A Coffin Full Of Dollars (22 page)

"Baby," Dandy said again, "you couldn't have played it better if I'd written the whole script and we'd rehearsed it."

"How else could I play it?" Laura demanded. "I saw you lift Apachito's watch out of his pocket and plant it on Lupo as you were making the big thing out of hanging on to first one and then the other. So how else could I play it but the way you set it up?"

Dandy slapped his forehead again. "You saw me pick his pocket? Even if you are my daughter who I trained myself, I must be slipping."

"Your
only
daughter," Laura said, "if we don't hurry and get Cora out of that trap."

Together they tilted the coffin back. Cora, disheveled and sweaty, her clown makeup smeared, scrambled out of the narrow space in the lower part of the catafalque, a space concealed by mirrors set at an angle to reflect the front legs of the stand, giving the illusion that the viewer was looking on through empty space to the back legs.

"You two," she said. "I'm in there stifling while you stand out here jawing about who saw who picking whose pocket."

"All right, all
right
," Dandy shouted, waving his hands. "Hurry up and finish your clown makeup before that other clown comes barging back, hollering for us to get on with the show."

CHAPTER 24

Shadrach's mouth opened but no sound came forth. He shut his eyes, shook his head vigorously, then opened them again.

"It's still there," he said dazedly. "The damn thing is still there, so it isn't just something I'm imagining."

"It's real enough, all right," the bounty hunter said, "and it explains a lot of things, including how Apachito and his gang could outwit posses all these years."

At first glance, "it" appeared to be a wall of solid rock, stretching completely across the road from cliff to cliff, and rearing upward a full fifty feet or more. Only the fact that the twin ruts of the road ended abruptly at its base indicated that the road must continue beyond. Closer inspection revealed that what seemed to be a mass of solid rock was actually made up of thin slabs of rock, carefully fitted together, the joints between camouflaged by a mixture of rock dust and cement. A heavy timber, painted the color of the rock, extended out of sight over the adjoining cliff.

"Even when I see it," the bounty hunter said, "I can hardly believe it. That timber must be a lever that opens and closes it. When it's open it must block off Crazy Woman Pass completely, so a stranger would only see the road in here. Dandy said he and Molly were puzzled by a sharp right
-
angled turn neither of them could remember from taking the pass last year."

"And," Shadrach added grimly, "I'd say it would take at least four men, shoving or hauling on that lever, to open and close it. Add the two Apachito sent as extra guards, that's six men up there, minus the one you plugged. So I would respectfully suggest we get ourselves to hell out of the road and behind some substantial rocks before war is declared again."

"You know," the hunter said, as rifles opened up from the top of the cliff and slugs screamed around them, "there are moments when you make a great deal of sense."

They scrambled over a great heap of fallen rock beside the road and crowded close to the base of the cliff where its overhang offered some protection against direct fire from above. The shots seemed to be coming from a roughly circular mound of rock on the clifftop. The bounty hunter raised up and put two shots into the rocks.

"I hate to mention it at a time like this," Shadrach said, "but there is a bare possibility that we might run out of ammunition before they do."

"The thought had occurred to me," the hunter said, "along with another, even less pleasant, one. All this bangety-bang is bound to reach the ears of Apachito and bring his gang, or a goodly portion of them, here on the double."

"So, what do you suggest?"

"I suggest," the hunter said, "that from time to time you waste a shot on that pile of rocks up there to let them know we're still alive and dangerous. Meanwhile I'm going to work my way over and find out if what looks like a path up to the top of the cliff really is a path. I'll leave my rifle with you. If it is a path, I'll need both hands for climbing, and once I get to the top I'll be within hand-gun range, anyhow."

"I don't like it," Shadrach said. "It's too much of a risk. There must be some better way."

There was a whistling sound. An immense rock came plummeting down, smashed onto the pile in front of them and bounced off to one side.

"Okay, okay," Shadrach said. "Climb it in health."

The hunter worked his way along the base of the cliff to the zigzag marking he had observed. It was indeed a path of sorts. Crude footholds and handholds had been gouged out of the rock. Further up, iron pins had been driven at intervals for grips on the more dizzying portions of the path. He began the climb as the crash of Shadrach's rifle echoed and reechoed through the confines of the slot.

Just below the top he paused for a moment to catch his breath, then peered cautiously over. Some thirty yards to his left was the circular mound of rocks with the look of a manmade observation post. He caught a glimpse of movement and a flash of sunlight on a rifle barrel behind the rocks.

Roughly the same distance to his right, two men were in the process of working a huge rock to the cliffs edge, using stout poles as levers. The hunter scrambled over the rim and onto his feet, grabbing for his gun.

Up behind the circular mound of rocks, a man leaped to his feet, leveling his rifle. Down below Shadrach's rifle bellowed. The man dropped his gun, turned half around and pitched over the edge.

"Four to go," the hunter murmured.

The pair levering the rock had dropped their poles and were snatching out their guns. The hunter slapped the hammer of his pistol, the twin shots sounding almost as one.

"Two to go," he murmured.

Up on the mound, the rocks were moving, parting just far enough to let the muzzle of a rifle poke through. The hunter threw the barrel of his pistol across his left forearm, sighted and fired. The muzzle of the rifle vanished with a loud clatter.

"One to go," he murmured.

The last man clambered up onto the rock parapet. He was yelling crazily and blazing away with his pistol. The hunter fired once and the man tumbled back out of sight. He waited, and when there were no more sounds, he reloaded his own gun and slipped it back into its holster. He walked to the front edge of the cliff and looked down into the narrow canyon of Crazy Woman Pass.

He turned and called, "Oh, Shadrach, come on up. The view from here is something to see."

