Doom Weapon (13 page)

A
fter a few more miles, and after Liz said we were obviously headed for the resort, I said, “There’s a hollow back there just right for stopping Terhurne. We’ll hide our horses in those trees over there and then wait for him.”

“I wish I didn’t feel sorry for him.”

“I wish you didn’t, either. If he hadn’t had his nephew on duty that night, Molly would still be alive.”

“You liked her, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what I felt about her. But I didn’t want to see her die. Maybe she could have found a decent life for herself after all this.”

“People don’t change, Noah.”

“That’s a myth,” I said. “People change all the time. It’s just that the people around them refuse to believe it.”

Long shadows kept us well hidden. Terhurne wouldn’t see us until it was too late. The spring warmth was turning chilly on us. By Liz’s estimate, we had about an hour till we reached the resort. We should still have some daylight to see how we were going to approach the place. Grieves was a professional. He’d probably hired a few guns so he could meet any kind of surprise that came his way.

Nan and Glen Turner had apparently been pretty fortunate in their dealings with rogue scientists and federal people. They’d gotten the merchandise they’d wanted and they’d sold it for the price they’d wanted and they were still walking topside up here on earth. I guessed that they hadn’t ever run into anybody like Grieves before.

Or maybe I was wrong. Maybe they’d run into a dozen Grieveses in their time. But maybe they were so treacherous themselves that they’d killed everybody they’d ever done business with. Just because Glen was a drunk and a dandy didn’t mean he wasn’t a killer when he needed to be. And I had no doubt that Nan could do what she needed to.

An owl shared his dirge with us.

He was riding faster than he had been, Terhurne was. Maybe with daylight starting to fade he realized that he needed to draw close to us so that we could all reach the resort at about the same time.

I had to judge his distance by the sound. When I figured he was far enough away that he wouldn’t run over me, I came out from behind the copse of lodgepole pines and stood in the center of the trail. He stopped about ten feet away. He automatically dropped hand to gun but by then I had a Winchester on him.

“I don’t remember asking for help.”

“I don’t remember needing to ask your permission to take my horse for a little ride, Ford.”

“Drop the gun on the ground and then dismount easy.”

“This is bullshit.”

“That’s right, it is. You shouldn’t have been following me. Now do what I said.”

He took his time. By then Liz stood next to me. She
whispered, “You wouldn’t actually shoot him, would you?”

I grimaced. “You think we could talk about this later?”

He walked the distance between us. He didn’t put his arms in the air. Embarrassing enough that I’d ambushed him that way.

He shook his head at Liz. “I don’t want any mention of this in the paper.”

I didn’t let her answer. “How long have you been watching me?”

He shrugged. “Had Spoon do it.”

“Who the hell is Spoon?”

“That’s his cousin’s kid,” Liz said. “They call him that ’cause he’s always eating.”

“How about letting him answer from now on?”

“I was just trying to be helpful.”

Dusk was coming faster than I’d expected. The birds had that melancholy sound by then, that nightfall sound.

“We better get there before dark so we can see something,” Terhurne said.

“Thanks for the tip.”

To Liz he said, “Will you tell this arrogant bastard that all I’m doing is trying to help?”

“I better not. He’s mad at me.”

“Will you two shut up?”

Liz looked chastened. Terhurne, of course, did not.

“You hear anything about Grieves I haven’t?”

“I would’ve shared it with you if I had, Noah. We had a bargain.”

“I didn’t know the bargain included you following me. You should’ve asked if you could go along.”

“Would you have let me?”

“Probably.”

He snorted. “Now there’s a hell of an answer.” But I was wasting time we didn’t have. “Let’s go.”

Flickering ruby light was all that was left when we rode up on a ragged chunk of mountain and gazed down upon the perfect bowl in which the enormous spread of hotel and cabins sat. A half-moon lent the scene a silver patina.

