Destined to Die (12 page)

It was at least two hours since the Daltons and the whore had gone to bed. And it required another, longer louder series of thuds with a fist on the door panel to rouse Arnie Dalton. Who yelled irritably that he was coming. Then muttered in the tone of cursing as he crossed the saloon to the entrance.

He was carrying a lamp which caused waves of light to come and go through the windows. Then two bolts were scraped in their fittings, the doors were opened and a wedge of solid yellowness angled out into the street.

‘Do somethin’ for you?’

Arnie Dalton sounded apprehensive at the sight of the two strangers.

‘Need a drink. Him and me both.’

‘Saloon’s closed.’ A pause. ‘What’s this?’

‘What’s it look like?’

‘It’s ten dollars.’

‘What it is. Put it toward your savings for your old age, mister. Go back to bed. Jake and me’ll attend to serving ourselves.’

‘I don’t know about that, gentlemen.’

‘Don’t plan on getting drunk. After we’ve had our fill, we’ll douse the lamp, close the doors when we leave.’

Just one of the newcomers had taken part in the exchange with Dalton until then. Now Jake spoke: ‘We look like thieves?’

‘No. I ain’t sayin’ that.’

‘Good. If you’re scared you got thieves living hereabouts, we’ll roust you out of bed to lock the doors after we leave. Thanks.’

Dalton said nothing. Perhaps he had signalled them to enter. Or maybe Jake simply stepped across the threshold, forcing Dalton to back into the saloon ahead of him. Whichever, the lamplight changed shape and moved. The footfalls tracked from the entrance to the bar counter. The doors were closed. The bolts were not shot home. The light from the windows danced and dimmed. Brightened and was still when the lamp was set down on the bartop. Voices were now
just small scratches on the silence from below.

Barnaby Gold stood up, leaned the Murcott against the wall and eased the window open to its fullest extent. There was a pained expression on his face as he made each movement: revealing the tension he was experiencing while he strove to do everything in total silence.

The timber of the window creaked a little halfway up the frame, but the sound was no louder than those of the breeze and the creek.

He stepped out on to the balcony and reached back inside for the shotgun. Then, setting down each booted foot with great care, he moved to the corner of the building. And on to the stairway that
canted across the side facing the creek. His face did not lose the pained look until he was on the solid ground between the Riverside Hotel and the bank of the water course.

The breeze stirred his open frock coat as he started back along the side of the building, then turned to go
across half the front. The horses hitched to the rail looked at him fleetingly. Lost interest in him. The street, with small puffs of wind-stirred dust dancing on it, was otherwise empty.

He did not have to go up on to the stoop to see into the saloon through the window to the right of the entrance: had the height to see as much as he needed while standing on the street.

The two newcomers were standing at the bar, their broad backs to him. Each had a shot glass in his hand. Arnie Dalton, dressed in a blue nightshirt, was starting toward the double doors that gave on to the kitchen and, presumably, the private quarters of the hotel. He glanced back at his late night customers twice. And both times it was plain to see the dread that was deeply inscribed on his pale face.

‘Night to you, Mr Dalton!’ This from the one who had done most of the talking when they arrived.

Dalton opened and closed his mouth twice. Only then managed to call out: ‘Good night, gentlemen!’

‘Thanks for your trouble!’ Jake added.

Then the hotelman went through the double doors. And the dialogue section of the play in which Dalton had taken such a reluctant role was over. Then one of the men still on stage finished his rye, crouched out of sight of Gold for several seconds. Straightened again to put his boots on the bartop. Jake nodded to him and the man drew his revolver and took long, silent strides toward the foot of the stairway.

‘This sure does taste good, Chester! Near as good as that first bottle of liquor we had after we got to Dodge City that time! You recall that, partner? Hell, we swallowed some dust that trip, didn’t we? That sonofabitch of a trail boss had us riding drag the whole...’

Chester had moved outside Barnaby Gold’s range of vision now. Jake poured two more shots from the bottle, but did not lift either glass. For to drink would have left a gap in the monologue he was addressing to himself in the mirror on the wall behind the bar. His reflection showed him to be an ugly man of a little over thirty. Hard-eyed and with a bushy black moustache, teeth of almost the same colour, and a knife scar on his right cheek.

As he continued to recall the events on the trail drive and its rewards in Dodge City, Kansas - not pausing to allow his absent partner an opportunity to interject - his tone altered to take account of whether the memories were pleasant or painful. But his expression of tense expectancy did not change at all.

