The Copper City (7 page)

Dobey swallowed and walked around the horses to get a good view of the body farther along the canyon.

Upton crossed to where Jeffers lay in the dust. His eyes were still closed, but his chest moved under the strain of his sawing breath. A red stain was spreading slowly through the thin cotton of his work shirt.

“Jeffers? You hear me?”

Jeffers groaned. It was neither an admission nor a denial. His eyelids fluttered once. Upton asked him again. Nothing.

“No matter, boy.” He leaned forward and placed the barrel of his Winchester against Jeffers' forehead. “Last time you go any place.”

Then he pulled the trigger.

He eyed his handiwork, then set out for where Webster lay. As he passed Dobey he made a flat-handed gesture with his left hand. “Stay here.”

Webster lay on his back, head awry. His neck was obviously broken. But his eyes were open and they flickered to Upton as he came to stand over him.

“Still with us, eh?” Upton leered. “Can you speak, you son of a bitch?”

Webster's mouth moved but nothing came out. He tried again, with the same result.

Upton chuckled. “Suits you.” His eyes hardened and his lips tightened to a thin line. “Nobody runs out on me, boy, and don't you forget it. You wanted to split away and take some of the silver, eh?”

Webster stared upwards, paralyzed. But he could understand what was being said to him. He watched Upton leering down at him, then felt something hard and steely being jammed into his mouth. It broke off three of his front teeth, his tongue suddenly sticky with blood. Strangely detached, he realized what it was. It was the barrel of Upton's rifle. His mouth was full of it. He began to choke. Absurdly, he wondered why his broken teeth didn't hurt, or why he couldn't feel any part of his body. As his thoughts swirled aimlessly, Upton's harsh voice broke into his mind, pulling him back towards reality. Even the mouthful of barrel didn't seem to bother him any more.

“You bastard, Webster. You cowardly bastard. Nobody, but
nobody
takes my money away from me.”

When Upton pulled the trigger Webster didn't even hear the gunshot.

His head just disintegrated.

***

“What's bothering him?”

Quantro leaned forward to pat the buckskin's neck. “He's picked up the scent of water.” He settled back and gave the horse its head. Immediately, it turned off the trail into the mouth of a canyon, hooves chipping on the rocky ground. “Must be a spring down here. If it's a good place we'll make camp. I've lost the trail. Come daylight I'll have to start casting where the ground softens out.”

Quantro sniffed for smoke and strained his eyes in the growing gloom for a glimpse of firelight. It wouldn't do to ride blind into Upton's camp, uninvited as they were. The buckskin snickered and stretched its neck as it walked. They were getting close. Quantro hauled back and the horse stopped reluctantly.

“Wait here, Pete. I'm going to take a look-see.” He slipped out of the saddle to stand by the buckskin's head. He patted the animal's neck reassuringly, then faded into the night.

Stealthily, he crept towards the pool of water that glistened faintly in the moonlight. There were fresh tracks at the water's edge but no sign of any life there now. He stopped and passed his fingertips over some of the hoof prints. Many of them were too deep to have been made by any other horses than those carrying bullion. So they had been here and were gone, running in the night.

“They've been here.”

Pete jumped at the voice that came at him out of the dark. He hadn't heard Quantro coming back down the canyon. “I hear you.”

“Come on down. We'll make camp.”

“Sure.”

After watering the horses they unsaddled and spread their blankets on the ground. It was too dark to go hunting fuel for boiling coffee, so Quantro dug into a saddlebag and came up with some jerky.

“Pete? You want to eat? Got some jerky here.”

“I got something better,” Pete's voice called softly out of the darkness beyond the horses. When he came within the range of Quantro's night vision he was carrying an armload of brush.

“What's that?”

Pete's teeth gleamed in the dark. “Creosote.”

“What the hell do you want that for? Won't be enough of it to make a near decent fire.”

“Enough for what we need. I'm going to do some cooking on it.”

“On creosote brush? You're foolin'.”

Pete's smile faded. “You shut up, boy, you might learn something.” He stopped and began to break up the twigs. “The Spanish word for this stuff is
hediondilla,
which means ‘little stinker'. It does too. But when you've tasted beans cooked on creosote you won't want them cooked any other way.” He glanced at Quantro's skeptical expression and smiled. “You'll see. It's good stuff. Some of the Indians use it to help rheumatism, too. I'm not sure how, but that's what I've heard.”

After the first tentative mouthful of hot beans under Pete's amused glance, Quantro had to admit Pete was right. He chewed slowly, then without a word wolfed down the whole plateful.

“Any more?”

Pete sniffed and said dryly, “Creosote brush. You must be foolin'. Can't cook on that,” in the tone of voice Quantro had used.

“Okay, old-timer, you convinced me. I don't get bellyache in the morning I'll believe you.”

“More chow'll cost you a smoke.”