There was a huge dock. Steamboats used to set their wealthy passengers down there. If the visitors were especially important, the staff band would no doubt play for them as they reached the hallowed ground of the resort. There would have been fancy buggies to take them to the three-story hotel with six large cabins angling out from each side. The cabins would have been the exclusive province of the rich and notable. Rich alone wouldn’t have been enough. Notable alone might have been enough if it was the right kind of notable.

I wondered where the Turners had gone to. Not only was there no sign of them but no sign of horses anywhere. No lamps or candles in windows, either. Not on our side of the hotel, anyway.

We dismounted. Our animals would go no farther than that. Too easy to spot them.

“There’s probably a gun in at least one of those windows,” I said. “And one on the other side, too.”

“How many men you figure he has?” Terhurne said.

I shrugged. “He wouldn’t be stupid enough to try and hide out in there alone. At least a couple, probably three or four.”

I took the field glasses and stood on the highest point I could while staying hidden in the trees. The hotel had
been designed to give the impression that it was a Scottish castle right out of Sir Walter Scott. And right out of Molly’s dreams.

The hotel was a thing of turrets and battlements and towers and gables all seeming to seek heaven in their elegant sweep. Once you traversed the bridge across the moat encircling the castle you reached massive doors that were flanked by huge beasts of Scottish myth. And of course there were windows, large and small, everywhere. In the many wars that had bloodied Scottish soil, the windows had enabled archers to repel enemies down the centuries. A sizable portion of the ground level showed the twisted wood and charred innards where the fire had swept. The fire had taken out nearly half the ground floor but the castle had been built with such care that it remained impervious, it seemed, to structural collapse.

I could picture Molly in one of those windows on a fine spring day waiting sight of her knight on his storied white stallion. Lute music would calm her and dreams of his embrace would soothe her. The king might appear and tell his daughter that she was being foolish. That she was so beautiful and so sought after that of course the knight would come and he would beg for her hand in marriage. And then she would take daughterly solace in the arms of the old king and he would let her sigh and weep however long she wished.

I was looking for any hint of humanity inside. But there was nothing. I wondered if the Turners were still alive. Grieves might have dispatched them quickly once he got their money.

Or maybe it was Grieves who was dead. Maybe for once the Turners were making love to each other instead of strangers before fleeing.

I couldn’t see the rear of the hotel from where I
stood. It was likely barricaded in some fashion. Grieves wouldn’t have enough men to keep both entrances guarded.

And then I saw it. The middle floor. Burning brilliantly for just a moment. Most likely an oil lamp. And then it passed out of the frame of the window.

The safest way to approach the hotel would be from the back. Two men would be better than one and three better than two. But neither Liz nor Terhurne would be much help. Liz lacked the experience and Terhurne I didn’t trust. He might decide to do something on his own that would get both of us killed.

I went back to them. I had a good lie ready and told it well. “I’m just going to get a look at the back of the place. Just to figure out the best way in. If I see a chance I’ll take it. And that’s when I’ll call you both to sweep around back.”

“How’ll we know?” Terhurne said.

“You ever in the military?”

“Never got a chance.”

I figured he had a pretty good lie ready, too. And he told it with fair conviction, the implication being that he’d sure wanted to join but circumstances just wouldn’t allow it, those circumstances being, I imagined, that he didn’t want to get killed.

I gave them both the whippoorwill whistle we’d used back then. Three distinctive cries repeated three times. I was damned loud.

“I don’t think you should go alone. Couldn’t we at least go with you to look it over?”

“Liz, three people’re a whole lot easier to spot than one.”

“I’m pretty good at this sort of thing.”

“You may be, Terhurne. But we both agree that one man’s got a lot better chance of slipping past them.”
Then I made it the way they’d want to hear it: “I sure wouldn’t go in there alone. That’s why I told you about the whistle. I need you standing by.”

Terhurne looked at Liz and frowned. Being left behind with a ninety-pound young woman probably wasn’t what he had in mind. He’d leave this part out when he was telling the voters about all the risks he’d taken bringing Grieves in. If he didn’t get in my way, I’d probably go along with him. He’d be a dime novel legend in no time.

