West of Tombstone (11 page)

Cameron's idea was a simple one, to crack Slyke's skull with the revolver, drag him into the storeroom and bind him. Like many other things that seem simple in their conception, this proved to be anything but in its execution.

Just as Slyke stepped past the door of Cameron's hiding place, Black stepped out, trying to bash the outlaw on the head with the barrel of the old Colt. Slyke saw the movement and instinctively ducked and turned away. The pistol barrel glanced off Slyke's head, doing little damage. Slyke hollered out furiously and they could only hope that the racket in the cantina muffled his voice enough so that no one could hear and rush to his aid.

Cameron tried again to club down Slyke, but the bald-headed man's hands found his throat and clamped down like two vises. Cameron failed to break the hold of the frenzied outlaw. He lifted one foot and slammed the heel of his boot into Slyke's leg, behind the knee joint. Slyke grunted, lost his balance and fell over on top of Cameron in the rank little room. The pistol went clattering free and lost itself in the shadows.

Instead of covering her mouth in horror or shrinking away, Carmalita hurled herself onto Slyke's back and began pummeling his head and back with her small fists. Slyke tried to brush her away with one hand, but to do so he had to give up his grip on Cameron's throat. In a blind panic, Cameron drove his right fist into Slyke's face, catching him just below the ear. It may have stunned him slightly, but the outlaw gave no sign of it.

‘His gun!' Cameron shouted, and Carmalita dove on Slyke's back again, pawing at his holstered Colt Army. Slyke clamped her hand with his as she tried to draw the weapon from its holster and that freed Cameron's other hand. He drove his left fist into Slyke's eye twice as Slyke cursed at him, sprayed spittle and writhed like a captured wildcat. Cameron tried to drive his knee up into Slyke's body, but the bald man had him pinned to the floor.

Carmalita had the outlaw's gun now and she began to use the butt of it as a weapon. All of her blows were delivered glancingly as Slyke rolled from side to side with wild anger. To defend himself from the onslaught Slyke had to change his position and Cameron was able to wriggle free from his weight, striking Slyke twice more, once on the cheek, splitting it to the bone, once on the throat which caused Slyke to roar a strangled curse.

Inches away, Cameron now saw the ancient Walker revolver and he struggled toward it as Carmalita, her eyes wide, her hair in wild disarray, beat on Slyke. Cameron's fingers stretched to the Walker and he brought it around fiercely. The blow landed just as Carmalita's last strike with Slyke's own gun cracked off the outlaw's skull.

It was enough. The wildly resisting Slyke went limp, his body across Cameron's legs, his hand still resting on Black's throat. More quickly than he would have thought possible, Cameron scooted away from Slyke's weight and sat panting on the floor, holding his own head.

He was breathing raggedly. There was blood leaking from his nose. Carmalita had begun to tremble.

‘I don't think we are so very good at this yet,' she said shakily. ‘Do we tie him up now?'

‘We tie him quickly, efficiently, thoroughly,' Cameron said, rising to his feet. He looked down at the motionless Slyke. ‘He didn't look that strong, did he?'

‘I don't like fighting after this,' Carmalita said. Her voice had become more inflected, more Spanish. She was obviously shaken.

‘I don't either,' Cameron said, grabbing the spool of twine they would use to tie Slyke. ‘Unfortunately, we've only begun.'

Willie, thankfully, was less trouble. The badman was nearly blind drunk when Carmalita, after pinning her hair up, again returned to the cantina to lure the redhead with his savaged face after her toward the stairs. Her walk was careless and inviting, but Cameron could see the tension behind it. Willie bounced off the walls of the narrow corridor as he followed. It may have been that his drunkenness was what made it easier, but it took no time at all to strike him down.

Cameron had always thought of himself as a merciful man, but there was no mercy in him just then. Perhaps it was fear that impelled him – he knew that he didn't want to go through another fight like the one he had just had with Slyke. When Willie passed half a step beyond the door to the storeroom, Cameron slipped behind him and drove the muzzle of the Walker Colt behind the outlaw's ear with every ounce of strength he possessed. Willie slumped soundlessly to the floor and with a glance toward the cantina, Carmalita helped Cam drag the gunman into the room. Both outlaws were left tied, gagged, unconscious, behind the beer barrels scattered around the room.

