Hard men to kill, p.2
Hard Men to Kill, page 2
Just outside the shed, they saw two of Norton’s gang tending the other two. From where they sat astride their horses, they couldn’t make out who was shot or how badly.
“Let’s ride,” Charlie said. “There’s nothing we can do here.”
Clem led the way from the now smoldering ruins of the cabin. In minutes, the trail curled around the mountain and led down to a small river flowing along the floor of the valley that led to Potluck. They rode in silence until they reached the outskirts of town. It took the better part of three hours to reach their destination. For all the gunplay and arson at the Betty Sue Mine, the town stretched out all quiet, even peaceful.
“What do you think we ought to do?” Charlie asked. “Go to Marshal Thompson?”
“He’s banker Norton’s brother-in-law.”
“I don’t even know who the sheriff is, much less where he hangs his hat.”
“Whoever he is, he’s out serving process. That’s the only way he gets paid.” Clem shrugged. “It don’t matter. He wouldn’t cross the local marshal, no matter what.”
“We can’t let Jimmy Norton steal our mine.”
“He dropped this. Norton did.” Clem held out the two sheets he had picked up when Norton declared himself to be owner of the Betty Sue.
“There’s something wrong here, Clem. This is our assay report.”
“The one we couldn’t pay to see.”
“Norton got it and it doesn’t make a lick of sense. It says the gold content of the ore we turned in for assay is . . .”
“Danged near zero,” Clem finished.
Charlie scowled. “So why’d Norton want to run us off if the mine’s not worth the powder it’d take to blow up?” He read down the first page. “There’s nothing in the rock. Not a speck of gold.”
“Not worth throwing the assay sample through Jones Mercantile’s plate glass window,” Clem said. He looked at the merchant’s store. The owner stood in the doorway, glaring at the two miners.
“There’s more on the second page.” Charlie started to read when a loud shout caused him to look up. The page got away from him, but Clem snatched it in midair. He tucked the pages away in his vest pocket. With his partner, he twisted around to face Marshal Thompson.
The lawman bustled down the street, his bowed legs working as fast as he could without falling over.
“You, two. Climb on down from them horses. I got a bone to pick with you.”
Clem and Charlie exchanged a glance. Without a word, they wheeled their horses around and galloped away. The law dog shouted after them. Then came an errant bullet that missed by a country mile. When they reached the town limits, they slowed to give their horses a breather.
“It doesn’t look as if we’re welcomed with open arms in Potluck.”
“Not any longer,” Clem said.
“What are we going to do? We owe ’bout everyone, and the marshal isn’t inclined to listen to us. Not if he takes a potshot at us just for coming to town.”
“Ride.” Clem sucked on his teeth for a minute, then said, “A long ways away.”
“Sacramento?”
“Too close,” Clem decided.
“San Francisco? We haven’t been there in a spell. It’s big enough a town to get lost in.”
“We need to get lost fast.” Clem jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
“A posse! Marshal Thompson’s got a posse coming after us!”
“There’s no chance to outrun them, not on these nags.” Clem patted his horse’s neck. The mare turned a large brown eye in his direction as if taking offense at being called a plug.
“I’ve got an idea. Follow me.”
“Why not? You can’t get us into worse trouble than we’re in.”
Charlie Dawson grumbled at that as he guided his horse off the road and down a steep incline to the river that ran past Potluck. The horses splashed in the fetlock-deep water. He headed back up the stream rather than away. He hoped the posse would think he and Clem wanted to escape by going north away from town. The deep stream curled back and ran past Potluck, just a few yards from buildings in a few places.
They splashed along until they passed the town and the stream turned into steeper going. He kept up the diversion until his horse began to stumble from the effort of fighting both the increasing elevation and the rapidly flowing water. Charlie cut away from the stream and worked his way into a stand of pines. Weaving about to confuse the trail, he rode deeper into the woods until he knew his horse had reached the end of its strength. He dropped to the ground and waited for his partner to catch up.