It was the guttural voice of Apachito that answered, "Sorry, but your friend is all tied up right now. And if you'll look around, you'll notice that the path you took to get up there is also the only one that leads down, so don't keep us waiting too long."

It took only moments to confirm the truth of Apachito's words. Everywhere but the point where the footholds had been gouged out and the iron pins driven was sheer rock, slanting slightly inward toward the base. At some time in the dim past the cliff where the fantastic door was attached had been only a point, jutting out from the main high ground that surrounded the canyon. Some ancient cataclysm, however, had wrenched it loose so that now it was separated from the main mass by a gap of several yards, leaving it literally an island in the sky.

The hunter measured the gap with his eyes and swore under his breath. It was just narrow enough to be tantalizing, yet too broad to be jumped.

He was still studying it when Apachito shouted, "This is your last chance,
Senor Ninguno
. Come to the edge and throw down your gun or prepare to stay up there and starve."

"The bastard isn't fooling," Shadrach called hoarsely. "He's got enough dynamite planted to blow off the whole face of the cliff where that path runs. You'd better give up and come on down while you still can."

I don't think I will, the bounty hunter told himself. I have a very peculiar neck. It's terribly sensitive to rope burn. I think I'd rather stay up here and take my chances.

He studied the gap once more. From this side it was almost insurmountable. From the other side it would be simple for Apachito to throw a makeshift bridge across whenever he felt it necessary to operate the secret door once again.

Behind him lay the bodies of the two men who had been working the massive rock toward the rim of the cliff. The poles they had been using as levers lay where they had fallen from dead hands. He picked one up, hefted it, tested its strength and springiness, measured its length with his eye against the width of the gap above the abyss. It was obviously a few inches too short to serve as a bridge.

He poised the pole, butt-end forward, then broke into a run. At the edge of the gap he rammed the butt end into a break in the rock and let the lighter end whip him up and over in an arc. He landed heavily on the far side of the gap. Still clinging to the pole, he dragged it in out of sight from below.

From below the island he had just left came a thunderous
boom
followed by the crash of falling rocks. When the echoes had died away, he heard the voice of Apachito, faint and far off.

"It was your choice. Soon, now, you will truly be Mister Nobody. Unless, of course, hunger and thirst drive you to take the one way down before you are completely wasted away. A quick jump will end your misery quickly, and for that I am really sorry. I had looked forward to many amusing things for you to do. But the important thing is to have you dead, and that is now sure."

"Brother," the bounty hunter muttered under his breath, "have
I
got a surprise for
you
. Providing, of course, I can find some way to get down off this damn hunk of rock in one piece and with my wits unscrambled."

*****

Apachito was in the most jovial of moods. He enjoyed giving the rope short, sharp jerks, like a fisherman playing his catch, then hooting with laughter when his "catch" would stumble and crab frantically sideways to recover his balance.

The other end of the rope was noosed around the neck of Shadrach who was stumbling behind Apachito's horse in a grotesque simulation of a run. Shadrach's wrists were bound together behind his back and his legs were lashed together just above the knees. What limited movement he was permitted from the knees down had to enable him both to keep pace with the cantering horse and maintain his precarious balance. To lose that balance would mean being dragged by the neck until he was dead or until Apachito's ghoulish humor took another turn.

The pack, bunched up behind their leader, howled with unrestrained laughter whenever the chieftain laughed. If any of them resented the merciless killing of Lupo or recognized the fragility of their own tenure, there were no outward manifestations.

They were still a good quarter of a mile from the circus setup when Apachito began bellowing, "
Deever!
Deever
, you sonofabitch! Get off your ass and get your show started—and God help you if it ain't better than the last one we saw. We're goin' to have a
double
hanging. If it ain't good enough, we might just make it a triple."

He jerked the rope, throwing Shadrach off balance again. "You hear that, wise guy? I figured on hangin' you
and
your smart-ass partner together, but he cheated me out of his part. So I figured out how to make up for it and still have our fun. We'll hang you and then, just before you stop kicking, we cut you down. Then we'll throw some water on you, give you a good slug of whiskey to wake you up and hang you all over again. Only the second time'll be for keeps."

"You bastard!" Shadrach snarled. "You stinking, dirty, ignorant bastard! If you had the guts of a yellow worm, you'd face me man to man—or I should say, man to skunk, since you couldn't pass for a man in a flock of sick sheep."

Apachito howled in wordless rage and gave the rope in his hand a savage yank. Shadrach stumbled, teetered precariously and went down on his knees. The fall brought his bound hands against the tails of the frock coat. He fumbled at them for a moment and suddenly twisted to one side.

"I'm bound to miss," he rasped, "but by God, I'll die trying, you rotten excuse for a man."

He twisted further, bringing his bound hands as high as they would go. The twin-barreled derringer he had snatched from the tail of the frock coat blasted twice with a sound all out of proportion to its size.

The first slug traced a line of blood across Apachito's cheek and left him minus the lobe of the ear on that side. He was howling wildly when the second slug whipped the sombrero from his head.

"So I've had it," Shadrach said, and flipped the empty derringer into the dust behind him. "Get it over with."

Apachito howled curses and obscenities in a high-pitched voice and drove his spurs into the flanks of his horse. The animal squealed and lunged forward into a run. Shadrach was jerked face down and dragged across the rough, rocky ground, powerless to shield himself.

His face was a bloody, unrecognizable mess by the time Apachito hauled up at the circus wagons. Dandy was inside the stage area, banking the bass drum which had been hauled from the flood and its sodden head tightened as far as possible. Molly was furiously sawing on her violin and Hunk was bringing impossible notes and cadences from the battered trumpet