When they had finished, Cameron stepped back, aching from every joint, feeling his bruises now. Perspiration streamed into his eyes and down his chest. Carmalita stood silently, seeming stunned by what they had accomplished. Then with a toss of her head, she said brightly, ‘Good. We have done that. Now these men cannot interfere.

‘It is time we get to our real work.'

The real work. Yes, rescuing Emily who probably did not wish to be rescued from the grasp of Stony Harte, the gunman who could pick out a snake's eye with a careless shot from his pistol. Cameron had fully committed himself to the project, but whether it was cowardice or simple wisdom, he wished he could just ride out, flee onto the open desert and take no part in trying to best Stony Harte. In the near darkness of the storeroom, Carmalita's huge Spanish eyes still studied his with misplaced confidence and hope, and he found himself saying simply, ‘We'd better have our try now, while it's still full dark.'

The ranchita which was both Emily and Carmalita's childhood home was dark against the darker earth. A cluster of live oaks stood huddled together on one side, a lonely sycamore stood before the small, boxlike house. To one side there was a pair of small outbuildings for farm implements and tack, Cameron guessed. At their slow approach an owl dipped from the sycamore and glided silently away, casting star shadows. The air was warm and dusty, yet above that Cameron could smell water. There must have been a small creek somewhere nearby. Otherwise there was no reason for the ranchita to have been built amidst all of this desolation.

They halted cautiously and Cameron drew Carmalita to the night shade of the dusty oak trees, whispering to her.

‘Where will they be?' he asked.

Crouching, she used a twig to draw the floor-plan of the small house. ‘One comes in the front door and that is the living-room. The kitchen is just to the left, the largest room in the house. There are only two other rooms beyond. The one on the left is my mother's, the one across the hall is where Stony Harte and Emily will be sleeping.'

‘If they are asleep,' Cameron said uncertainly. ‘Have you any idea …?'

‘About the gold?' Carmalita said, rising to dust off her hands. Her expression was one of concern. Could it be possible that the
gold
was the only reason this man was helping her?

‘Don't look at me like that,' he told her. ‘You know that I need to return the gold to buy my freedom. Otherwise, we … otherwise I will be a wanted man the rest of my life, never knowing who is pursuing me.'

‘I didn't mean to …' she said hesitantly, remembering the words he had started to speak.

‘It's all right.' Cameron rubbed his hand across his dark hair. ‘I cannot live a hunted man, Carmalita. So, yes, the gold is important to me.'

‘I have not seen it. I believe it must be hidden in their room, however, because Stony does not go out without locking the door.'

‘All right,' Cameron said grimly as he studied the small adobe house. ‘I'll just ask Stony about it. And he
will
tell me, or.…'

Or what? He could not murder Stony Harte; even if he could bring himself to do such a thing, a dead Stony Harte could tell him nothing. ‘I'll find it,' he swore under his breath, and now he took two slow breaths and nodded. ‘Let's do what we came here to do. There is no dog?'

‘Not for years,' Cannalita answered, as they began to move toward the house, weaving through the scrawny oaks. Cameron decided to circle the house slowly and unsurprisingly they found a pinto pony, saddled and ready, ground-hitched beneath an open window.

‘The man knows his craft,' Cameron Black murmured. Carmalita did not quite hear him or understand him.

They crouched together in the night. The moon was only a dull glaze through the trees. ‘What do you think?' Carmalita whispered.

‘Knock on the front door,' Cameron told her.

‘What? Is that smart?'

‘I don't know. You're going in alone,' he said.

‘You …?'

Cameron lifted his chin toward the open window which Stony meant to use for any hasty escape. ‘I'm going in this way. His attention will be on the front of the house. There's no reason to suspect you. You've just come to see your mother, to come home – use any reason you can think up. Men were annoying you at the cantina; anything, just get Stony's attention on you.'

Carmalita nodded uncertain understanding. Her hand rested briefly on his forearm. ‘This is so very dangerous, Cameron Black.'

‘Yes,' he replied. ‘Yes, it is.' Then he breathed in deeply again, rose and pulled the old revolver from his belt, checking its loads by the scant moonlight. ‘Let's do it now, Carmalita, before I lose my nerve.'