There was also the chance that he knew I was lying to him. But he wouldn’t want to call me on it in front of Liz. I’d embarrassed him enough in front of her.

“You just listen for the whistle.”

“I still think you should take us along, Noah.”

“I may be whistling before you know it, Liz. I’m sorry but that’s the way it has to be for now.”

“He’s a bullheaded SOB, Liz.”

“Look who’s talking, Terhurne.”

I was back in the war again, behind enemy lines. Night and forests were the best friends I had. The only friends I could trust.

Then as now the idea was to become a shadow indistinguishable from all other shadows so that no matter how wily-eyed the sentry or lookout man, he’d never spot me. Moonsilver had become my favorite color and night birds my favorite music. I’d been forced to learn what was and what was not edible among the plants and undergrowth and thorny bushes. There were several obvious ones that could make you sick or even kill you. Everybody knew those. The ones you had to watch out for were the ones nobody ever talked about.

The closer I got to the resort, the more impressive it looked. I thought of all the murders, the cholera, and the fire that had finally shut it down. There were many myths about the castles of Scotland, including cursed ones. Given the history of the resort, the curse idea would seem to apply. To believers, anyway. I counted myself somewhere in the middle.

There was no bridge over the moat in back. And the massive wooden door had been barricaded with at least twenty two-by-fours. The spacing of the boards was uneven. I imagine it had been boarded up in haste after the fire to keep out looters. Much of the hotel had remained intact and would have been an inviting target to thieves.

The native stone of the castle walls gave the enormous hotel a pleasingly medieval look. Again I had a picture of archers leaning out the windows and killing the attackers below. But then I’d read an awful lot of Sir Walter Scott.

Deep woods provided a semicircle around the hotel. I walked the entire length of them, trying to figure out which would be the best way in. I could swim the moat but I’d leave myself open to anybody who saw me. And even if I tried it, how did I get inside? The double doors leading inside would be closed.

The only possibility I could see was on the west side of the castle where a canoe sat tied to the bank. There was a window on that side of the castle that seemed to be within grabbing distance—if I got very lucky, anyway. There could be a guard inside ready to put a bullet in my forehead as soon as he saw me trying to grapple my way inside. But I didn’t see any other way in.

That was when the guard stepped into view in that window. He had field glasses of his own. He scanned the woods.

I stepped back into deeper shadow even though I didn’t need to. There was no way he could see me from where he was.

But then he was joined by a second man. They spent a long minute discussing something. The second man took the field glasses and started scanning the woods. He didn’t spend much time on the location where I was hiding. Instead he searched for awhile in a place far to my west.

Then the first man took the glasses back and had another look for himself. He, too, spent serious time watching the same area.

They stayed another three or four minutes and then quickly vanished. I wondered what the hell was going on.

What I had to decide was whether that was the time to use the canoe to get to the castle wall and try and hoist myself up with the low window ledge. In the Scotland of a few centuries back, there wouldn’t have been windows that far down the wall. Too easy for the attackers to get in. But this was a hotel for rich people and they wouldn’t be willing to pay much for a hotel with no windows.

The gunfire started soon after.

I’d been about ready to make my break and run for the canoe but the sound of gunshots caused me to recede even farther into the dark woods.

Shouts. The sound of shots fired back and forth. The great thunderous sound of the front gates parting. Pounding footsteps as the gunfire continued back and forth, back and forth. Somebody would have to reload soon.

Two horses with riders slamming across the bridge over the moat in front. More shouts. In the starshine the horses had the look of paintings, enormous dark ani
mals all bearing around the side of the castle on which I hid. There was no doubt where they were headed. The woods from where the guards’ gunfire had been returned.

Meaning that Terhurne and Liz hadn’t cared a damn about anything I’d said and had decided to do some skulking on their own. Or that Nan and Glen Turner had been hiding in the woods. But why?

I had to make a decision. With the gates open in front, I could get inside easily. The problem was who might be waiting for me in there. I could easily get killed.