Funeral By The Sea (9 page)

He continued to look at her, but without expression now, as he heard the footfalls approach the stable block, then the opening of the double doors. She wore the same white evening gown, low cut and full skirted, as when he had last seen her. Stained now with blood from her cut arm and dirty from being dragged in off the stoop. Her once elegant hairstyle was disheveled, her make-up was washed off and she no longer had expensive rings on her fingers.

‘All right, so you don’t feel like goin’ to work,’ Seth Harrow said sourly in the stable against the snorting of horses. ‘What the hell you figure I feel like? But I want outta this place.’

Then came the thud of hooves and jingle of harness as the grey-bearded old-timer got his team out of their stalls.

Barnaby Gold leaned close to the good-looking whore and whispered, ‘It had to be you slid the bolts?’

She nodded.

‘Appreciate it, lady.’

Now she shook her head and put her lips close to his ear. ‘Words are no good to me, sonny. I’m like that old man. I want to get away from this lousy town.’

Her accent was far removed from her refined appearance of the previous night.

‘That makes three of us, lady. Do you know what they did with my stuff?’

Again they traded places with lips and ears. The whole town was woke up when you was brought back here. That Delroy woman ordered you half stripped and strung up on the stoop right away. The horse was took to the stable. Along with the rest of your clothes, as I recall.’

‘Okay, we’ll wait for Harrow to get through in there.’

‘Maybe he’ll help us.’

A shake of the head. ‘He’s got a free pass out and a lot of pain to remind him of what it costs to cross a Delroy. It’s just you and me, lady.’

‘So what we gonna do? There’ll still be guards on the way in and outta here, won’t there?’

He gestured for her to stay where she was, then slid past her to reach the end of the barn, looked around its corner in the same way he had surveyed the street from the side of the house earlier.

He saw that Seth Harrow was leading the team from the stable toward the parked wagon, presumably to bring the kerosene into the yard and transfer it to the barn. The old man moved gingerly as if every step awakened fresh pain in his back, which he attempted to hold rigid.

A section of the sand ridge showed between the front corner of the stable and the rear of the house, its crest higher than the wagon, the horses and the man. Two boats were still beached there on their sides.

Without looking at her, he beckoned for Emily to join him.

‘You got a plan?’ she rasped.

‘Sure, lady. It’s the reason I came out to the coast.’

‘What?’

‘Take a boat ride.’

CHAPTER NINE

THEY crossed the narrow gap between the barn and the stable while Seth Harrow was painfully busy with putting his team in the traces of the wagon. There was a closed door midway down the side of the stable, in the wall facing the yard. Ten windows looked menacingly out from the rear wall of the big house.

Gold raked his deadpan eyes over them and decided that human nature reduced the initial risk he had to take - that even if the servants were engaged in their normal chores in any of the rooms beyond the windows, the part of their attention not applied to their work would be attuned to picking up the first sign that the men were returning from their hunt on the cliff top. And this would be seen or heard from the front of the house.

So he took hold of the whore’s right hand in his left and moved out of the cover of the rear of the stable. He heard her sharp intake of breath and led her at an unhurried pace along the side.

Seth Harrow cursed and occasionally groaned. The house remained broodingly silent in the shadow of the cliff. He did not expect the door to be locked and it was not. One of the hinges creaked when he opened it. But the sound of Emily expelling her pent-up breath was louder after he had closed it behind them.

They crouched down between two stalls in the stable, redolent with the scents of horses and filled with light – that of the sun reflected off the almost white sand of the beach. There were six horses still enstalled there.

‘Wait here, lady,’ he told her softly and went in search of his gear, casting frequent glances out of the open double doorway at the front to where Seth Harrow was now working silently at hitching his team to the wagon.

His saddle and accoutrements, bedroll, gunbelt and the rest of his clothing were heaped untidily in the corner of the stall from which he had taken Vic’s horse. The five twenty-dollar bills were still spiked on the nail. And he collected everything that was his, including the money, and retreated back to where the ash-blonde was waiting.

Dressing was a painful and exhausting chore, making him realize just how much of his stamina had been drained since he took advantage of the unbolted trapdoors to get out of the basement. The whore had to help him get into his coat and pull on his boots.

When he was fully dressed, taking long breaths as he rested on his haunches, she whispered, ‘It’s a long way to the boats. And it won’t be easy gettin’ one of them down to the water. You figure the Mexicans will just stand and watch us leave?’

He nodded. ‘You’re Delroy’s personal whore, lady.’

Defiance replaced anxiety on her face. ‘I’m what I am, sonny. And I ain’t ashamed of it.’

Now he shook his head. ‘And I ain’t insulting you. Just saying what the Mexicans and the cantina whores know you to be.’ He reached out to unhook the Murcott from a front rigging ring of his saddle. ‘So with this pressed to your back, I figure they won’t try to stop us.’

She showed a wan smile and blinked several times. Then , ‘That’s good. But do me a favor if it goes wrong, will you?’

‘If I can, lady.’

‘Blow a hole in me if there’s a chance of me gettin’ captured alive.’

‘It’s a deal.’ He delved into a saddlebag and took out a carton of shells for the shotgun. Transferred this to a pocket of his coat. ‘Let’s go.’

‘What about your stuff?’

‘It’s no use without a horse to carry it, lady. And I’ve got my hands full right now.’

He rose and moved slowly ahead of her toward the front of the stable, heard her breathing fearfully behind him. Then heard something else which caused him to reach for her and take her with him as he side-stepped into the first stall on the right.

‘What’s wrong?’ she gasped. Then caught her breath as the question was answered from elsewhere - she heard the sound which had triggered his move. The thud of galloping hooves, rising in volume as the horsemen raced out of the ravine, around the slab of rock and along the hard-packed sand toward the community under the cliff.

