The Man from Stone Creek (24 page)

“Just give us the gold,” the man called, “and we'll be on our way. Leave you to bury these good dead. Say a few kindly words over them, if you please, as a favor to us.”

Vierra shouted another insult.

Dead or alive.
Sam went so far as to take aim on the man in the lead before his conscience snagged him. The major didn't give a damn how he accomplished the task, he reminded himself, and neither did the Territorial government, as long as the murdering, rustling and robbing ended, north of the border. But Sam wanted to see the four of them tried, sentenced and hanged, and he'd bring them in for the purpose, if he had to whip the lot and Vierra in the bargain to do it.

“We're not inclined to do you any favors,” Sam replied.

Another faint wash of moonlight swept the riverbank, and Sam strained to recognize any or all of the men, but it was too dark. They were mere shapes, clad in long coats. He did make out that they'd all drawn rifles.

“There are only two of you,” the leader said with cold cordiality. “How long do you think you can hold us off?”

Sam had been considering that question all along, and no answer was forthcoming. “It would be easy enough to even the odds,” he responded. Damn, but it
would
be easy. Shoot the sons of bitches, drape them over their own saddles and lead their burdened horses out like a pack string. Leave the gold for Vierra to do with as he chose.

Trouble was, unlike the killers, Sam had a conscience, and he knew his own mind. If he shot those men without real cause, he'd see them falling in his mind, over and over again, for the rest of his days, whether his eyes were open or closed. And he'd wish he'd done things differently.

It would be burden enough that he couldn't bury those bodies.

“Just throw that strongbox out here,” the leader cajoled, “and we'll ride out. No harm done.”

No harm done.
All those corpses lying on the bank, and at least one more in the locomotive. Vibrant, flesh-and-blood lives, cut short, stolen. Sam could barely comprehend the kind of fear those people must have felt when the train plunged into midair; just thinking of it made his stomach churn. And God knew how many others had been left behind to mourn and to imagine what their loved ones must have gone through in those last terrible moments.

“I'll rot in hell first,” Sam vowed.

“Then I guess we have a standoff,” replied the spokesman with resignation. He swung down out of the saddle and, seeing only the outline of him in the darkness, Sam was struck, once again, by a frustrating sense of familiarity.

The man bent over one of the bodies, and Sam heard the tearing of cloth.

“We got more dynamite, boss,” one of the men in back said. “We could blast them out of there.” Rex or Landry Donagher for sure, Sam thought, though he couldn't have said which one.

“Shut up, you damned idiot,” answered the boss man. In the moonlight, Sam saw him tie a bit of bloody cloth to the stick they'd used to roast the rabbit, and jam it into the ground. After that, he took to picking up driftwood from the bank.

Sam had considered the possibility that the outlaws might have more explosives, but it didn't worry him. Sure, they could blow up the car easily enough, and scatter Sam's and Vierra's body parts from here to kingdom come, but the contents of the strongbox would go up with them and rain down in that river like salt. They'd play hell gathering it all up if that happened, and the gold, after all, was the whole point of the enterprise.

“We buried your brother the other day,” Sam called to Rex and Landry, hoping to get a rise out of either of them. “Your old man is in jail for it. Came into town with Garrett's blood and brains splattered all over his clothes, Mungo did, and admitted to the whole thing.”

A thrumming silence ensued and Sam knew he'd struck a chord. Waited.

One man stepped out from behind his rock. “You're lyin',” he accused.

Dead-center, Sam thought.

The leader paused in his firewood-gathering to curse.

“It's the God's truth,” Sam pressed. “According to Mungo, he caught Garrett with Undine, put a pistol to the back of his head and pulled the trigger. I saw the body myself.”

The man who'd spoken seemed to cave in on himself. Even in the gloom, Sam saw how his shoulders slumped and his fists slackened at his sides. “That can't be,” he said.

“Shut your trap, Landry!” Rex, no doubt. It was a confirmation of sorts, and satisfying for that reason, though Sam couldn't see where it made much difference in the moment. He'd suspected all along that the Donaghers were involved in the spree of robberies and murders plaguing citizens on both sides of the border, and he andVierra were sweating in an upended railroad car with limited ammunition, no food and no water. Sam wasn't about to drink from that river.

The leader whirled on his men in a rage. “If either of you says another word, I'll shoot you myself!”

Landry moved to take shelter behind his rock again, then found some new resolve among his undoubtedly meager inner resources and stepped forward instead. Went right past the boss and waded into the water. “Give us that goddamned gold!” he shouted.

Vierra's response was Anglo-Saxon in origin.

Landry, having left his rifle behind, reached for his pistol, drew and fired. The bullet pinged off the side of the railroad car and Vierra shot him in the right foot for an answer.

Donagher bellowed with pain and affronted rage, and would probably have emptied his pistol on Sam and Vierra if the leader hadn't reached out and slammed down his gun hand.

Landry cursed and limped, bleeding, back to his hidey-hole.

“Nice shot,” Sam told Vierra. “Stupid, though.”

Vierra chuckled grimly, lowering his gun to his side. “The
patrons
said they wanted these sidewinders alive. They didn't specify that they couldn't be crippled in the process.”

There had been a shift on the riverbank. The boss squatted to build a fire on the spot where the first one had been, and the other three must have been busy with Landry Donagher's wounded foot. Sam braced a shoulder against the wall of the railroad car and relaxed a little, though he was still watchful. He and Vierra had another vulnerability—their horses, and while the idiot trinity back of those rocks probably hadn't thought of it, he was sure the boss man had. He was just biding his time, that was all; knew it was on his side.

