Dead Man's Trail (9781101606957) (22 page)

“What're you laughing at, whore?” Betajack shrieked as Yakima grabbed the man's coat collar and pulled him across the floor and back into the shadows toward the ceiling support post. “You think you're any better than me? You spent half your life spreading your legs for dimes till you found a sick old man to support you over in Sweetwater!”

Lori laughed once more at the irony, the unreality of their situation. Then suddenly, tears washed over her pale blue eyes, and her cheeks flushed. She hardened her jaw and then, jerking her wounded arm from its sling, grabbed Yakima's rifle from where he'd leaned it against the door and ran toward Betajack, loudly pumping a cartridge into the breech.

Chapter 30

“Lori!” Glendolene yelled.

“You don't know a goddamn thing about me, you old wolf!” Lori screeched, raising the rifle to her shoulder. “I loved the doc!”

Squatting behind Betajack, where he'd been tying the man's wrists together behind the man's back, Yakima looked up at the middle-aged woman wielding his rifle, and he gave an uneasy chuckle. “Hell, if you want to kill him, at least wait till we get to Belle Fourche.”

“Please!” implored Sally Rand, her body pressed taut against her husband's, staring over her shoulder at Lori O'Reilly.

Lori glowered down at Betajack. Yakima could feel the tension in the outlaw's shoulders ease when the woman depressed the Winchester's hammer with a click and raised the barrel. Betajack swallowed. No, he wasn't ready to die any more than the prosecutor was. Lori set the rifle across the table and then sagged into a bunk on the far side of the stove, in the dense shadows, where several bunk beds sat in a willy-nilly arrangement, with a couple of ladder-back chairs and what appeared to be trash and old tack littering the floor.

Mendenhour stood slowly, breathing hard, staring down at Betajack. “Your son stole those horses from Arnie Douglas,” he said with quiet defiance.

“If it makes you feel better to believe that, you go ahead. But old Douglas was lyin'. Pres was wantin' to build his own ranch with clean stock, marry a woman from down Denver way. He
earned
the money he paid for them horses, but ole Douglas was just tryin' to get in good with you against me . . . and get his horses back for nothin'.” Betajack snorted, spat to one side. “I'm gonna kill him next. And next time the judge pulls through Wolfville, I'm gonna kill him, too.”

Mendenhour stared down at him. His expression was hard to read. His brows were ridged, but his eyes were pensive, dubious. Finally, he turned, grabbed his hat off the table, opened the door, and went out quickly. Yakima glanced at Glendolene, who stood staring at the door, and then he cut off a length of the rope to tie Betajack's ankles together. Meanwhile, the Rands remained where they'd been standing, Percy Rand holding his quietly sobbing wife and patting her back while Glendolene sagged slowly down in a chair at the table.

She regarded Betajack levelly. “Are you sure?”

The old outlaw's sharp eyes turned to her. “That your husband's a murderer? Oh, yeah.”

She sighed, propped an elbow on the table, and leaned her head against the heel of her hand. Yakima grabbed his rifle off the table, shouldered it, and looked down at her. “You gonna be all right?”

She nodded as she stared down at the table. On the far side of the table was a cracked window, two faces staring in through the dirt and the frost. Yakima moved to the door and went out. Adlard and Weatherford turned from the window.

“Hell was poppin' in there for sure,” noted the jehu, his voice betraying his awe.

Weatherford shook his head slowly, raking his tangled gray bib beard across his chest. A shadow moved off to the west; it was Mendenhour walking away.

“You fellas might as well get some sleep,” Yakima said. “I'll keep watch. I think we're safe as long as we got Betajack, but I'll make sure.”

Weatherford said, “I put your horse up in the stable out back.”

“Obliged.”

Yakima stepped down off the veranda and began walking around the bunkhouse's north corner. Behind him, Adlard said, “You think it's true what Betajack said?”

Yakima stopped and glanced back at him standing there in the shadows beneath the brush roof. He could see Glendolene's silhouette still sitting at the table, her back to the window. Yakima shrugged. “Don't know,” he said. “Don't care.”