Barnaby Gold rasped between his clenched teeth, ‘Goddamnittohell.’

Emily sagged on to her haunches and leaned her back against the side of the stall, her eyes dull as she groaned, ‘That brute Delroy won’t give a shit about me gettin’ my head blowed off.’

Gold chanced a look over the top of the stall and saw that Seth Harrow, who had been about to climb up on to the wagon, was now walking disconsolately away from it.

‘We’re done for,’ the blonde said helplessly.

He hunkered down and turned toward her, face expressionless except for a degree of gentleness in his green eyes. ‘Appreciate all your help, lady.’

‘And now I can go to hell and take my chances?’ she answered bitterly.

‘You can turn me over to them. And believe me when I say I won’t tell Delroy it was you made it so I could get out of the basement. I owe you that much for trying, lady.
’

Her lovely fact displayed a quizzical expression, with mistrust just beneath the surface.

‘Or you can get back to the house while everyone’s interested in what’s happening out on the street. And act as innocent about my escape as the rest of them have reason to be.’

‘And you?’

‘Take whatever chance comes my way, lady.’

She swallowed hard. ‘And if they take you? Without killin’ you? Delroy won’t forget somebody had to let you out of the basement. He’ll torture you.’

‘Your life has been on the line since you slid back those bolts, lady.’

The leading riders of the group were skidding their horses to a halt at the front of the house as the whore frowned in hurried thought. A revolver was exploded into the air and a man began to shout.

‘Shit, why did I agree to come here with that mean sonofabitch,’ she growled.

‘Money, I guess?’

She half rose. ‘If I ever get outta here, alive, I’ll have learned my lesson. Good luck to you.’

‘Bye bye, lady,’ he answered as she checked on the scene outside, then ducked from the stall and hurried down the centre of the stable to the side door.

All the horses had been halted and the men were sliding from their saddles, creating a din that masked what the men who fired the gun was yelling.

Barnaby Gold came out of the stall and through the open doorway of the stable, his teeth gritted against the pain in his legs as he lunged across the twenty feet of open ground to the rear of the wagon.

A second shot was fired as he climbed up and over the tailgate, to crouch down in the narrow space behind the rear stack of kerosene barrels.

‘Shut up, I told you!’ the scar-faced Joe yelled.

Hunkered down in the cover of the wagon’s freight, Gold could not see the scene out front of the big house and on the street that curved across the front of the cantina and row of adobe
hovels.

All but two of the men were dismounted, just Joe and Hal Delroy remaining in their saddles.

The playing children had been hurried inside as the riders returned and the street was deserted for a few seconds. Until the enraged Hal Delroy stood in his stirrups and shouted into the silence which Joe had demanded.

‘Everybody outside! And fast! Joe, go and bring those greasers back off the bay! And I want the street cleared of horses! Some of you men, watch the top of the cliff. There’s going to be a hanging!’

He and Joe swung down to the ground now, handed the reins of their horses to the men nearest them. Delroy then strode to the steps and went up on to the stoop, cursed as he shouldered aside the four Mexican girl servants and Emily, who were coming out of the house to comply with his order. This as Joe ploughed up to the crest of the ridge of fine sand. And some of the men slid rifles from their boots before handing over the reins of their mounts for others to stable. While the doors of the houses and the cantina swung open and the fearful occupants emerged to witness yet more cruelty in this community of evil.

Barnaby Gold pressed himself closer to the wagon bed as the horses were led along its side, only feet away.

‘No luck in findin’ the guy that shot her then?’ Seth Harrow asked.

Up on the ridge, Joe triggered two more signal shots to gain the attention of the fishermen and gestured with his arms for them to bring their boats back to shore.

‘Not a hair nor hide of him to be seen,’ the pipe-smoker answered sourly, and spat.

‘Some of you guys help me to unload the barrels? Way my back is, I can’t...’

‘Go to hell.’

‘Not a chance, old man.’

‘You heard what Hal said. Everybody’s gotta watch that stud of Eve’s swing.’

The last of the horses thudded by to be led into the stable, and the sounds of them being unsaddled and enstalled all but masked the string of obscenities which Seth Harrow muttered.

Gold sweated and ached and fought against the nausea which threatened, conjured up by the stink of kerosene in his nostrils.

Their chores of attending to the horses completed, the men began to file back out of the stable to join the crowd gathering on the street in front of the big house. And fresh beads of moisture squeezed from the pores of the black-clad man, as he realized another portion of his reserve of good luck had been used up - for none of the men had noticed that his saddle and bedroll were in a different place and that his clothing, gunbelt and shotgun were missing.

He came close to making the clicking sound with his tongue, but managed to hold back what was normally an unconscious habit, as he heard the last man trudge by the side of the wagon.

‘Move your friggin’ asses!’ Joe bellowed toward the Mexicans rowing for the beach. Then, ‘They’re comin’ in, Hal!’

‘What else?’ Delroy countered angrily. This as he emerged from the house, carrying a coil of white rope. ‘Steve, Kent, go bring the kid out of the basement! Vic, fix the rope!’

The specified men moved to do their appointed tasks, Vic catching the coil of rope that was thrown to him and taking it to the far end of the stoop in the wake of the other two. And as they turned the corner to go to the basement access, he climbed up on to the stoop rail to thread one end of the rope through a ring on the roof.

Then Delroy’s footfalls thudded hollowly on the stoop boarding and many other pairs of boots scraped on the streets as the captive audience moved closer to the scene of the imminent hanging.

‘The murderer of my sister has escaped!’ the top man in Oceanville announced venomously. ‘For the moment! But let no one think we will not hunt him down and bring him back here to face the rope! Meantime, the man Gold is going to die! For had it not been for his actions, Eve would still be alive!’