Lookout Hill (9781101606735) (17 page)

“That capon better be fresh,” he warned, giving her a sharp, deadly stare. “You would not want me sinking my teeth into a sour rooster.”

“
Sí
, rooster
más fresco
,” the girl said, looking frightened, eager to get away.

“
Bueno
,” said Siebert, turning her wrist loose, “and get some clean clothes on. We’re eating here.”

“
Sí
, I will,” she said, grateful that his rough hand unwrapped from around her wrist.

When the girl had left through the rear tent fly, Bellibar started to speak, but Siebert held up a hand, postponing him. The two sat in silence for a moment until
out back, the majestic crow of a rooster transformed into a cry of pain.

“Fresh enough for you?” Bellibar asked.

Siebert gave a slim smile.

“Yep. Now go ahead,” he said.

“All right,” said Bellibar, taking up where he’d left off, “I figure Pettigo took me for a hard case as soon he laid eyes on me. I’d lit out the back of this tent in a hurry. The livery boy warned me Pettigo and his men were here, and he knew that two Lookout Hill boys had killed one of his men—turned out the man was his accountant, who liked walking the dark side, so to speak.”

“And…?” said Siebert.

“And out back of the tent I ran into two of Pettigo’s men. To get off a tight spot, I killed the two Lookout Hill boys. Pettigo hired me, put me in charge here—leastwise that’s what he wanted me to think.” He grinned. “I think I scared him. He saw in my eyes I might just kill him for the hell of it, and he figured it better to hire me, get me on his side.”

“Fear is a wonderful thing,” Siebert said.

“Well said,” Bellibar replied. He grinned. “So my job is to keep an eye on Copper Gully. I see anybody who might be Lookout Hill boys,
Bang!
I kill them flatout. Keep them from gathering up in strength. Not a bad job, as jobs go,” he added.

Siebert sipped his chicory.

“So, if you and I was to repartner up, we get with the Cady brothers, set up a raid on Pettigo-American and ride away with our saddlebags full.”

“Every miner working there gets their pay in gold
coin,” Bellibar said. “Instead of us taking a small cut riding for the Lookout Hill boys, we’ll take a bold share for setting it up and getting them up from Copper Gully without me warning the Pettigos.”

Siebert’s expression turned sour.

“I see some things that could go wrong for us,” he said. “How do we know the Cady brothers will take us in?”

Bellibar stared at him.

“Aside from me leading them through the front door,” he said. “I know they’re four men short. I’ve been killing them rabbits for a stew.” He held up four fingers and lowered one each time he said a name.

“Harvey Moran…Bad Sharlo Bering, right here in this tent cantina,” he said. “On the way up the trail after you and I had our falling-out, I killed Saginaw Sparks and a Mex he called Paco something or other.” He waved the name away.

Siebert sipped his chicory and gave him a grim look.

“I’ve got to think about it,” he said after a moment of somber reflection.

“
Think about it?
” said Bellibar. “What got into you all of a sudden? You were on this as soon as I spelled it out to you. Now you got to think about it?”

“Don’t be crowding me,” Siebert warned, raising a hand in caution.

“I’m not crowding you,” Bellibar said. He sat staring at him curiously. Finally he said, “This is all about the hex you think the
bruja
put on you, isn’t it?”

“I don’t
think
it. I know it,” said Siebert. “But no, it’s not that.”

“Yes, it is,” said Bellibar, disgusted. “You superstitious, witch-killing son of a—” He stopped short. “I hand you the best deal you’ve had since Texas didn’t hang you…you’re afraid some dead
bruja
has hexed you?”

“That’s it. Make mockery of things you don’t understand,” said Siebert. “You wasn’t talking this way to me when I was ready to fire you up from the ankles.” He clenched his jaw and snarled, “You’re making me regret that I didn’t kill you.” His hand went under the table.

“The way you’re acting, you’re making
me
regret it too,” said Bellibar. He let his hand drop under the table, his Colt now back in his holster, though Siebert had taken his big Remington back from him.

“So it looks like we’re right back where we started,” Siebert said tightly.

“Not because I want us to be,” said Bellibar. “I’ve got us a deal better than any I’ve seen. All I want to do is go
do it.
I don’t give a damn about witches, or black mares are any of that malarkey.”

“It’s not malarkey,” said Siebert, his hand still under the tabletop, “and I won’t have you making it worse by poking fun at it.”

