Midnight Rider (Ralph Cotton Western Series) (23 page)

Where’s Pres…?
he asked himself dreamily.
Where’s
Rock…?

Ahead of him where the wagon had gone off the trail, he heard the sounds of Grolin, Spiller and Penta
gathering gold ingots on the rocky hillside. Broken crates and pieces of busted wagon frame lay everywhere. At the edge of the trail above them, Bobby Kane leaned back against a rock, still looking dazed and half conscious from the hard backhanded slap the Giant had planted on the side of his head.

Steadying himself with both hands against the rock, the Giant collected his addled senses and staggered from rock to rock along the edge of the trail, back in the direction of the depot—the same direction Casings had ridden off in. Fifteen yards down the trail, he looked up and came to a sudden startled halt, seeing Lambert Kane hanging impaled on a thick branch of the tall pine.

The stub of the broken tree limb stuck from Lambert’s chest covered with black blood and ripped pieces of the outlaw’s heart. Lambert wore a wide-eyed look of shock on his pale blue face. His bloody mouth formed a large O.

“Sorry, Lamb…,” the Giant murmured to Kane’s grisly corpse.

Summoning his waned strength, the Giant staggered on along the trail until the sound of the gold gatherers fell away behind him. As silver morning light rose slowly in his wake, he half walked, half stumbled his way for another two hundred yards, until he couldn’t go on any longer. He stopped and leaned against another large rock to collect his strength.

Fresh blood had begun to trickle from his wounds. The Giant had no idea how much blood had been inside his monstrous body to begin with, but judging
from the thick pool he’d awakened in, he was certain he’d lost a large portion of it. He bowed his head, feeling spent and weak, when he heard Casings’ voice from a few feet farther along the trail.

“Giant… help me,” Casings called out in a shallow voice.

“Huh…?” The Giant snapped his head up and stared toward the sound of Casings’ voice. “Pres…? Is that you?”

“It’s me… Pres,” Casings managed to say. “Over here.”

The Giant saw Casings lying across the trail, a leg pinned beneath his dead horse.

“Dang! Hang on, Pres… I’m coming,” said the Giant, pushing himself upright. His strength began to surge as he saw Casings in need of help.

“Garth Oliver… Stillwater Giant…,” Casings murmured weakly. He managed a thin smile of relief and laid his face back on the cold, bloody ground.

“You’re… damn right it’s me,” the Giant said, stooping down, lifting the dead horse up enough to free Casings’ leg from beneath it. “You just take it easy now. Don’t worry about nothing. I’ve got… you covered, Pres,” he said. He did his best to hide his own pain and weakened condition.

Dragging Casings a few feet, he propped him up against a boulder and limped back to the dead horse, reached for a canteen and limped back with it. More fresh red blood seeped from beneath the layer of dirt and black blood covering him. He uncapped the canteen and shook the water around.

“Here… drink this,” he said, collapsing beside Casings, sticking the canteen into his blood-caked hands.

Casings sipped water and looked up at the Giant sitting beside him in the dirt. His eye went from wound to wound as he saw the fresh blood trickle freely now.

“Jesus, Giant…,” he said, already sounding better. “You’re shot all to pieces.”

“This… ain’t nothing,” Giant said haltingly. “I’m not hurt… you’re the one hurt.” He looked at the bloody bullet hole in Casings’ side, and the bloody graze along the side of his head. As he spoke, he jerked the bandannas from around his neck, wadded them and pressed them against Casings’ wounded side. Then he placed Casings’ hand on top. “Hold this here,” he said.

Casings looked down at the bandannas and chuffed with a weak smile.

“Whoever heard of… a head so big… it takes two of these to go around it?”

The Giant grinned in spite of his wounds.

“Just me… the Stillwater Giant,” he said. “Nobody else.”

Casings handed the canteen back to him and collapsed back against the rock.

“Now… I’m going to go to sleep… for a while,” he said dreamily.

“No, you’re not!” the Giant growled. “I’m not… letting you die on me!” He reached a huge hand over and shook Casings roughly. “Wake the hell up! I’m taking you back to the depot.”