“What do you plan to do with your reward?” Sam asked idly without glancing atVierra. “Provided you manage to get the drop on me and take in all four of those outlaws, that is.”

“There is a woman,” Vierra answered, surprising Sam by his direct response. “Her name is Pilar Montoya. I want to marry her, and she wants the same, but her papa—well, he is of a slightly different opinion. He prefers a man of means for his Pilar, and I, at present, do not qualify.”

Of course there's a woman, Sam thought, counting his intelligence a notch above Landry Donagher's, if that. Maddie assembled herself in his mind and he tried to put her aside for Abigail, without success. Maddie might as well have been standing at his elbow, giving advice. “And you figure you'll change his mind—Papa's, that is—if your saddlebags are full of gold?”

Vierra sighed. “Nothing will change his mind. But if I can offer Pilar a home and all the attendant comforts, I can claim her honorably.”

Sam checked the cylinder of his .45 again.
Still full,
he observed with grim humor. “This Pilar—you're sure she
wants
you to claim her, honorably or otherwise?”

“Sí,”
Vierra said fiercely. Then he sighed again. “There is one small problem, however.”

Sam arched an eyebrow. “Like what?”

“She's getting married in three weeks.”

“That
is
a problem. I'm not sure I'd consider it small, though.”

Just then an altercation broke out back of the rocks on the riverbank. Both Sam andVierra stilled themselves to listen.

“He's gonna bleed to death if I don't get him some help!” Rex shouted.

“You're not goin' anyplace!” the third man retorted, and he sounded as if he was willing to defend his viewpoint with a bullet or two of his own. “We came here to get that gold, and we ain't leavin' without it!”

The leader threw up his hands and turned his face heavenward, as if offering a silent, beleaguered prayer. Not that God ought to be sympathetic, for Sam's money, but you never knew with God. In Sam's experience, He was just as likely to throw in His lot with whoever had the best cards in their hand as take the part of the underdog.

“You shot off three of his toes, you bastards!” Rex hollered, enraged.

“Not to mention ruining a perfectly good boot,” Vierra admitted as a quiet aside to Sam.

Sam thought of Garrett, moldering in the churchyard at Haven. Like as not, he'd have considered the loss of a few toes a minor inconvenience, compared to having his brains spilled all over Mungo and Undine's bedroom floor.

The leader left off praying or whatever he'd been doing, drew his own pistol and fired it into the air, ostensibly to restore order. Before the first flare of discharged powder faded, it was followed by second and then a third.

Rex, Landry and their unknown compatriot had all gone silent.

“Shit,” Sam whispered as the boss reholstered his pistol and headed straight for the spot where he and Vierra had left their horses.

Vierra caught his breath.

Sam watched helplessly as the man took one of the bridles from the pile of tack, tossed it expertly over the horse's head and led the unnamed gelding into plain view.

“This is a fine animal,” the outlaw said. “It would be a shame to put a bullet through its head.” He drew the pistol again and jabbed the barrel up under the gelding's throat. “I'll do it, though, if you don't let us have that gold.”

Sam wanted to close his eyes, but out of respect for the horse, he didn't.

“They say horse meat is tasty,” the leader went on. “I guess we could butcher and roast him right here. I've got the fire going already.”

Sam broke out in a sweat and his gorge rose into the back of his throat. He could shoot the bastards, probably hit all four of them, but the horse would still be dead.

“You can have the gold!” Vierra shouted suddenly.

Sam slanted a glance at his companion, at once confounded and deeply relieved. “How do we know they won't shoot the horse anyway?” he rasped.

“We don't,” Vierra answered. “But they'll do it for sure, the way things stand.” He went for the strongbox, tried with a mighty effort to lift it, and failed. Looked at Sam with exasperated impatience.

“Hold on!” Sam yelled through the window. “We'll throw the gold out the door at the end of car. Just remember that we've got guns, and plenty of bullets, and we won't hesitate to drop any or all of you in your boot tracks if any harm comes to either of those horses!”

“I knew we could come to a reasonable agreement,” the leader said cheerfully. To show goodwill, he released the gelding and swatted it on the flanks to send it trotting, reins dangling, back to its grazing place.

Sam and Vierra each took one end of the strongbox by its rope handles, lugged it to the end of the car, and flung it through the open door. It landed with a splash in the river and sank a foot or so to the bottom.

The leader, Rex Donagher and the fourth man waded in to fetch it, while Landry stayed back. Every once in a while, he gave a strangled wail of pain and residual fury.

Hoisting that strongbox out of the water was a Herculean task, even for three men, since all of them kept a pistol at the ready, leaving only one hand free for the effort. They managed it, though, while Sam andVierra watched, crouching near the door and careful to stay out of the line of fire.

“We thank you kindly,” the leader said when they'd regained the shore with the spoils and Sam and Vierra had gone back to their former posts at the windows. The murdering thief didn't bother to search the pockets of the slain
federales
for a key to the strongbox. A bullet served the same purpose.

“¡Madre de Dios,”
Vierra whispered when the lid of the small trunk was raised. Maybe he was expecting the gold to be lying in there loose, gleaming in the scant and intermittent moonlight, like pirate's treasure, but it was in bags, as Sam had known it would be. The heavy cloth sacks rattled musically as the boss doled out four to each man, with orders to put them in their saddlebags, and kept at least twice that many for himself.

“The weight of it ought to slow them down,” Sam mused, pistol in hand. Conscience aside, if any of them raised a hand to his horse, he'd put a bullet through them without so much as a blink.

“Donagher will probably leave a nice trail of blood for us to follow, too,” Vierra added.