“Do not let me hear you cock that gun, else I will cut you in half at the waist,” said Bellibar. “We can repartner up or shoot each other to pieces. Right about now I don’t give a damn.” He stared coldly at Siebert, but
Siebert’s eyes streaked past him, to the stable boy who ran into the tent, out of breath, looking scared.

“Señor! There you are,” the boy cried out to Siebert. “You must come quick. Your mare has disappeared!”

“Somebody
stole
her?” Siebert asked.

“No—I mean, yes! I mean, I don’t know, señor!” the boy shouted. “She is gone—
ido!
She has vanished—
desaparecido!
”

“See?” said Siebert, rising quickly. “There’s nothing natural about this, not by a long shot.” He hurried to the front of the tent, the stable boy leading him. “This is what happens when you make a mockery,” he said to Bellibar over his shoulder. Bellibar stood up and hurried along behind them to the barn, where he stood watching as the stable boy showed Siebert a donkey standing in the stall where the mare had been, the short length of rope around its bony neck. At the sight of the donkey, Siebert jumped back from the stall as if he’d seen a ghost.

“Oh my God!” he said in a low, trembling voice. “This is the hex working. The dead
bruja
turned the black mare into a donkey.”

Listening, the frightened stable boy made the sign of the cross on his thin chest and stepped away from the stall.

“Jesus, listen to yourself, Aces,” said Bellibar. “
Dead
witches don’t change nothing to nothing…if they ever could in the first place.”

“Don’t make light of me, I swear to God, Bobby Hugh!” Siebert shouted, his hand clasping around the butt of his Remington.

“I’m not making light of you, Aces,” Bellibar said with a note of disgust in his tone. He walked to the stall and lifted the latch.

“Don’t go in there, Bobby Hugh,” Siebert warned, his voice still carrying a tremor.

Bellibar stared at him as he walked inside, stepped over to the donkey and ran a hand along its bristly withers. He held his wet hand up for Siebert to see.

“It’s lathered with sweat, Aces,” he said. “This mallet head was rode here hard. Somebody swapped it for the black mare. From what I saw of the mare, I can’t blame them.”

“Yeah…?” Siebert stepped forward warily; so did the stable boy. “If that’s the case,” he continued, “I’m saying it was the
bruja
who did it.”

“Make up your mind, Aces,” said Bellibar. “Either you killed her or you didn’t. I can’t take much more of—”

“All right, I killed her—she’s dead!” said Siebert. “Dead and gone.” He turned and stared at the stable boy. “This was all your fault, you little son of a bitch,” he growled. He kicked his boot at the boy and drew his Remington, but the boy raced away as fast as a rabbit before Siebert could cock and fire.

Siebert stood looming in the grainy light of the lantern, his chest heaving for breath. His Remington slumped down at his side. After a long, silent moment he turned and faced Bellibar.

“Are you done with it?” Bellibar asked in a solemn tone of voice.

“I’m done with it,” Siebert replied. “I don’t know
what got into me and I won’t be taunted about it,” he said in a warning tone. “But it’s over. Tell me how you want to play things. I’m right beside you.”

“First, we go back and eat the breakfast we ordered,” said Bellibar, glad to see Hot Aces had come to his senses. “Then I want you to meet the Russian. He works for Pettigo, but he likes this Mexican dope. Cross his palm with enough gold coin to keep him doping and he’s on our side all the way.”

“What about my mare?” Siebert asked.

“What about her?” Bellibar asked.

“I can’t let her get stolen and rode off that way,” said Siebert.

“You stole her, Aces,” said Bellibar.

“Still…,” said Siebert.

“You were all set to burn her alive,” Bellibar said. “You’ve got your roan back. If anybody needs a mount here, it’s me. Besides, if whoever took her is any thief at all, they are long gone by now. The time you spend tracking them down, we could be getting ourselves ready to be rich men.”

“All right, I’ll let it go,” said Siebert, settling it in his mind.

“Good,” said Bellibar, getting tired of Siebert’s craziness, wondering if he should go on and kill him when this was over. “Let’s go eat, and then I’ll take you to meet the Russian.”

Inside the adobe building set up to be the office for the sheriff, Cherzi the Russian sat behind a battered oak desk he dragged all the way from the mercantile up
the street. A large Colt lay broken apart atop the desk, placed on an oil-stained cleaning rag. Cherzi looked up from cleaning the gun barrel as Siebert and Bellibar walked through the door.