Quantro tossed over his tobacco sack. “You got it, now pass those beans.”

Pete caught the tobacco and put it behind his back, then leaned over the remnants of the fire to look into the kettle. When he looked up he smiled sweetly.

“Ain't that a shame. There ain't none left.”

***

Quantro woke and peered out from beneath the huddle of his blanket into the coming morning. There were still a few minutes before sun-up, the sky lightening in the east over the rim of the canyon, slowly herding the stars into purgatory for another day.

He spared a quick thought for White-Wing, warm and snug in their cot back in the little house in Cananea, and cursed himself for having to spend a cold night on hard ground, chasing a murderer and thief who had stolen money it wasn't his duty to get back. He scowled. He was here and he was doing it and it was cold, so what was the use of bellyaching about it? Not wanting to brood, he came up out of his blanket and started to work the stiffness out of his muscles.

He shivered, the pre-dawn chill still crawling up his back as he went to the pool. The water had cleared again after the horses churned it up last night. He splashed a double handful into his face only to flinch from the iciness of it. He used his bandana as a towel, then looked around for the buckskin.

The two horses had wandered along the canyon out of sight of the camp, in search of forage. He decided he'd better find out how far they had strayed. He didn't want to be chasing them after sun-up, he wanted to be out on the trail. The closer he kept to Upton, the better chance he had of catching him.

He left the pool and started off, walking between the high walls in the opposite direction to the entrance. Around a bed and there was the buckskin and Pete's pony both cropping at a clump of bleached grass. He clucked and the stallion lifted its head. Still chewing, it ambled toward him. He stretched out to rub its neck as the horse nuzzled into his shoulder. Absently, his eyes wandered around the canyon walls, the rock features becoming more distinct with each second closer to the day.

Pete's pony started forward, then circled widely around a huge boulder that stood at the base of the rock wall, as if something it was afraid of lurked there. Probably a rattlesnake. Quantro's hand dipped and came up holding his Colt. He pushed the stallion away and went over to take a look.

He didn't like what he found.

“Pete! Pete! Get on over here!”

CHAPTER 7

Pete shucked out of his blanket, eyes wide. He was on his feet with his rifle in his hands before he realized he wasn't still dreaming. Automatically, he had fallen into a straddle-legged crouch, ready to fight.

“Quantro?” he called softly, looking around.

“Over here. Come and look at this.”

Relaxing, Pete set off toward the bend from where Quantro's voice seemed to be coming. Dawn was upon them now, a rosy glow haloing the canyon. The first rush of adrenaline petered out and Pete's emotions leveled off as he came within sight of the horses. Spying Quantro by the big boulder, he went over.

“Look at this.”

Pete's eyes roamed over the two bloody bodies, one piled on top of the other in the shadow of the rock.

“Upton's men?”

“Could be.”

“Bickering among themselves now.”

“Looks like Upton won. You know them?”

Pete scowled at the sight of Jeffers's shattered skull, then switched his attention to Webster. He shook his head. “Don't reckon so. Wouldn't know 'em if I found 'em dead in a canyon.” He turned his head and spat. “If they are Upton's men, this is the best place for 'em. I won't lose any sleep.”

“Me neither,” Quantro agreed, “but if that bank manager back in Santa Cruz was right, now we know there's only two of them left. Upton and Dobey. What d'you reckon on Dobey?”

Pete took a last look at the bodies, then turned to walk away, motioning Quantro to join him. “Dobey seemed okay. Not the sort to have a hand in anything like this. Clean country boy type, y'know?” He scowled. “Nowadays you can't tell. Put a gun in a kid's hand and let him grow a moustache, an' show him a pile of money and all of a sudden he's a big desperado. You never can tell. After all, look at you.”

“I ain't got a moustache,” Quantro growled. “Besides which I can do without funnies this time of the morning, ‘specially when I've slept on cold ground. Makes me stiff.”

Pete's eyebrows went up. “What about me? Way I remember it, I'm the old one in this partnership.”

“You know what they say, the old ones always know how to make the best campfire coffee. They've had more practice.”

Pete snorted. “Good thing, too. Couldn't drink the swill you dish up, no how.”

Quantro slapped his back. “You get the fire going while I hunt up some sign.” Before Pete could answer, Quantro walked away, clucking his tongue for the buckskin to come. With quick, economical movements, he saddled and bridled the stallion. When it puffed out its chest, he smiled to himself, then elbowed it sharply in the ribs. As it deflated, he pulled the saddle cinch two notches tighter.

***

The skillet was sizzling over the tiny fire when Quantro rode back into the canyon. Since he had been tracking he had taken to wearing his
kabuns
, knee-high Apache style moccasins, mainly for comfort. Now he slid noiselessly out of the saddle and padded towards Pete's back.