“Why, Giant?” Casings asked. “There’s… nothing back that way but the law by now,” Casings said. “Let me sleep.”

The Giant shook him again, roughly.

“I said… stay awake!” he growled, keeping his deep voice down in case Grolin and the others might hear him.

He struggled to his feet, stooped down and scooped Casings up in his huge arms like a rag doll. Then he staggered in place for a moment until he found his balance.

“See?” he said. “Nothing to it.…”

“Put me down, Giant,” Casings said.

But the Giant would have none of it. He staggered off along the trail leading back to the abandoned rail depot.

“You’ll be all right… you’ll see,” he said, sounding stronger. “Rock is back there. He’ll know what to do.”

The Giant struggled along the trail, Casings cradled in his huge arms, as morning rose around them. Two miles down the trail, just as the Giant felt his strength leaving him, he spotted the team of wagon horses, the broken wagon tongue, reins and rigging still on them. The horses stared at the Giant with apprehension, as if remembering him from the night before.

“Easy, horses…,” he purred in his deep but weakened voice. “How about giving the Giant… and his pal here a ride?”

The two horses chuffed and grumbled under their breath.

On the hillside, Grolin and the others had emptied everything from their saddlebags and stuffed them full of the gold ingots. They’d also stuffed ingots into their coats, their trouser pockets, boot wells and hats. When Bobby Kane’s head had cleared enough for him to know what was going on around him, he located the big Belgium the Stillwater Giant had been riding and led it to the side of the trail.

With the help of the other three men, Bobby tied six undamaged gold crates over the big horse’s back with lengths of rope from a coil Penta carried on his saddle horn. With their hats full of gold and tucked up under their arms, the gunmen struggled under their weight and climbed up into their saddles. What gold they couldn’t carry, they had gathered and stuffed under rocks and beneath dried brush.

“I hate leaving this much gold behind,” Grolin said, taking one last look down the hillside. “As soon as we meet Swank and his men, we’ll get a wagon and return for it.”

Spiller and Penta looked at each other from their saddles.

“That posse from the train is going to be coming down this trail with blood in their eyes,” Penta said. “They didn’t just give up and go home because we stole their horses with the freight car.”

“Tough knuckles,” said Grolin, red-faced. “We’re not leaving that gold here any longer than it takes to get a wagon and haul it out.”

“I understand,” said Penta, backing off.

Bobby Kane sat weaving drunkenly in his saddle, the Giant’s Belgium on a lead rope beside him.

“That damn Rochenbach,” Grolin cursed. “He caused every bit of this, stirring everybody up—him and his damn cocky attitude. I feel like kicking myself in the ass, ever bringing him in.”

Spiller and Penta gave each other another look.

“He was damn good at opening a safe,” Penta conceded with a sigh. “Damn shame he was such a hardheaded, tricky sumbitch.”

“He wasn’t worth the damn trouble of keeping him around,” Grolin said, turning his horse toward the trail.

“What about this one?” Spiller asked, nodding toward Bobby Kane. “Is he going to be all right?”

“
Holy Joseph!
” Grolin said in disgust. He stopped turning his horse and looked at Bobby Kane, who sat wobbling in his saddle, his eyelids drooping, almost closed. The side of Bobby’s face was swollen and purple where the Giant had backhanded him the night before.

“Bobby!
Bobby
!” Grolin shouted, trying to catch the gunman’s drifting attention. “Are you able to lead that horse, with all that gold?”

“I’m good,” Bobby said. Yet, no sooner had he said it than he toppled sidelong from his saddle and landed facedown in the dirt.

“Jesus Christ!” Grolin said to the other two. “Get him up and throw him over his saddle. Give me the horse.”

The two climbed down from their saddles and
handed Grolin the Belgium’s lead rope. As they lifted the downed gunman between them, Bobby stared all around, blinking his bleary eyes.

“I—I think the Giant jarred something loose inside my brain,” he said to Grolin.

Grolin just shook his head as the two lifted Bobby and dropped him over his saddle. At first Bobby resisted and tried to right himself. But as they finally turned to the trail, he gave in and collapsed, his arms dangling down his horse’s sides.