“Cherzi, this is a pal of mine, Hodding Siebert,” Bellibar said to the stoic Russian. To Siebert he said, “Hot Aces, this is Cherzi something or other. I won’t
try
to say his last name, nor should you.”

“Is Cherzi Persocovich,” the Russian said in stiff English.
“Is not something or other.”

“Yeah, right,” Bellibar replied with a chuckle, “anywho, Hodding here will be working with us.”

“Oh…?” the Russian said to Bellibar, eyeing Hodding Siebert up and down. “Why you call him
Hot Aces
?”

Bellibar considered it with a bemused look on his face.

“Yeah, come to think of it,” he said to Siebert, “why
does
everybody call you Hot Aces?”

“For the same reason everybody calls you Bobby Hugh,” Siebert replied in a sharp tone.

“Because Bobby Hugh is my name,” said Bellibar. He gave a slight shrug.

“Let’s let it go, Bobby Hugh,” said Siebert. “My pa was a gambling man, all right?”

“Fine by me,” said Bellibar.

The Russian appeared to hurry up cleaning the big Colt and reassemble it.

“I have not seen Leonard Tiggs since yesterday afternoon when he went to bury the dead gunmen,” he said.

“Neither have I,” said Bellibar. “Maybe he couldn’t wait any longer to run up to Pettigo, spill his guts about how we’re doing things here.”

Cherzi looked back and forth between the two of them as he loaded his clean Colt and spun the cylinder.

“His horse is in the corral behind the livery barn,” said the Russian matter-of-factly. “I saw it this morning at daybreak when I walked past.” He stared blankly at Bellibar.

“You don’t say,” said Bellibar. “Do you suppose something bad has happened to him?”

“Yes, I think something very
bad
has happened to him,” said the Russian. He looked coolly back and forth between them, seeing Siebert’s hand gripping the butt of the holstered Remington, Bellibar’s hand on his Colt. He gave a short, flat smile and slipped his Colt down loosely into his belly holster. “But I don’t give a damn-it-to-hell,” he said. “If Tiggs is gone, maybe we can start making some the money you tell me about, eh?”

“You bet your life we can, Cherzi,” said Bellibar. He grinned at Siebert and said, “I told you you’re going to like this fellow, Aces.”

Siebert started to say something in reply when the front door swung open and one of the morning bartenders from the tent cantina hurried in, wide-eyed and out of breath. All three gunmen swung toward him, their guns out of their holsters, cocked and poised.

“You ever rush up on me or my men again, Burns,” Bellibar warned in harsh tone, “I’m going to go on and kill you…We’ll call it suicide.”

“Sheriff, I’m damned sorry,” said Cletis Burns, his
hands chest high. “You said let you know if any gunmen ride in who might be Lookout Hill boys?”

“That’s right,” said Bellibar. “What have you got?”

“Billy Boyle is at the cantina. He’s one of the Cady brothers’ meanest gunmen. I know because Dale Pettigo’s mercenaries shooed him out of here about this same time last year.”

The Russian and the two gunmen looked at each other.

“Obliged, Burns,” Bellibar said to the bartender. “Now go back there and act like nothing’s going on. We’ll take care of it.”

“This is how they do it, Sheriff,” Burns said. “They ease in here one, two, three at a time until they’ve got enough to ride straight up the gully to the mines—”

“I said
obliged
. We’ve got it, Burns,” Bellibar said in a stronger tone. “Now get going before I pistol-whip the living hell out of you.”

The bartender gave him a puzzled look, but he didn’t test his luck. He turned and left almost at a run. When he was gone, Bellibar gestured to Siebert and the Russian.

“Was I too harsh?” he asked.

“Not too harsh,” said the Russian.

“Not at all,” said Siebert. “I always said a sheriff needs to take a strong hand for the law.”

“All right, then, pards,” said Bellibar, “I expect it’s time we start turning all this talk into action.”

As the early drinkers filed into the tent cantina and lined the bar, a wiry gunman named Billy Boyle stood
pouring a shot of rye. He didn’t see the Russian come in with his hat low on his forehead and take a chair at a table in the center of the dirt floor. Nor did he notice Hodding Siebert walk in through the rear door and take position at the far end of bar. Boyle was here to test the town’s defenses. He had gone unnoticed, he thought—
so far, so good.

But when he threw back his rye and set the shot glass down in front of him, as if from out of nowhere an empty feed sack came down over his head and tightened around him. He reached instinctively for his holstered Smith & Wesson, but he was too late. A hand reached out and snatched it from him as he struggled inside the feed sack.