The older man was hunched over the skillet, turning the slabs of spitting bacon. He turned fractionally sideways and spat.

“Won't catch me out like that, boy. Heard you coming from a long ways. Without the head I had yesterday from that pole-ax mixture Upton dropped us, my faculties are workin' just fine.”

Quantro didn't answer, just hauled up to the fire sniffing the bacon. “I found 'em.”

Pete was straight-faced. “Figured you had.”

“How come?”

“Like you said yourself, you got a good nose for bad men.”

Quantro snorted. “Oh, yeah?”

“'Sides, if you hadn't found 'em you wouldn't be back by now.”

“You want the news or don't you?”

“Go ahead, soon's you pass your plate over here 'less you want to chew on hot fat with your fingers.”

Quantro handed him the plate. “I headed straight north. Picked them up right away soon as the hard ground faded out 'bout a mile away.”

“Figured you would.”

Quantro ignored him. “Tracks were interesting.”

“Uh?”

“They turned back around and headed back here. They're here now, watching us.”

Pete's expression never altered. “Yep. I know.”

Knowing Upton was at that very moment probably sighting his rifle down on them, Quantro kept his anger down to a harsh whisper, delivered from the side of his mouth. “What d'you mean, you
know
?”

“Figured it out last night when we got here,” Pete replied, apparently unconcerned. “When you found those bodies this mornin', that just confirmed it.”

“If you figured it out last night, why in God's name didn't you tell me?”

Pete glanced sideways. “Well, you're the big scout 'round here. That's your job, to figure out what the opposition's doing.”

“Jesus,” Quantro said to himself. He couldn't keep his gaze from slipping to the canyon rim.

“Here,” Pete said, holding out the tin plate, the bacon fried to a crisp. “I et mine before. Too hard like that for my old teeth.”

“You won't have any teeth left if you keep things like that from me,” Quantro muttered. “Anyhow, seeing you're so all fired intelligent, how come they didn't hit us last night?”

“Too dark.”

“This morning, then?”

“You went out to hunt up their sign.”

“So?”

“They want us together. Makes things a lot less messy.”

“But I'm here now.”

“Yep.”

Quantro stuck his fork into the first piece of bacon. With it halfway to his open mouth he stopped. He frowned, eyes going to Pete's face, then down to Pete's hand as it crawled casually toward the rifle on the ground beside him. Their eyes met.

“You got it,” Pete said under his breath.

“Oh, Christ,” Quantro muttered as a rifle barked and the tin plate was snatched from his hand by the bullet. The freshly cooked bacon was tipped on to the sandy floor of canyon before his horrified eyes.

He leapt sideways, grabbing his own Winchester from his knees. He came up running, dodging bullets. He slipped, cursing, skidding to the safety of a boulder by the pool.

He suddenly remembered the fork. The bacon was miraculously still on it. At least he hadn't lost all his breakfast. A bullet chipped a sliver of rock from the boulder above his head as he put the fork to his mouth. The bacon was hot. It burned his tongue. Wincing as he cautiously chewed, he worked the Winchester's action.

“Pete? You see where he's shooting from?”

Pete loosed off a shot toward the top of the canyon. “See them two rocks, one shaped like a bear's head? There's one of them behind there. Saw me a flash of light up there a while back.”

“Okay, I've got him.”

“Hey, Quantro?” Pete called again, sighting down his rifle barrel.

“What?”

“Didn't your ma never teach you not to speak with your mouth full?”

The reply was drowned by gunshot.

***

“Damn,” Upton cursed, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist. It wasn't yet hot, but the waiting had made him nervous. It wouldn't have been so bad if Jeffers and Webster were still with him. He didn't want any mistakes. He wanted Quantro dead and out of it. He knew nothing of Dobey's capabilities, supposing of course that he had any. Yesterday he had just stood by stupidly during the gunfight with Jeffers and Webster.

Upton knew all too well Quantro's skills. Apart from the story of his hunting down four killers, there was also the incident in Cananea when he had gunned down the two drifters who had tried to rape the Mexican woman. He had heard the sheriff comment on Quantro's speedy and accurate shooting. In fact the lawman had been so impressed he had gone through all the wanted flyers to see if there was a price on Quantro's head. There hadn't been, but that didn't mean he wasn't wanted in the territories over on the American side of the border.

Riding away from the canyon last night, Upton had given some thought to what Jeffers had said before he died. About the border not stopping Quantro. It was true. When Upton had envisaged the robbery, the whole of the planning had been based on the assumption that if they were chased, it would be by the Mexican authorities, the red-shirted
Federales
. The nearness of the border had been an attraction. A short, hard ride and they would be safe.