Clem had taken a different route to keep from creating a noticeable trail where they left the stream. He finally rode up from higher on the hillside. A quick kick to get his leg over the saddle and he jumped to the ground. His swayback horse was in better condition than Charlie’s, but not by much.
“We can’t hide out here forever,” Charlie said, “but we can rest and let the posse chase its tail around. Knowing the kind of men Marshal Thompson recruited, they’ll get real thirsty fast and head on back to a saloon to brag on how they chased down two desperadoes and run us plumb out of the county.”
Clem snorted in contempt.
“Why’d you think the marshal came after us so quick?”
“We rode in. Jimmy Norton didn’t. That’d mean we done the slimy snake in,” Clem said.
Charlie sank down, back to a sap-sticky tree trunk. He was too tired to care.
“What’ll we do in San Francisco? If you remember the last time we were there, it’s a goddanged expensive town. We don’t have a dime between us.”
“Not so. I’ve got two nickels.” Clem pulled them out of the watch pocket on his jeans and held them in the palm of his hand.
“So we can buy a beer apiece. I could use a brew right now.”
“You weren’t just flapping your gums. Things cost a lot more in San Francisco. Maybe we could split one.”
“I know you. You’d drink the mug danged near dry before you gave me a turn.”
“My money.”
“Our money. We’re partners.” Before Charlie went on with his notion of how partners shared everything, the sound of riders approaching through the forest brought him up short. Clem had already heard and reached for his gun. He relaxed when he remembered his six-gun was as empty as a banker’s promise.
Darkness hid them as two riders passed by not ten yards away.
“Ain’t got no reason to think they came this way. We’ll never get a share of the reward.”
“We won’t get shot at neither,” replied his companion. “Those are dangerous owlhoots.”
“They only shot up Jimmy Norton. He’s gonna live, the doc said.”
“He’s too cussed to die. Him and his old man. They’d steal pennies off a dead man’s eyes.”
“And you wouldn’t?”
“It’d be more money ’n we’re likely to make from wanderin’ around blindly in this danged forest.”
The two riders drew rein. Cloaked in shadow, they were hidden. If Charlie and Clem hadn’t heard their approach, they wouldn’t have known the posse members were anywhere near.
Clem nudged his partner. He went to his horse and pulled off the lariat. He played it out into a loop and spun it expertly. With silent steps, he went to where the two deputized townsmen sat on their horses. Charlie grabbed his rope and followed. He wished they’d had a chance to discuss this. Clem had an impulsive streak that got them into trouble.
Ahead a lucifer flared. For a few seconds, he saw the eerie visage of the man lighting his cigarette. Then only the glowing coal showed in the twilight.
“We need to claim part of the reward when the marshal runs them two down. Do you know them?”
The other rider puffed on his cigarette. The pungent smoke drifted through the still forest.
“I think so. They have a mine up on the mountain above town. Never talked with either of them varmints. I think—”
He never finished his thought. Clem’s rope sailed through the air and neatly dropped around his target’s shoulders. A quick yank on the lariat sent the man flying through the air. He landed on the pine needle forest carpet with a dull thud. Charlie threw his loop. The rope missed and fell in front of the other rider.
The rope hadn’t secured his target, but it did spook the horse. It reared and threw the rider to the ground. He landed flat on his back. Charlie heard the air gust from the man’s lungs. He pulled in his rope and threw a quick hitch around the gasping man’s boots. When the man sat up, Charlie finished the job, a double loop around the shoulders, and then finished with the man’s hands.
He plucked a Smith & Wesson from the man’s holster, cocked the six-gun, and pointed it at his captive.
“I’ll shoot you if you make even a tiny peep.”
“Do that and you’ll have the rest of the posse on your neck!”
“Won’t matter to you. You’ll be dead.”
Charlie’s logic convinced his prisoner to stay quiet. Behind him, Clem spun another couple loops around the other downed posse member.
He held up the man’s pistol for his partner to see.
