming, “Brad … Dave … it’s Cantrell!”
Lanyard drove in the spurs, began to thumb shots at the weaving figure out beyond the corral but closing in now. Accurate shooting from the saddle of a rearing and excited horse was impossible. Lanyard wasted three shots.
“Dave … Brad!” he yelled again, then spurred straight at Cantrell, who was coming at a rim.
Lanyard was within ten feet of riding Cantrell into the mud when something with the weight of a falling tree brushed him out of the saddle. Somehow in the jarring fall he managed to retain his grip on the revolver. Spongy ground smacked his shoulders and butt. He was aware of his horse running away, stirrups flapping. At first Lanyard didn’t think he’d been hit. He thought that somehow in the uncertain light he had run into something; perhaps a timber at right angles to the ground or a tree limb unseen in the half-dark. Although there didn’t seem to be any trees near the corral. He was dimly aware of hoofbeats, of more gunshots.
He tried to get to his feet and was astounded at how weak he was. He stared down rather stupidly at a spreading stain at his solar plexus, saw a pumping redness there, and was suddenly stricken with delayed shock. Pain roared in.
Numbly he concentrated on hoofbeats, realizing now that they were not coming toward him but moving rapidly away.
“Brad … Dave!” He thought he was shouting, but the sound was muted as if coming from a throat other than his own.
It was more of a croak than a strident plea for help. Why didn’t Brad and Dave come, damn it?
The hoofbeats were fainter now. He heard someone panting as if from a hard run. A big man stood over him, dark of face, scowling. And shuffling up now was old man Grimsby, bundled up in a greatcoat. An old hat was pulled down to his ears, the brim twitching in the wind.
“You got one of ’em, all right, Cole,” he wheezed. “Minute I seen them three come ridin’ up the first time I had a hunch. I told Roy to git his rifle an’ hide behind them crates. An’ I said for Tom to stay out by the barn.”
Cole knew the man on the ground was Lanyard, tall, thin, and with a pale mustache. “Your friends ran out on you.”
“Go … go to hell …”
Cole spoke to Grimsby. “The three of ’em murdered a rancher about fifty miles back in the mountains.”
Lanyard barely heard the voice. He saw the faces peering down at him as if he might be a stepped-on chicken in the mud.
Cole hunkered down. “Is Claudius Max trying to get hold of Intermountain again? Is that the reason you three beat Gale?”
“Get … get me some laudanum. I’m all tore up inside …”
But it ended when Lanyard’s head rolled and the light went out of his eyes.
“I’d better go after Deal and the other one.” Cole straightened up.
“Cole, they got a long lead on you,” old man Grimsby pointed out. “It’ll be dark afore you can spit twice.”
Cole had to agree. One down, two to go, he thought.
An hour later, after burying Lanyard, they all were sitting in the Grimsby living quarters behind the store. The contents of a Dutch oven sizzled on coals in a large stone fireplace. A large cast-iron stove gave the room added warmth. There was a long table and several chairs. There were sleeping quarters for the family and also for overnight guests. Pop Luke Grimsby brought out a jug. They talked about other years when Cole had come here with his father.
Just before supper two men arrived in a wagon—Wally Bergen, who homesteaded over east, and his neighbor, Ed Scoley. For a time both men had tried to strike it rich up at El Dorado Gulch with a gold pan. They shook hands all around and went to put up their team for the night.
Biscuits and antelope stew filled the crevices in Cole’s belly. His first question to the newcomers was concerning Deal and Dave Yokum. But they had seen no one. Bergen and Scoley were on their way to the Crossing for a few days. The talk was mostly of the shooting of Lanyard.
“How come we can’t never get any decent law in this part of the country?” Luke asked grimly as he broke half a dozen biscuits into his platter of stew.
“It’ll come … in time,” Cole assured the old man.
“Seems like you’re the one always has to take over a job that some sheriff or town marshal oughta be doin’,” Tom Grimsby said.
“It’s a job that not many people want,” Cole said.
“A damned dangerous job,” Tom put in with a shake of his shaggy head. “That’s how come nobody wants it.”
Cole said, “We’ve got a good U.S. Marshal. But he can’t be everywhere at once.”
“You mean Hoodoo Hawks?” Luke Grimsby laughed softly. “Hell, he must be old as me. Man that age ain’t got no business with a badge.”
“He’s a tough old bird,” Cole assured them all. “He’ll be packing a badge when he’s ninety.”
“Why they call him Hoodoo?” young Roy wanted to know. His grandfather chewed a soggy biscuit while explaining that outlaws the marshal had run to earth had decided he was a hoodoo to lawbreakers. “The name sorta stuck.”
Luke Grimsby brought out his jug again when the meal was over. Roy looked disdainfully at the glass of milk before him. He complained that if he was old enough to guard his granpa’s back with a rifle, he was old enough to drink whiskey like a man. Bergen and Scoley laughed. Luke and his son frowned at Roy. Roy seemed to know he was on dangerous ground questioning his grandfather’s wisdom in giving him milk instead of strong drink.
Roy braced himself, but Luke Grimsby was in a jovial mood. He explained, “Whiskey burns your gut, Roy. You’re better off without it.”
“Then how come you an’ Poppa drink it?”
“Sometimes I do wonder about that.” The old man chuckled from the head of the table. “But without strong drink, livin’ in the high country would be like havin’ one leg shorter’n the other. You could still get around, but it wouldn’t be as much fun.”
Cole smiled. “My father used to put it about the same way to me.”
“I sure miss your pa droppin’ in,” Luke said with a sad shake of his gray head. “You ever git all them bastards that kilt him an’ your purty ma?”
“All of them that used the guns, yeah.” Cole’s lips whitened. “But not them that paid to have it done. But I will.”
In the morning, after a hearty breakfast, Cole pulled out his money sack to settle his bill. The Grimsbys refused his money. Hadn’t Cole helped drive off three hard cases, killed one of them? He thanked the Grimsbys and shook hands all around.
“Good luck, Cole,” the Grimsbys sang out as he rode into the new day. It wasn’t much of an improvement over the one before. The rain had left enough of the Deal and Yokum tracks to tell him they had doubled back toward the mountains. Two hours later, sheets of rain swept the flats and even the meager tracks were lost.
Chapter Nine
DEAL SOON REALIZED that Cole Cantrell hadn’t given up the chase. Once when the stiff wind cleared away rainclouds he and Yokum glimpsed him in the distance. Deal spurred his horse down into a valley. His mouth dried whenever he thought of the impending showdown and how it would be managed. Running into Cantrell at the trading post had been a shock.
To try to throw their dogged pursuer off the track, he and Yokum swung deeper into the mountains, rode east, then circled west again. Their only chance, Deal knew, was to somehow get behind Cantrell. Two rifles peppered away at a backbone would finish it.
