Luke's Gold (10 page)

Finally, Curly put his knife away and Dawson holstered his pistol, although they continued to glare menacingly at each other. “Fry up some of that bacon,” Snider said, making an effort to hide his disgust for his partners. “After dark, we can sneak up a little closer to keep an eye on that pair. Curly, you take the first watch. Bob, you take the second. I'll finish up the night.”

“Hell,” Dawson grumbled, “I'll bet they ain't even goin' after no damn gold—probably just headin' west like they said—and us followin' along behind 'em like hound dogs. How many years ago was that again?”

“You can turn around anytime you want,” Snider said, weary of the squabbling. “Ain't nobody says you gotta go with me.”

Curly, already with his knife out again to slice off some strips of bacon, looked at Dawson and grinned. He stuck his tongue out and touched the tip of the razor-sharp skinning knife to the underside of it. “I got lookout first,” he taunted. “Maybe you'd best sleep with one eye open tonight.”

“You big dummy,” Dawson jeered.

 

Lem Snider poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down across the fire from his two companions. Waiting for the black liquid to cool a little in the metal cup, he considered the two men he had taken as partners—thinking that maybe he should have let them go ahead and settle the bad blood between them. He had no intention of sharing that gold with the sorry likes of Curly Jenkins and Bob Dawson. He had struggled too long and hard to find the big payoff he needed.

“You want some of this, Lem?” Curly held the frying pan up from the fire.

Snider shook his head. He was hungry. He had been hungry for as long as he could remember, but not for food. He never ate much, a fact that astonished his two partners, and his hard, lean body bore evidence of this. Living primarily off coffee and whiskey, with an occasional slab of meat to keep the sides of his belly from rubbing together, he seemed to get his nourishment from the black deeds he was good at.

After the war broke out, he had joined the Union Army simply because he was in Nebraska at the time. He felt no sympathy, or loyalty, to either North or South. Little more than a kid at the time, he joined because he was down on his luck, and he figured there would be opportunities to collect on the spoils of war as the army marched through the South. Much to his disappointment, he was posted to a frontier fort, and detailed to escort duty for emigrants. There was some fighting, mostly with Indians. His first murder, however, was a sergeant in his own company who had made the mistake of fighting with him over a whore in Virginia City. During a minor skirmish with a band of Sioux, the sergeant was hit with a rifle ball in the back. There had been more murders after his army days, resulting in very few financial gains, but murder was a necessary part of his occupation. Looking across the fire at Curly and Bob, that fact struck him even more so.

Tossing down the rest of his coffee, he said, “It's gettin' dark. Curly, you'd best get up there and start watchin' them fellers. We don't want them to decide to move off somewhere in the night.”

Though reluctant to move from the fire, Curly got to his feet and picked up his rifle. As he passed Dawson, he leaned down and whispered, “One eye, best keep one eye open.”

“I've got a good mind to put a bullet in that simple brain of yours right now,” Dawson retorted. He could hear Curly chuckling to himself as he walked away.

Another day's ride found Cade and Luke at the point where the Yellowstone turned south. Saying good-bye to the river, they continued west toward the Bozeman Pass. Luke tried to hide it, but Cade could readily see that his friend was getting a little anxious as the end of their journey approached, for he urged Cade to continue on past their usual time to camp. Darkness was already descending when finally Luke selected a campsite. He was ready to go again early the next morning. They arrived in the town of Bozeman the next afternoon, and made one more camp near the banks of the Gallatin River.

“There's sure a helluva lot more folks in this town than the last time I saw it,” Luke had commented when they had reached the edge of the settlement. “I expect we'd just as well circle on around it.” Cade was surprised that Luke showed no interest in finding a saloon, preferring to stay in camp. He decided that Luke must be so close to realizing his treasure that he feared any distraction that might somehow hinder his reaching the gold.

Luke was up well before sunrise the next morning, and Cade wondered if he had slept much at all during the night. While Cade stirred up the coals and rekindled the fire, Luke strode back and forth along the riverbank, mumbling to himself. Finally, Cade asked, “What's eatin' at you? You're as nervous as a cat.”