He walked off down the side of the bunkhouse to the stable.

What he'd said was true. He'd lived long enough to have acquired what he saw as a realistic view, however cynical, about the ways of men and women. Nothing surprised him anymore. No one disappointed him except himself once in a while, but he did the best that he could. He'd been sorry about cuckolding Mendenhour, but he wasn't that sorry anymore.

He just wanted to get this nasty business out of the way, deliver the gold, and head south.

The gold . . .

The stable sat hunched in some cottonwoods and willows flanking the bunkhouse. There was a corral off each side. Wolf was in the left-side corral; the stage team was in the right side. Old Weatherford was smart about horses.

Wolf nickered as Yakima approached the adobe brick, brush-roofed stable, and walked through the plank-board door that hung from one leather hinge. His gear was inside, draped over a saddletree, the saddlebags with bulging pouch hanging over the saddle. A mouse or chipmunk scratched in the darkness at the stable's rear. Yakima slung the bags off his shoulder—he'd keep them close until he'd delivered them to Delbert Clifton's family in Belle Fourche—then walked back to the front of the bunkhouse.

He stood in the darkness off the front corner, taking a long look around. Hearing nothing but the infrequent yammer of coyotes and the frequent cooing of a near owl, he sat on the edge of the porch, resting the saddlebags on the rotten floor to his left and laying the Yellowboy across his lap. He sat there for a time, trying to clear his mind, staring up at the stars.

The door scraped open. He turned to see Glendolene move out of the bunkhouse. She closed the door, took a step to the side, and leaned against the bunkhouse's front wall, between the door and the window. She wore her long fur coat but no hat or gloves. She crossed her arms on her chest. Yakima studied her.

She stared off into the night without saying anything, probably just needing some air. He tapped his index finger on the Winchester's breech. Footsteps sounded ahead, and he raised the rifle but eased its butt down on his thigh when he recognized the prosecutor's hatted silhouette.

The man walked straight toward the bunkhouse, smoking a cigar. His long coat was unbuttoned and flapping open. When he lifted the cigar to his mouth, the coal glowed in the darkness.

He stopped ten feet in front of the bunkhouse, looked at Glendolene and then at Yakima. He gave a wry chuckle.

“Together again,” he said, giving an icy smile. “Isn't that nice?”

Neither Yakima nor Glendolene said anything. Mendenhour mounted the porch steps, paused in front of the door, staring down at his wife, who did not return his gaze, and then walked inside the bunkhouse and closed the door.

Yakima drew a long breath, released it slowly, staring up at the stars. The only sounds were the coyotes and the owl, the very faint rustle of a breeze causing snow to sift down over the edge of the porch roof. It glittered faintly in the starlight.

“You know who I am and where I come from,” the woman said at last, pushing off the bunkhouse wall and walking over to the edge of the porch. “I think it's only fair you return the favor.”

“I don't see the point.”

“What's in those saddlebags you're so attached to?” She sat down at the edge of the porch, about five feet to his left, and leaned forward to glance at the bags on his right. “Is it really gold?”

“Yep.”

“I wish you'd told me you had a grubstake. Maybe I would have run off with you.” Glendolene pitched her voice with dry, self-deprecating humor.

“I didn't have it then. Just got it the other day, though, good Christ, it seems like months ago now.”

“Why Belle Fourche?”

“The man it belonged to died saving my hide. And my partner's hide. I'm taking it back to his family.”

She said nothing. He could feel her eyes on him, studying him. Finally, she gave a pensive chuff and lifted her eyes to stare at the stars.

“Yakima?”

He turned to her. She was staring at him again, her eyes edged with silver. Her lips were parted, as though she were on the verge of saying something. Then she closed her mouth, lifted its corners with a wry smile though her eyes remained thoughtful, faraway. “Heck of a Christmas present.”

She rose and turned to the door before stopping and looking back at him. “It's Christmas Eve, I think,” she said as though it had just dawned on her.