“We lost the whole night fooling with this mess,” Penta said as they nudged their horses on along the trail. “You think Swank and his pals will still be waiting for us?”

“I think they will if they want this gold,” Grolin said. “How many deals this big do you think come their way?”

“I don’t know,” Penta said, “not many, I suppose.”

“Damn right, not many,” said Grolin. Then he cursed under his breath and shook his head. “I’ve never had anything get so damned fouled up in my life.” He spit sourly and stuck a cigar into his mouth. “Lousy Rochenbach bastard!” he grumbled to himself.

The soldiers and their prisoner rode hard throughout the night, following the wagon tracks. Rochenbach, the sergeant and the captain rode abreast. The corporal and the three troopers rode behind them. At dawn, when they rounded a turn in the high trail, the three jerked their horses to a halt so quickly that the soldiers following had to jerk their animal sideways to keep from plowing into them.

“Good God in heaven! What
is this
?” shouted Goodrich at the sight of the wagon horses plodding toward them.

The bloody Stillwater Giant stood between the two horses on the broken tongue and front wagon boards, his huge head bowed onto his chest. His enormous size dwarfed the otherwise large wagon horses. He held one large arm looped over each horse’s back. Pres Casings hung limp and bloody over his right shoulder.

The sergeant snatched a Colt from behind his riding duster and cocked it toward the unconscious Giant.

“Don’t shoot, Sergeant,” Rock said. “That’s Garth Oliver.”

The sergeant held his fire, but he looked to the captain for direction.

“Sir…?” he asked the captain.

“Do hold your fire, Sergeant,” Captain Boone said without taking his eyes off the approaching wagon horses and their bloody cargo. “You know these two, Mr. Smith?”

“Yes, sir,” Rochenbach said. “Captain, may I go see about them? You have my word I won’t make a run for it.”

“We’ll all go
see about them
,” the captain said. He looked at Rochenbach. “You have
my word
we’ll shoot you in the back if you try.”

Rock and the sergeant dropped from their saddles and walked forward. The corporal and the other troopers followed close behind them. The Giant didn’t even raise his head. The two horses tried to continue right
past Rochenbach and Goodrich, but Rock grabbed one of the horses by its bridle. Goodrich grabbed the other in the same manner.

The Giant lifted his bowed head a little as the horses halted in the trail.

“Is that you, Rock?” he asked weakly.

“It’s me, Garth,” he said, not wanting to use the Giant’s familiar name, lest the soldiers were aware the Stillwater Giant was a wanted man in Texas.

The Giant looked around at the soldiers, then back at Rochenbach, who hoped the big man had gotten the message.

“Pres… needs water,” the Giant said, his head drooping slowly back down on his chest.

“Can we get some water?” Rochenbach asked, stepping in and pulling Casings’ bloody body down from the Giant’s shoulder. Casings groaned.

Rochenbach dragged him from between the horses and laid him on the ground. The soldiers stared, not knowing what to do about the Giant. Goodrich stooped down beside Casings with an uncapped canteen.

Captain Boone sat atop his horse and watched Rock lead the Giant from between the horses and sit him down in the dirt beside Casings.

“Did I hear him call you
Rock
?”

“Yes, you did,” said Rochenbach. “It’s a name some folks call me.”

“I see,” said the captain. He looked at the two bloody men on the ground. “And these fellows, are they part of your band of thieves?” He looked at the massive Giant sitting slumped on the ground. “I
think I now understand how you were able to pull the coupling pin on a moving train.” Even sitting, the Giant was nearly as tall and twice as broad as one of the soldiers standing beside him.

“These two are a couple of businessmen from Denver City, for all I know,” Rock said, ignoring the captain’s speculation. “My guess is they stumbled onto the thieves, and this is what happened to them.”

The Giant raised his bloody head slightly and turned it enough to give Rochenbach a look. Then he lowered it again.

“Of course, I see,” the captain said with a touch of sarcasm. To the sergeant he said, “Get these wounded men watered and take them to the side of the trail. We’ll stop here long enough to rest our horses and dress their wounds.”