Quantro had spoiled all that. Riding towards the border, Upton had suddenly had the chilling thought that Quantro would keep on following, no matter what, and that the rest of his life would be spent looking over his shoulder, waiting for the moment when Quantro would emerge out of the past. Listening to the doleful plodding of the packhorses behind him, Upton had come to the conclusion there was only one solution to the problem. Meet it head on. Let Quantro catch him and get it over with now.

Better still, meet Quantro on his own, Upton's terms.

That's why he was here now, sweating with fear as he peered down into the canyon. By the time they had doubled back on their tracks and reached the canyon it had been well after nightfall. They had made a halt on the top rather than brazen directly into the camp. Upton had scouted the rim, spying only the tiny pinpoint of light that was embers of what could only have been a very small cooking-fire, close to the pool.

From that distance he had been unable to distinguish between the sleeping men and the impenetrable inky shadows that filled the bottoms. He had climbed down to slowly penetrate the canyon, a vague hope of killing Quantro and his partner while they slept. The two horses, foraging loosely, had heard him in the darkness, their wandering hooves suddenly still. There had been the beginnings of a snicker in the stallion's throat. If the animals woke Quantro, then the fight would have been on his terms, and Upton would have lost his edge. And Quantro wasn't a man he wanted to second guess in the dark.

He needed all the edge he could get.

Retracing his steps back up to the rim he had figured the best chance he had was to wait for sun-up, then catch them by surprise. The last thing Quantro would expect was that he, Upton, had come back to face him and have it out. Of course, it would not be as simple as that. Quantro would not see him. A well-placed shot out of nowhere and Upton's problems would be over. All except getting rid of Dobey, that was. But that could be taken care of later.

They had made dry camp, well back from the rim. Upton took the first watch. Nothing had moved out in the desert and he'd had to keep moving every few minutes to keep out the cold. With no fire there wasn't even coffee to help him stay awake. Shortly after midnight he had woken Dobey with instructions to wake him a couple of hours before sun-up so he could take his own turn in the blankets.

He had woken just as dawn was breaking. Dobey's back was to him, sitting on a rock, hunched into his coat, rifle across his knees.

“What's happened?”

Dobey had blinked slowly once and shrugged, reluctant to admit he had fallen asleep. Upton had suppressed his anger and gone to scout the canyon rim. He cursed to himself, lying against the rock. He had planned on catching Quantro and Wiltshire before they had chance to move. The odds were they would want to be out on the trail by dawn, chasing hard, like a pair of blue tick hounds.

He had been half right. As he lay on the rim he could see Quantro was already gone. Wiltshire was collecting brushwood to build a fire. Upton jacked a round into his rifle's chamber before sighting down on the man below for a few seconds. He decided against it. If Quantro was in earshot, which was quite likely as gunfire would carry a long way on the still morning air, then he would come back alert, hunting and ready to kill. No, it was better if he caught them together. Two well-aimed shots and he would be in the clear.

It hadn't taken long for Quantro to return. Upton had watched him ride in and approach the fire. He had made a sign to Dobey to get ready. He would give the two men below time to settle down. A couple of minutes then it would begin.

The nerves had started coiling up then. He had watched Wiltshire hand Quantro the plate. He had settled his rifle-butt into his shoulder. Nice and easy. Allow for windage and drop. A downhill shot. Not ideal conditions, but then a man couldn't have everything. Nice and…

Dobey's rifle barked. Upton screamed a curse. The coil of his nerves sprang free, then he was pouring lead down into the canyon as fast as he could work the Winchester. He almost howled with frustration as Quantro skidded behind a boulder, unscathed. What was even more surprising was the older man, Wiltshire, had reached cover first.

He shot a look of disgust at Dobey, who stared right back. Stupid son of a bitch. How dumb can you get? Why hadn't he waited? He knew the plan. Why hadn't he done what he was told? A bullet ricocheted off the rock in front of Upton. He flinched as fragments battered the crown of his hat.

Damn, Quantro had him spotted already. He retreated then moved along the rim to fresh cover. He bellied down behind a wide slab of rock, leaning out to fire twice in quick succession. A bullet cracked overhead in way of reply. He veered back and caught his breath. When he leaned out again he saw a figure move below him. He fired just as something tore at his arm, like the sharp tug of a freshening breeze. He thought nothing of it. He fired then ducked back.

Dobey was shooting like he had a crate of ammunition open at his elbow. Upton shook his head. If he shot like that when he couldn't see anything, how in hell would he shoot when he
could
see something? Upton edged back until he could see the boy, away to his right. He made a sign that said “take it easy,” thinking as he did that his right arm felt a little stiff.

When he looked at it, his shirt was torn and blood was running in a stream below his elbow. It didn't hurt. It just felt uncomfortable. Just a nick. He peeled back the torn sleeve. His arm was bleeding freely, teeming down his upper arm. He found the sight remarkably ugly. Other people's blood and gore he didn't mind, especially if he had been the cause of their discomfort, but his own was a different matter. That made things personal.