Flintlock (26 page)

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Authors: William W. Johnstone

BOOK: Flintlock
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CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
“You little gals have caused me nothing but grief,” Sam Flintlock said. “I swear, if you run away again I'll leave you to get eaten by bears.”
“We were afraid of the mountain and the cave,” the older sister said.
“Yeah, well, we're pulling out as soon as I get back to camp,” Flintlock said. “We'll take you somewhere safe.”
“Where will that be?” the girl said.
“I don't know. But we'll find a place.”
Then the girl surprised him. “We will go where Charlie goes,” she said.
Flintlock smiled. “I'm not sure about that.”
“We are,” the girl said.
“You ran away from Charlie,” Flintlock said.
“Yes, we did, but he would have found us.”
There was some female logic in there somewhere, but Flintlock couldn't find it, nor did he try.
“Let's ride,” he said, kneeing his horse forward.
Behind him the naked, bloody bodies of Carlos Hernandez and his men stared at the sky with eyes that could no longer see.
 
 
His choice of profession had made Abe Roper a cautious man and Flintlock made a point of hailing the camp before he and the Chinese girls rode into sight.
It was a wise precaution because Roper and Charlie Fong stood away from the firelight in darkness, rifles in their hands.
“Halt. Who goes there?” Roper yelled.
“Hell, Abe, it's me. Don't you recognize my voice?” Flintlock called out. “And who in blazes taught you to say, ‘Halt. Who goes there?'”
“The army teached me that at Fort Defiance, Sammy,” Roper said. “I took a liking to it, on account of how it sounds official an' that.” The outlaw deepened his voice. “Halt. Who goes there? That'll stop a man in his tracks all right.”
“Stopped me in mine, that's fer sure,” Flintlock said. “We're coming in.”
When he rode into camp, Charlie Fong said, “The wanderers return.”
“You seem to be doing better, Charlie,” Flintlock said.
“I wasn't in the gas for too long, I guess,” Fong said. “The old man dragged me out of there.”
Flintlock nodded. “I know.”
He swung out of the saddle and Charlie helped the girls dismount. Then he took them aside and with much finger jabbing chided them. They didn't look too penitent, Flintlock decided.
“Where did you find them, Sam'l?” Roper said.
“Out by Shiprock Mountain,” Flintlock said. Then, anticipating Roper's question, “It's about twenty miles due east.”
“Them little gals rode a fer piece,” Roper said.
“They're afraid of the cave,” Flintlock said. “And so am I. Come morning, I'm pulling my freight, Abe.”
“Sets fine by me,” Roper said. “Though it sure hurts to leave the golden bell behind.”
“I don't see that we have any choice,” Flintlock said. “Maybe wait twenty, thirty years and try it again.”
Ayasha ran to Flintlock and threw her arms around his neck. “I was so worried about you, Sam,” she said.
Flintlock smiled. “And with good reason.” He said to Roper, “I got a story to tell, Abe, after I unsaddle the horses. Put the coffee back on to bile, huh?”
After he returned to the fire and poured himself coffee, Flintlock built a cigarette, ignored Roper's growing impatience, and said to Ayasha, “You look much better. The smile is coming back to your eyes.”
The girl nodded. “Maybe it's thinking so much about the house with the white picket fence.”
“Keep thinking that way, Ayasha. It will happen one day,” Flintlock said.
“Damnit all, Sammy, what's your story?” Roper said. “You know I love stories, so tell it.”
So Flintlock did.
“Ol' Carlos Hernandez is dead, huh?” Roper said when Flintlock had finished.
“You sound almost sorry, Abe,” Flintlock said.
“I guess I am,” Abe said. “He was a good bandit, an uncivilized man in a country that's closing in on us, Sam'l, slowly makin' us all civilized.” He shook his head. “Even the train-robbing profession has gone to hell and Jesse ain't around anymore to bring it back.”
“Good ol' Carlos was about to cut off my gun hand,” Flintlock said.
Roper nodded. “Yeah, I know, I know. But he was always gettin' up to pranks like that. He didn't mean nothin' by them.”
Flintlock was about to jump down Roper's throat for the “pranks” remark, but he let it go and allowed Abe's eulogy for a brother outlaw stand.
It was Geronimo, not civilization, that had killed Carlos Hernandez, but Roper was so down in the mouth, Flintlock decided not to mention it.
 