Yakima wondered if she was right. He'd lost track of the days himself. Nevertheless, he smiled. “Merry Christmas, Glendolene.”

“Merry Christmas, Yakima.”

She went inside.

* * *

Yakima jerked his head up from the table in the bunkhouse. He'd heard something. Now he looked around the room touched with a misty gray light, saw several figures curled in blankets in front of the fire.

He saw Betajack on the floor, with his head against the ceiling post to which he'd been tied, his chin dipped to his chest. He couldn't see the others, but he heard Adlard and Weatherford snoring in bunks they'd bedded down in toward the shack's other end.

Yakima blinked, turned to the window touched with the gray light, saw the lightening sky straight above the clearing through which a dark blue tongue-shaped cloud stretched from east to west. Jesus, he'd fallen asleep around one or two, had only wanted to doze . . .

Shadows moved in the shadowy clearing, beyond the frosted pane.

Yakima leaped to his feet, grabbed his Winchester off the table. Hearing the others stirring, he went to the door, opened it, and stepped out, closing the door and holding the rifle up high across his chest, peering into the clearing before him. The riders sat abreast in a long, semicircular line a hundred yards straight out from the cabin.

Breath steamed around the riders' heads and the heads of their horses. A couple of the mounts tossed their bits or stomped. The riders sat stiffly, all wielding rifles and staring toward the cabin.

It was too dark for Yakima to tell who yelled, “That you, breed?”

“Yeah.”

“We're missin' one of our group.”

“We got him here. Safe an' sound.” Yakima walked forward and stopped at the top of the porch's three steps. “If you boys stay clear, we'll turn him loose in Belle Fourche, an' you can all go an' celebrate Christmas together. Give thanks you're still alive.”

Yakima saw the top hat in the middle of the group. That would be Hendricks. The hat moved, and the man gave a rueful laugh. “How in the hell . . . ?” He laughed again, booted his horse slowly forward.

When he'd cut the distance between him and the bunkhouse to half, Yakima leveled his Winchester barrel from his hip and said, “That's far enough.”

He could see the rose-colored glasses now and the long horsehide coat. He held a Henry rifle straight up from his right thigh.

“I'm gonna need proof he's still kickin',” Hendricks said. “And I'm gonna need to hear it from him. Hear it from him what he wants to do about the situation.”

“I can do that.” Yakima smiled stiffly. “You boys sit tight. There's a gun trained on the old man inside. One shot, one wrong move, and he's gonna have a new ear hole.”

Hendricks chuckled softly, menacingly.

Yakima turned and went into the bunkhouse. The others were up and gathered in front of the door, looking nervous. Yakima set his rifle on the table and sidled through the group toward where Betajack remained on the floor, tied to the ceiling support post.

“He hasn't stirred,” said Mrs. O'Reilly.

The old outlaw sat with his head hanging nearly to his chest. A thin lock of coarse gray hair hung over his forehead. Yakima kicked his boot.

No movement.

Yakima dropped to a knee beside the man and pushed his shoulder back, causing his head to come up slightly. “Betajack.”

The man's eyes remained closed. Yakima lifted his chin, pushing his head back against the post. The man's face was pale blue and drawn, lips stretched back from his teeth in a silent snarl.

“Oh, my God,” said Glendolene, standing behind Yakima.

“What is it?” asked Sally Rand.

Yakima released the outlaw's head. It sagged to his chest. Yakima rose, staring fatefully down at the man. “He's dead.”

“Heart stroke,” Lori said, sucking a breath.

Sally Rand sobbed. “What's to become of us now?”

Chapter 31

Yakima walked to the window over the table and looked out.

Claw Hendricks sat near the cabin, waiting, rifle jutting from his thigh. The others waited behind him. One was casually smoking a cigarette, the smoke and the vapor from his breath forming a large cloud around his black bullet-crowned hat. The sky was steadily lightening.