“We’ve got guns again,” he said.
“What do we do with them? I don’t want to waste ammo shooting them. We can string ’em up, I suppose.”
“Yup.”
“Wait, you can’t do that. We don’t even know you. We can tell the marshal we never caught a glimpse of you. Right, Flaco? Right?”
The man Clem had tied up grunted in agreement. Clem had taken the man’s bandanna and gagged him with it.
“It would be a waste of rope, too,” Charlie said, enjoying being in charge for a moment. He whipped off his captive’s bandanna and quickly gagged him with it. He dragged his prisoner to where Clem secured the other man to a tree. The two were bound and gagged side by side.
They bucked and strained but the ropes were tied too well.
Charlie stepped back and looked at their handiwork.
“Where’d you learn to throw a lariat like that?”
“Worked as a cowboy,” Clem said.
“You never said anything about that.” There wasn’t very much he knew of his partner’s life before they teamed up. “Around here?”
“Texas. He was easier to rope than a longhorn.” Clem prodded his captive with the toe of his boot.
“We’ve got two more horses, guns, and from the look of their saddlebags, enough to keep us on the trail for a week.”
He and Clem stared at each other. A slow smile came to Clem’s lips.
“It’ll be enough to let us ride to . . . San Francisco.”
“Yeah,” Charlie agreed, seeing what his partner did. “It’ll get us to San Francisco. Do they have any money we can spend by the Golden Gate?”
He and Clem rifled the men’s pockets. They left watches but found almost two dollars in small change. They split it between them.
“It hardly seems fair,” Charlie said. “You’ve got ten cents more ’n me now.”
Clem fumbled in his jeans watch pocket and pulled out a nickel. He silently handed it over. Charlie hesitated, then took it.
“Partners,” he said.
“Partners.” Clem turned and mounted the nearest horse in their new remuda. With two horses each, they could make better time, riding until their mount tired, then switching to their own horses. It’d have to do to keep them ahead of the posse.
Charlie fetched their mounts, took his seat on the new horse, and said loudly, “Let’s head for San Francisco!”
They rode off. Toward San Francisco. They had given the two the idea when they mentioned the city to throw the posse off their trail. What better place to go than where Marshal Thompson was least likely to track them?
CHAPTER 3
“Charlie Dawson looked over his shoulder every minute or two. He knew the quotation about wicked men fleeing when no one chased after them. But they had dodged tight knots of riders more than once in the week it took to reach San Francisco Bay. Those might have been posses after them, or simply travelers going about other business. No matter which it was, he was glad to be in sight of the tall-masted ships harbored in the Bay. He and Clem had come straight down the middle of the state and finally reached the eastern side of the Bay.
“Is it worth the money to take a ferry across to San Francisco, or should we ride for another couple days and go around the southern end?”
Clem grunted. His partner wasn’t sure what that meant. They had the money taken from the two from the posse and nothing more. The food they’d stolen was about gone. Being on the eastern side of San Francisco Bay wasn’t a problem when they had nowhere to go and no place to be.
He still preferred being in the city itself. Over the years, he had drifted through San Francisco enough to have an idea where things were and something about the people living there—and those just passing through. All were a tough, hard bunch. That meant opportunity.
But to do what?
He and Clem were miners. At least that was the way he thought of himself. He wasn’t sure about his partner after seeing how easily he roped the man outside of Potluck. Somewhere, somehow, Clem had learned enough to become a passable cowboy. No matter how Charlie hinted that his partner should tell what other skills he had accumulated in his travels before they teamed up, Clem had remained tight-lipped. Try as he might to find what other skills he had brought only grunts in reply or Clem stayed mum, not even bothering to acknowledge questions.
He was the same as he’d been since Charlie met him. He wasn’t even sure what his partner’s name was. Clement. A last name or a first? Calling him Clem suited him just fine. But was that because he was hog-tied to a name he didn’t like, and he did like Clement and Clem? Charlie had no idea.