 
During the night the rock shelf above the cave entrance groaned and slid a foot lower, stone grinding on stone.
The old man, who'd been asleep in the Spanish chair, woke when he heard the rock grumble.
He stepped outside. The rain had stopped, the sky had cleared and the moon was bright.
His eyesight was not good, but his ears were keen and he listened. The rock shelf was now still, but a few pieces of stone the size of river pebbles had been shaken loose and they fell and hit the rain-soaked ground with soft thuds.
The shelf seemed more threatening and loomed above the cave entrance like a massive, clenched fist.
The old man was very afraid. The shelf was ready to come down and bury the cave entrance behind tons of rock. It was only a matter of time, he thought. Today, tomorrow, a year from now?
He had no way of knowing.
But right then he made the decision that he would no longer leave the cave. If the mountain buried him forever then let it be his tomb.
The old man stepped back inside and sat in the Spanish chair.
He sensed that his death was very close, coming from the south, riding through rain.
The prayer he whispered was not an appeal for his life, rather it was an expression of his gratitude for the great honor of guarding the bell that fell from heaven.
He heard the rock shelf shift again, just a few inches, but enough to grate and grind a warning.
The old man smiled, and then slept without dreams.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
“Does it rain all summer long in this part of the territory?” Asa Pagg said.
“Seems like,” Logan Dean said.
Irritated, Pagg said, “Where the hell is Joe? He should be back by now.”
“Maybe he met up with Abe Roper an' them,” Dean said.
“A meeting of idiots,” Pagg said. “It's what that would be.”
Ahead of him rose the peaks and mesas of the high country. The tall mountains, green trees growing here and there on their slopes, looked like mildewed bronze in the morning light.
“You really reckon they found the bell, Asa?” Dean said.
“They're idiots. How the hell should I know?” Pagg said.
“Abe Roper is a gun,” Dean said. “And so is Flintlock.”
“So?”
“I'm just sayin'.”
“You sceered, Logan?” Pagg said.
“Nope.”
“You leave Roper and Flintlock to me,” Pagg said.
Dean smiled. “You can shade 'em, Asa. I got no doubt about that.”
“Damn right I can,” Pagg said. “There ain't a man born of woman that I can't shade.”
Joe Harte showed up fifteen minutes later.
“Well?” Pagg said before the man could talk.
“I found them, Asa. About two miles ahead. They got three women with them,” Harte said.
“All the comforts of home, huh?” Pagg said.
“Two little Chinese gals and a white women, and she's a looker,” Harte said.
“Good. After we have the bell, if Roper's found it, we'll take their women. They'll be a comfort to us when we're riding down to Old Mexico.”
“Take 'em even if we don't get the bell,” Harte said.
“That goes without sayin',” Pagg said. As Harte kneed his horse beside his, Pagg said, “Did you go into their camp? Tell them we're on our way?”
Harte shook his head. “No, sir, I scouted them at a distance.” He looked at Pagg. “Roper's all right. He can be affable by times, but not Flintlock. He's good with a gun and he's a killer. I reckoned it was time enough to ride into their camp when I had you backing me, Asa.”
Pagg nodded. “Probably a wise decision. If Flintlock drew down on you, he'd kill you.”
“Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't,” Harte said. “But I don't want to put it to the test. It's way too close. Know what I mean?”
“I know what you mean, but he ain't close to me or even near,” Pagg said.
“An' that's a natural fact, Asa,” Dean said.
 