“I don't know,” Luke answered. “Well, I reckon I do know. What if that gold ain't there no more? I mean, we came a long way to go fishin' if it ain't.”

“I reckon you'll just have to help me round up some horses for breed stock instead of sitting around somewhere with your feet propped up,” Cade said. “If you're thinkin' you mighta put me out some by ridin' all this way with you, hell, I was comin' out here, anyway. I found what I want, so if the gold ain't there, at least I ain't lost nothin'.” He recalled to mind the picture of the lush grass prairie that stretched from the Yellowstone to the Crazy Mountains near Big Timber.

“I reckon you're right,” Luke said. “Hell, let's get saddled and head on up the river. There's a lot of things different around here, but the river's still the same. I oughta be able to find that rock where I left them sacks.”

As Luke had feared, his memory had faded considerably after thirteen years. Right away he began to doubt his recollection of how far upriver he and Luther Adams had been when they unloaded the gold from the mule. At the time, his mind was beset by many distractions, as the two of them had been desperately trying to save their necks. Things had changed. He didn't remember that the river forked around a little island here, or took a sharp bend there. The trees were taller and the brush thicker than he remembered. There was nothing he could do but push on, following the river, hoping to see something that jogged his memory. It was past midday when Luke, about to admit that he was whipped, suddenly pulled up short.

“We've gone too far!” he exclaimed excitedly. He waited for Cade to pull up beside him. Pointing to the other side of the river, he said, “That's the gulch we got ambushed in! That's the gulch we rode down into the water.” He looked back toward the way they had just come. “We got to go back. I got to figure how far we drifted downstream before we came out.”

With renewed optimism, Luke wheeled Sleepy around and started a thorough scout along the bank of the river. Cade followed, leading the packhorse. At last, he began to catch some of Luke's excitement. If luck was with them, he might be able to buy his breed stock instead of trying to catch wild horses. There were a number of places along the shore where rocks of various sizes protruded out into the water. Unable to tell for sure from the bank, Luke waded out into the water and continued downstream while Cade led the horses.

Wading in water waist-deep, Luke worked his way along the bank. A couple of rocks looked promising, but turned out to be nothing, causing Luke to wonder if one of them might have been the place, but the gold was gone. He continued wading along the edge of the river, moving another fifty yards before he came to it. The rock was smaller than he had remembered. Cade couldn't even see it from the shore. Luke ducked under water, and in a few seconds, came back up. “Glory be!” he shouted. “It's still here! Goddang it, I knew it would be! I knew it!”

Hardly able to believe that they had really found it, Cade tied the horses in the trees, removed his gun belt and hung it on his saddle horn. Unable to keep from grinning when he saw the expression of sheer joy on Luke's face, he waded into the water to help him retrieve the gold. Luke's gold, sixteen leather pouches, originally bound for the Union Army, undisturbed after so many years, were now carefully transported to dry ground. Once all sixteen of the heavy pouches were accounted for and resting on the grass above the rock, Luke opened one of them to make sure everything was all right. “Sixteen sacks of gold, Cade!” he said. “And half of 'em is yours.”

No sooner had he uttered the words when they heard the horses snort and blow. Cade knew at once that they had company. His first reaction was to retrieve his weapons, but before he could take the first step toward his horse, the .44 rifle slug slammed into his chest, knocking him backward into the water. He never heard the shot that hit him, and remembered nothing of the next few minutes after he hit the water.

Caught completely by surprise, and with no chance to get to his weapons, Luke could do nothing but cry out with rage when he saw the three intruders leaving the cover of the trees. “You murderin' sons of bitches!” he roared.

With his rifle leveled at Luke, Lem Snider sneered, “Now, Luke, that ain't no way to talk to an old army buddy.” He moved to position himself between Luke and the horses. “I knew you were up to somethin' when we talked a few days ago. You coulda cut me in on this deal. I got just as much right to that gold as you, and if you had, why, hell, we woulda gone partners on it. But you was too greedy to share with an old friend.”

“You can go to hell,” Luke growled, knowing that his life could now be measured in seconds. “You never was a friend of mine.”