“Take a ferry,” Clem said unexpectedly. “I’ve ridden long enough.”
“To the ferry it is,” Charlie said. He was happy to let someone else make the decision. Riding around the Bay meant they’d have to spend some money to buy food, anyway. The money for a ferry had to be less than what they’d spend. More than that, he was wearing the seat of his pants paper-thin from spending so much time in the saddle.
A smile curled his lips, just for a moment, as he remembered the last time he’d seen Marshal Thompson back in Potluck. The law dog had hurried toward them, bowed legs letting a whole lot of sunlight pass between his thighs. Charlie felt another day’s hard ride would turn him into a copy of the lawman, at least as far as his legs went.
They reached the dock area and boarded a ferry crossing to the Embarcadero on the San Francisco side. The broad-beamed boat rocked more than Charlie preferred. He was a landlubber through and through. By the time they reached San Francisco, his belly wanted to upchuck what little he had eaten. The horses hadn’t been happy with the journey, either. They led the mounts to dry land and were set upon immediately by a half dozen men waving fistfuls of greenbacks and yelling over each other.
“They want to buy the horses and tack,” Charlie said softly. “We need the money. It’s not like we need extra horses in town.”
Their next problem was deciding which horses to sell. The old nags they’d owned when working the mine had seen better days, but the notion of getting rid of horses they’d stolen appealed more. While there was little chance anyone recognized the brands, Charlie decided to play it safe. Clem had no opinion.
“We’ll get more money for them, too,” Charlie rationalized.
“Good sale, here’s fifty dollars for the pair,” one dealer in horseflesh cried. He shoved the sheaf of bills under Charlie’s nose.
“Why are there so many anxious buyers?” he asked.
“There’s always a shortage of horses in town, especially saddle horses. The ones that don’t get sold for riding end up pulling trolley cars. You want to sell the other two?” The horse trader looked over the remaining horses. “They’ll make someone a meal or two. Even if they’re a bit tough to chew.”
Charlie handed over the reins and snatched the greenbacks from the man’s hands while he told him no deal on the remaining two horses. The man started to dicker.
Charlie pushed past the man, who quickly moved to another rider disembarking from the ferry. Getting away from the docks area made for more peace and quiet, though the bustle of a big city already wore on Charlie’s nerves. Bells clanged and people shouted and the rattle of steel on steel as trolleys were pulled down broad streets made him jumpy.
As they walked from the Ferry Building, he counted out half the money and passed it to Clem, who stuffed it into his pocket without counting.
“I might have miscounted. You should make sure you got your due,” Charlie said.
“Did you shortchange me?”
“No, but—”
“Then there’s no need to count it. You’re my partner. You wouldn’t cheat me.” Clem strode off, tugging on his horse’s reins. Charlie hurried after him.
They moved away from Union Square and headed north toward the Barbary Coast stretching along the Bay all the way to the Golden Gate. It was a rougher section of town, but they had enjoyed a few weeks there right after they’d become partners. The drinks were watered but cheaper than at the Palace or the Bella Union Melodeon. And finding somewhere safe enough to sleep was at the top of Charlie’s mind. Flophouses sold a bed for a quarter a night. They had plenty of money now, so they had weeks of hunting before they had to get a job, but he wanted to see what was available in the way of a job.
Stable hands were always in demand. Since they both carried six-shooters, jobs as bank guards or couriers were possible. All it took was waiting for the right situation. Selling the other two horses gave them the luxury of not having to rush into something that wasn’t suitable.
After all, they were landowners, even if the Betty Sue was a worthless hole in the ground and Jimmy Norton claimed that taxes hadn’t been paid. Not one in a hundred of the men crowded around the docks owned more than what they wore on their backs. That made Charlie a little bit cocky, even if the Potluck banker’s son had stolen the mine out from under them.
“We’ll have another mine one day,” Charlie said softly. “It’ll produce so much gold it’ll take an entire mule train to pull the wagon.”