 
“Hello, the camp,” Asa Pagg hollered from the pines.
“Who goes there?” Roper said, drawing a hard look from Flintlock.
“Asa Pagg, Logan Dean an' Joe Harte,” Pagg yelled. “All respectable, friendly folks.”
“Come on in, Asa,” Roper said. “Coffee's on the bile.”
His slicker glistening, Pagg rode close to the fire that was reasonably well protected under trees.
“Is this all it does in this here country? Rain?” he said.
“Summer storms is all, Asa,” Roper said. “You boys light an' set.”
Pagg and the others swung out of the saddle and the outlaw's eyes ranged over the women who were huddled near the fire.
He turned his attention to Flintlock, who had opened his slicker.
“Howdy, Sam,” he said. “Good to see you again.”
“What brings you to this neck of the woods, Asa?” Flintlock said.
Pagg made no answer. He squatted by the fire, lifted the lid of the coffeepot and glanced inside. After finding a tin cup, Pagg poured himself coffee and told Dean and Harte to do the same.
After a few moments of silence, Pagg said, “You make good coffee, Abe.”
“Thankee,” Roper said. “A fistful of Arbuckle and the bile does the rest. Eggshells are good because they settle the grounds, like. But I don't have none o' them.”
Flintlock stepped to the fire. “Why are you here, Asa?”
“You asked me that afore,” Pagg said.
“I'm still waiting for an answer.”
“All right, did you find the golden bell?”
“We surely did. It's in a cave up there in the rock cliff.”
Now Pagg's eyes lit up. “Is it as big as they say it is?”
“Two thousand pounds of pure gold, Asa,” Flintlock said. “And it's there for the taking.”
“You can't move it, huh?” Pagg said. “And you can't break it up.”
“We haven't tried.”
Pagg thought about that, then said, “You wouldn't be lying to me, would you, Sam?”
“Don't call me a liar, Asa,” Flintlock said. He was ice cold.
It entered Pagg's mind that now was as good a time as any for a gun showdown. But he quickly dismissed the thought. If Flintlock was telling the truth, he would need help to break up the bell and tote the pieces down from the cave. Gold was heavy and Pagg was not a man overly fond of manual labor.
He made a show of backing down. “No offense intended, Sam, but you took me by surprise about the bell an' I spoke out of turn.”
“Hell, Asa, Sam'l knows that. He doesn't want trouble,” Roper said. “Do you, Sammy?”
“No,” Flintlock said. “No trouble.”
“Glad to hear it, Sam,” Pagg said. “I always said you was true-blue.”
But trouble came . . . and from a direction no one expected or could have foreseen.
 
 
Jack Coffin came from behind Pagg's horse, carrying a black bundle he'd taken from the saddle horn. He stepped to the fire opposite Pagg and held it high.
“What is this, Pagg?”
“What the hell does it look like? It's scalps.”
“Where did you get them?” Coffin said. His face was the color of death.
“They're Apache, and a few Mex. You know what they're worth down in Old Mexico? Last I heard the bounty on a buck was runnin' about a hundred dollars.” Pagg grinned. “I never turn down a business opportunity.”
Coffin studied the scalps. “Women, children and old men,” he said.
Pagg shrugged. “We gathered what we could find. Any of them kin o' yourn, breed?”
Coffin threw the scalps at Pagg. They landed on the outlaw's lap and he brushed them away.
“Get on your feet, Pagg,” Coffin said.
The breed's hand was close to his gun. He never wore a slicker and he was soaked to the skin, his long black hair falling in wet, tangled strands over his shoulders.
“You plan on taking my scalp an' trigger finger, breed?” Pagg said. He laid his cup aside and stood. “Any time you want to try is fine with me.”
“Jack, let it go,” Flintlock said. “He'll kill you.”
“Not this time, Samuel,” Coffin said.
He drew.
And died right where he stood.
Suddenly Flintlock's gun was in his hand and Dean and Harte had also skinned iron.
“No!” Roper yelled. “I don't want that!” He charged between the tense, ready men. “Sam, it was Jack's fight, not yours.”
Pagg's smoking revolvers were pointed at Flintlock. “Listen to Abe, Sam. The breed drew down on me. Put the revolver away or too many men will die here this morning.”
Ayasha cried out and ran to Flintlock, shielding him with her body. “No, Sam, don't fight him,” she said.
“It's done, Sam,” Pagg said. “Do as the little lady says.”
“Sam'l!” Roper said, his voice rising to an urgent shout. “Jack told me he'd sung his death song and was ready to die. He said Asa would kill him and fulfill his destiny, whatever the hell that meant.”
Roper did a little jig of agitation. “He committed suicide, Sam. He drew on Asa to kill himself.”
“Abe's tellin' it like it was, Sam,” Pagg said. “A man draws down on me, he's lookin' to die.” Pagg's face hardened. “Take my advice and don't push it any further.”
“Do what he says, Sam'l,” Roper said. “We don't need another killing here.”
Ayasha was in the line of fire, and Flintlock had other plans for Asa Pagg. He pushed his gun back into the waistband.
“You're riding a lawman's horse and carrying his guns, Asa,” he said.
“Yeah, the Apaches done fer him. Too bad.”
Only now did Pagg holster the Smith & Wesson Russians. He told Harte and Dean to do the same, then sat at the fire again and poured himself more coffee.
“Sooo,” he said, “tell me about the bell.”
“I'll tell him, Abe,” Flintlock said. He was in a killing rage. “Right after I bury Jack.”

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