Snider chuckled softly, amused by Luke's attitude. With his rifle steadily trained on him, he spoke aside to Curly. “Take a look in the river to make sure that other one's dead.” Back to Luke, he warned, “Uh-uh,” when Luke started to take a step toward the horses.

“What are you waitin' for?” Luke demanded. “Why don't you go ahead and finish your dirty business, you murderin' thief? You weren't worth the powder it'd take to blow you to hell back in the army, and it looks like you're still the back-shootin' son of a bitch you were then.”

A malicious grin slowly formed on Snider's bushy face as he watched Luke's defiant reaction. He paused a second to hear Curly report that Cade looked dead to him, his body floating downstream with the current. “Well, I reckon you're itchin' to join your partner,” he said to Luke. “I'll take good care of the gold for you.” He squeezed the trigger, cutting Luke down with a slug in his gut. Taking his time, he ejected the spent shell and fired again, this time aiming a little higher, the bullet catching Luke in the neck. Luke dropped to the ground, dead.

Watching with childish excitement, Curly giggled nervously, and in a moment of uncontrolled fever, pumped two more slugs into the dead man. Bob Dawson, silently watching up to that moment, was less concerned with wasting ammunition by shooting a corpse. His interest focused upon the sixteen pouches lined up on the riverbank. “Look at that,” he murmured, talking to himself as he counted the sacks of gold. “That's more gold than I've ever seen at one time.”

“Well, get you a good look,” Snider snarled, and swung his rifle around. The rifle bucked, sending a slug into Dawson's back as he bent over the pouches. Staggering, trying to keep from falling, Dawson tried to bring his rifle around, only to be met with two more shots ripping into his chest. Snider immediately turned to confront a stunned Curly Jenkins. Too confused to react, Curly was struck dumb for a few seconds while waiting for his inferior brain to tell him what to do. Snider smiled at him and said, “We didn't need that double-crossin' snake, did we? That gold will be easier to split between the two of us. Right?”

It took a moment more, but Curly finally believed he understood what had just happened. He didn't like Dawson, anyway, and it appeared to him now that Snider didn't, either. Smiling, he slowly nodded his head and answered, “Right.” Things couldn't be better, although he would have preferred to be the one to have sent Dawson to hell.

“Let's have a look at them sacks,” Snider said. After untying each pouch to make sure there was gold dust in every one, he told Curly to load them on the packhorse. When that was done, he took inventory of the minor spoils he had acquired in the form of horses, guns, and supplies. “Untie them other horses and bring 'em over here,” he instructed Curly.

Excited as a child at Christmastime, Curly hurried to do his bidding, fairly giggling to himself at the thought of the immense riches he had come by. When he approached the two horses tied in the trees, they both stamped nervously and tried to back away. Curly untied Luke's horse, but when he untied Loco, the mottled gray gelding jerked free of his grasp and bolted off through a dense stand of evergreens. “Come back here!” Curly yelled, but the horse would have no part of the clumsy man.

“Dammit, Curly!” Snider swore when he turned to see the horse galloping through the trees. Thinking the guns and the saddle more valuable than the scruffy-looking gelding, he raised his rifle and fired at the fleeing horse, his shot whistling harmlessly through the branches. “Too late,” he complained. “I couldn't get a clear shot.” He lowered his rifle. “We can look for him later.” Then he remembered that he was now a wealthy man, and a smile crept across his face. “To hell with that damn horse. I got more guns than I need.”

“You reckon we oughta do anythin' with these bodies?” Curly asked when he had finished stripping Dawson and Luke of anything he thought useful.

“What for?” Snider replied. “Hell, just let 'em lay. Put all that stuff on them other horses.” He stood and watched while Curly, uncomplaining, loaded up the weapons.

Finished, Curly grinned and said, “I reckon we can have us some of that antelope meat I been smellin' for two days.” He turned to face his partner, his grin fading to a look of confusion when he saw the rifle leveled at him. His simple mind still failing to understand, he asked, “You want me to—” The question was never completed as Snider's rifle bucked again, leaving a dark hole in Curly's forehead.