Yakima rubbed his jaw and turned to the others staring at him expectantly. “Well, I reckon what's gonna happen now is you're all going to become fighters. Fierce ones.”

He glanced at Charlie Adlard standing on the other side of the table from him, looking warily out. “How many guns we got?”

“Two rifles,” said Elijah Weatherford, smoking his ubiquitous, loosely rolled quirley. He had one of the rifles in his hand. He opened his coat to show the worn walnut butts of two old-model Colts protruding from the waistband of his patched duck trousers. “And I got two of these purty old ladies.” He smiled around the smoldering quirley.

“We got them five pistols you took off them two wolves you jumped couple nights back,” said Adlard, glancing around the room. “So everyone should be armed.”

He looked meaningfully at Mendenhour, who stood a ways off by himself, nearest the dead Betajack. He flared his nostrils slightly and said, “I have my own Colt .45 and rifle, thanks. And I'm right handy with both.”

Lori O'Reilly retrieved a Winchester from where it rested across the wood box near the stove. She swung around and racked a round in the chamber. “And I have this.”

“I can shoot, too,” said Glendolene. “I just need a pistol.”

“You sure?” her husband asked her.

She turned to him but said nothing.

“Percy has a gun, too,” said Sally Rand. “And he taught me how to shoot rattlesnakes back at the ranch.”

She stared at Yakima, and he was surprised by the hard confidence that shone in her pale blue eyes. Turning to the jehu, she stuck out her hand. “I'll take one of those pistols, Mr. Adlard.”

Percy Rand placed a hand on his wife's shoulder. “Sally, you're . . . why, you're in the family way, and these aren't rattlesnakes.”

“That's right,” Sally said, accepting a big pistol from Adlard, hefting it in both her hands. “I got our child to protect. And they are rattlesnakes, Percy. The human kind!”

Weatherford chuckled. They all looked nervous but capable, ready.

“So, what's next?” Mendenhour asked Yakima.

Yakima looked around at each of them. “Choose a window. Prepare to knock the glass out and start shooting. You'll know when.” He gave a wry look. “Just wait till I'm out of the way.”

“What're you going to do?” Glendolene asked him.

“I'm gonna deliver Hendricks's partner to him.” Yakima walked over and cut Betajack free of the post. He returned his bowie knife to the well of his right moccasin and then stood and drew the big dead outlaw leader over his shoulder. Turning to the door, he glanced at Adlard. “Follow me out with my Yellowboy. Be ready to throw it fast.”

“Ah, hell—this is it, ain't it?” the jehu said, grabbing Yakima's Winchester off the table, taking his own rifle in his other hand.

“I reckon it is.”

“Why you gonna take Betajack out there?” Mendenhour wanted to know.

Yakima turned from the door, the big outlaw hanging off his shoulder and down his back. “There's a chance, probably a slight one, that they won't fight so hard when they realize they got nothin' to fight for now—this bein' Betajack's shindig an' all.”

He nodded at Adlard, who opened the door for him. On his way out, Yakima said, “And, hell, maybe they'll wanna say a few words over him.”

Yakima stepped around Adlard. He inadvertently banged Betajack's head on the doorframe as he went out. It made a dull thud. As Adlard came out behind him, drawing the door closed, Yakima walked down off the porch steps and into the yard. Hendricks glowered at him curiously as he approached and then stopped and dropped his cargo on the ground before Hendricks's cream stallion.

The horse pitched slightly, nickering. Yakima had hoped it would.

“Turns out he expired on me last night,” Yakima said matter-of-factly. “I do apologize. Old ticker couldn't take all this, I reckon.”

“Christ, you son of a bitch!” Hendricks shouted, staring down at Betajack as though he'd never seen a dead man before, and fumbling to get his rifle aimed.

Yakima turned to Adlard, who tossed him the Yellowboy. Yakima swung back toward Hendricks, pumping a fresh round into the chamber, and aimed at Hendricks's bespectacled face just as the horse curveted on its rear hooves.