She rose beside him, hesitated, kissed his cheek with lips as light as a butterfly, and hurried away, holding up her skirts with both hands. Cameron Black waited, knowing the doors of Hades were about to swing open.

He waited, his back pressed against the wall of the house. The pinto pony, long-legged and deep in the chest as one would expect a man like Harte to ride, stared at him incuriously, working at a few yellow blades of buffalo grass it had pulled up in a clump.

Cameron heard the rapping at the front door, heard a muttered, urgent curse, heard bare feet walk toward the door, a man's steps. He could envision Stony, dressed for bed or naked, carrying a cocked revolver at his side, wary of any night visitors. Using both hands to muffle the lock-click of the hammer, Cameron slowly cocked the big Walker horse pistol.

He waited. Not
yet
. Not yet! – he didn't dare lift his eyes over the window sill until the inner door was opened and a lantern was lighted, the wick turned low. He heard Emily's voice.

‘What is it, Stony?'

‘How the hell should I know?' he growled. ‘Get to the door; see who it is.'

Now Cameron did dare to peek into the room, his heart surging in his ribcage. He saw Emily slip from the bed and throw a wrapper over her. By the door, Stony Harte, wearing only a pair of black jeans stood, his gun held beside his ear as he peered out into the hallway. Beyond, somewhere, a muffled voice weakly repeated ‘
Que es? Que es?
' so they had awakened the girls' mother as well.

Nothing could be done about that. Cameron waited as Emily slipped past Harte and went to the front door to answer Carmalita's frantic knocking, then, taking advantage of what he hoped was a moment of confusion he hoisted himself up and over the sill into Stony's room. The small sounds he made as his feet struck the floor were enough to alert the experienced criminal. Stony Harte whirled, his face a mask of angry resentment, lip pulled up tightly at one corner. But even Stony's reflexes were not sharp enough for him to turn, fire blindly and pick off a rolling man.

Cameron came to his feet, aimed his revolver and then changed his mind in an instant too quick to be measured. He lunged forward, driving his shoulder into Stony's body, slamming him against the wall as a commotion began beyond the door. There was time for an astonished Stony Harte to shout, ‘You!' and then his revolver was fired again, but Cameron's forearm had been rising in anticipation of the shot and Stony's aim was jolted upward, the bullet slamming into the plaster ceiling as the room reverberated with the savage echo of the .44-40.

Cameron drew upon a strength he did not know he had and wrenched the gun away from Stony's hand as his own right hand drove down like a pile driver against Harte's face. Amazingly, the outlaw was knocked cold, his eyes rolling back as he became oblivious to the world.

Beyond the door Emily screamed like a banshee and, yanking the door open scant inches with Stony's weight against it, Cameron saw Carmalita grabbing at her bigger sister's clothing, trying to hold her back. Both women yelled high-pitched Spanish words and Cameron saw a tiny woman, her hair streaked with white, back away, clutching her nightdress to her narrow bosom in confused fear.

Cameron banged the door shut, turned the key and bound Stony with his own belt and a bandanna Stony had stuffed into his hip pocket. Emily drove her shoulder against the door again and Cameron heard the two of them fall in a heap to the floor of the hallway. The old woman prayed pathetically, understanding none of this.

There was the sharp rap of knuckles on the door and Cameron opened it a hair. Carmalita, breathing roughly, told him, ‘I've got her down. I hated … Cameron, there is a man riding up.'

‘Who?'

‘I only caught a glimpse as he went past the window. I think it is Slyke! That bald head of his.'

‘How …?'

There was no time to solve the puzzle. Slyke had somehow broken free, it seemed. Now there were more knocks at the door, more forceful. The old woman began to sob uncontrollably.

‘Perhaps he freed Willie as well!' Carmalita said. ‘There may be others we know nothing about. You must take Stony Harte away now!'

‘Carmalita.…'

‘No! I cannot go. I must take care of my sister and my poor mother. Go, Cameron Black, while there is time!'

Cameron locked his jaw and hastily searched the room as the pounding on the door grew more insistent. Emily moaned; Stony Harte began to stir. The gold was in Stony's saddle-bags, hidden beneath the bed. Cameron levered the heavy leather bags out from under the bed and tossed them out the window. It was moments only, but it seemed like uncountable hours before he was able to lift Stony Harte unceremoniously over the sill and drop him to the ground below as well.