Yakima's Winchester thundered, shattering the still morning silence. His bullet merely clipped the narrow brim of Hendricks's opera hat, flipping it off his head just as his horse dropped back down to all four feet. Hendricks gave an angry bellow that turned shrill when Adlard triggered his carbine, punching dust from the upper right arm of Hendricks's coat. Yakima fired again as the horse pitched like a rodeo bronc, and the outlaw leader snarled through gritted teeth and clamped a hand over his upper-left thigh.

At the same time, the other riders began opening up and galloping toward the bunkhouse. Bullets plowed into the ground around Yakima and Adlard, and the jehu yelped and leaped off his left foot as though the limb had been pinked. More bullets hammered the porch support posts and the adobe brick front of the bunkhouse and cracked through the windows.

“Take cover!” Yakima shouted at Adlard, and the man started hopping toward a rain barrel standing off the bunkhouse's north front corner.

Yakima felt a bullet clip his left calf as he ran, legs and arms pumping, toward the bunkhouse. Two more tore up dead grass at his heels just before he launched himself into the air, careened over the top of the stock trough left of the front steps, and hit the ground behind it and rolled against the stone base of the porch.

There was the screech of more breaking glass, and a quick glance told him the other stage passengers were doing as he'd told them, hammering out the glass to return fire. As a couple of rifles opened up in the bunkhouse behind him, he racked a fresh round in the Yellowboy's beech, snaked the barrel over the top of the stock trough, squinting down the barrel. Hendricks's horse was buck-kicking wildly in the middle of the yard, about forty yards from Yakima, while the man himself, hatless, rose-colored glasses hanging from one ear, ran toward the cover of the stone well, limping on his left leg.

As the other riders were galloping in a shaggy, spread-out line toward the bunkhouse, shooting pistols or rifles—some with guns popping and smoking in both fists—Yakima fired twice more at Hendricks, wanting to cut the head off the gang's second snake. One bullet tore up dust and snow off Hendricks's heels as he dove behind the well coping, while the second drilled the coping itself, ricocheting loudly.

Bullets hammered the far side of the stock trough, flinging wood slivers in all directions. The riders were within twenty yards now, and Yakima started firing. He knocked one straight back off his saddle, drilled a round through the left cheek of another. Just then, pistols and rifles began blasting behind him, and the entire gang, to a man, hung their lower jaws in shock while jerking back hard on their horses' reins. They hadn't been expecting resistance from any more of the stage's party outside of Yakima himself.

The horse of one stopped so suddenly that the coyote dun flew forward, knees buckling. It hit the ground on its right wither and flung its rider over its head. The man landed hard and rolled, throwing his arms up, amazingly still holding his carbine. As he staggered backward, getting his land legs, he swung his rifle toward Yakima, who drilled him through the dead center of his quilted elk-skin coat half a second before a shot from the cabin snapped his head back sharply. Bright red blood oozed out from where his left eye had been.

The guns in the cabin erupted in a cannonade. Ejecting his last spent cartridge, which bounced off the porch behind him, Yakima smiled. Two more of Hendricks's killers were blown off their mounts, spewing blood and screaming. Their horses screamed, as well, and trampled their fallen riders as they wheeled and headed back in the opposite direction, buck-kicking angrily.

One of the few remaining killers galloped toward Yakima. The half-breed aimed and fired, but his Winchester pinged on an empty chamber. Half a second later, the rider's own carbine clicked empty, and then he hurled himself off the side of his desperately, dustily curveting horse. He slammed into Yakima with a wild yell, the eagle tattoo on his cheek fairly glowing now in the growing morning light.

He threw Yakima onto his back and raised a big Green River knife with a carved horn handle. Screaming like a gut-shot coyote, he thrust the knife toward Yakima's neck. The half-breed released his empty rifle and shoved his left hand up, wrapping it around the killer's wrist when the point of the long knife was six inches from his throat. He gave a grunt and, gritting his teeth and hardening his jaw, tossed the lighter, weaker man over onto his back.

The attacker screamed again, widening his mouth and his dark eyes and nostrils, as Yakima twisted his wrist until it broke with a grinding crack. He gave another grunt as he shoved the man's own knife up through the underside of his chin, hammering the end of the knife with the heel of his hand until the blade ground into his brain.

Blood rushed from the gaping wound like hot water from a gut flask, sopping the front of his heavy, quilted blanket coat.

Yakima pulled his hand away, let the man drop dead to the ground.

He jerked his head toward the open yard, not startled by sound and movement but by its sudden lack. The only ones standing out there were the few horses that hadn't run off. All the killers were down—a few lying still in bloody piles. A few writhing and groaning.

The shooting had stopped.

Yakima glanced behind him. Sally and Percy Rand stood in the broken-out window left of the door. They each held a rifle or smoking pistol and they were looking around cautiously. Mendenhour and Weatherford stood in the window on the door's other side, old Elijah holding a bloody white handkerchief to his forehead.

“Everybody all right?” Yakima called.

Weatherford nodded. “I took a ricochet. Don't think anyone else in here's hit.” He darted a bright glance past Yakima. “Look there!”

A man was on a knee about halfway down the side of a burned-out shed ahead and right of Yakima. A gun flashed and barked, the bullet hammering the porch behind the half-breed. The man rose heavily, awkwardly, and ran limping toward a horse standing nearby, reins dangling straight down to the ground.

Yakima recognized Claw Hendricks's long horse-hair coat. He palmed his Colt and, rising to a crouch, fired twice. Both shots blew up dust and gravel just behind the outlaw leader. And then he was in the saddle and ramming his heels against the pinto's flanks, galloping south toward the canyon. His image in the still dull light grew quickly smaller.

He was out of range for Yakima's Colt.

The half-breed cursed. He picked up his rifle and walked out from behind the stock trough, looking around carefully. All the downed men lay still except for one about twenty yards straight ahead. He lay on his back, grinding his spurs into the ground. Blood poured from a hole in his neck and several more in his wolf coat. He was speaking in oddly dulcet tones as though to his Maker in the sky.

Yakima heard the thumps of boots behind him. The others were filing through the bunkhouse door while Adlard limped out from behind his rain barrel. They all held pistols and rifles and they were glassy-eyed, cautious, a little amazed by what they had done and, likely, that they were all still alive to tell about it.

Yakima continued walking slowly forward, looking around at the dead and dying around him, and then he stared off toward Hendricks's dwindling figure. Mendenhour came down the porch steps and walked into the clearing. Glendolene walked out of the bunkhouse with the others, and they all spread out in the yard in front of the porch. Mendenhour continued toward Yakima.

“They all dead?” he asked.

“Pretty much. Hendricks is lightin' a shuck.”

“Likely bleed to death—won't he?”

“Probably.”

Yakima stared toward Hendricks's jouncing figure just now heading into the canyon. In the corner of his eye, he saw Mendenhour raise his rifle, heard the nasty scrape of a cartridge being levered into the chamber. He wheeled to see the man aiming the rifle at him from his shoulder.

“Thanks for the help, Henry. But I understand you're wanted dead or alive.” The prosecutor smiled grimly as he squinted down the Winchester's barrel.

Behind him, Lori O'Reilly gasped.

A gun blasted. Mendenhour's head jerked forward.

He staggered toward Yakima, lowering his rifle and triggering it into the ground near his feet. He stopped, looked at Yakima with a dazed look, blood pumping from the back of his neck. As though drunk, he pivoted, stumbling again, and saw his wife standing six feet behind him, aiming a smoking Remington .44 at him in both her gloved hands.

Her eyes were hard, her mouth straight.

“You son of a bitch,” she said softly. “Why did you have to go and make me do that?”

A single tear rolled out from the corner of her right eye and started dropping down her cheek. She lowered the pistol slowly.

“Ah, hell,” the prosecutor said through a long, weary sigh.

He dropped to his knees and then to his side, his hands and his brown leather half boots quivering slightly as he died.