‘...whole time! But the grub was real fine, wasn’t it? What was the cook’s name? Joe Maguire, wasn’t it? Got roaring drunk with that big red-headed whore and chased her stark naked out of the room! Man, did she have the biggest...
’

On the upper floor a door crashed open with a kick,

Chester snarled: ‘You’ve had it, undertaker!’

Barnaby Gold clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. And drew the wood-butted Colt from its holster.

A revolver was fired, the bullets exploding from the muzzle so fast the man had to be fanning the hammer.

Jake’s image in the mirror abruptly showed a blackened-toothed grin of pleasure. And he raised one of the glasses of rye toward his mouth.

The horses made nervous sounds and movements at the sudden burst of rapid fire gunshots.

Gold thumbed back the hammer of his Peacemaker and took a double-handed grip on the butt. Pressed his elbows against his chest with the Murcott cradled across them. Aligned the barrel of the Colt on Jake’s broad back.

‘Shit!’ Chester shrieked as the gunfire was curtailed. The tone was almost maniacal. ‘Jake, he ain’t here!’

Jake hurled away the glass and whirled. His left hand streaking to his holstered revolver.

Gold squeezed his trigger. The bullet shattered the window to send a spray of shards across tables, chairs and the floor. Drove into Jake’s chest. Too high. The impact slammed him against the bar counter, but he completed his draw. Fired from the hip.

Yelled: ‘On the street!’

His bullet took out a triangular fragment of glass still held in the window frame. Then thudded into a balcony support.

Gold exploded a second shot from the Peacemaker. This as Jake dropped into a crouch. Which placed his head in the line of fire. The bullet smashed through his discoloured teeth set in a snarl of rage. Banged the back of his head against the front of the bar counter. Blood erupted from his mouth and he collapsed out of Gold’s sight.

Light spilled from the houses down the curving street. Questions were shouted. The two horses snorted and reared, trying to jerk free of the hitching rail.

Against the noise, Gold holstered the Colt and swung up and over the stoop rail, thumbing off the shotgun’s safety catch. Dropped into one of the rocking chairs that was immediately below the point where the window of his room looked out on to the balcony and street.

The horses became calm. Questions to which there had been no positive answers were still being asked. But not so loudly now that the silence after the gunfire lengthened.

In the private quarters at the rear of the hotel, Fran Dalton was crying in fear. Her husband was rasping at her to be quiet.

The breeze stirred the leaves of the trees. The creek made rippling sounds beneath the bridge.

No one emerged from the houses. The citizens of Bacall anxious to know what had happened, but all of them too afraid to be the first to investigate the cause and result, until somebody guaranteed it was safe to do so.

Barnaby Gold wore the pained expression again as he strained to hear any sound that Chester might make. His left hand was fisted around the twin barrels of the shotgun and his right index finger was curled across the front of both triggers. His elbows rested on the arms of the rocker and the Murcott was angled across his chest. Behind his pursed lips, his tongue was poised to click.

He heard an intake of breath above him. This a moment after Arnie Dalton had silenced his wife with a slap.

There was no sound of Chester’s unbooted feet stepping out on to the balcony. But a few motes of dust floated down from a crack between two planks.

Gold shifted his elbows off the chair arms and held the Murcott vertically, squeezing the base of the stock between his thighs. A line of sweat beaded his upper lip as he stared up at the darkness of the underside of the balcony.

There was neither sound nor sign that the man had swung his trailing legs out over the window-ledge.

From the second-storey hallway, Annie Kruger called softly: ‘Barnaby?’

And this caused Chester to catch his breath in surprise.

Gold tracked the gun and his eyes toward the front of the balcony: and had to rock the chair back a little to draw a bead on the point from above which the small sound had come.

He squeezed both triggers.

The horses snorted and reared again in response to the massive sound of the two barrels being discharged: the belch of flame and smoke from the muzzles. And one of them jerked loose, wheeled and bolted away, its hooves beating on the planking of the bridge. Before it lost his footing and stumbled into the creek. Recovered, and galloped out along the north trail.

Something fell heavily from above, thudding to the ground through the billowing dust of one horse at the gallop and another still rearing on its tether.

Chester. Still alive, for the planks of the balcony had absorbed most of the power of the shotgun’s double blast. And it was probable that pieces of shredded timber torn out of the balcony floor had done as much damage to the man as the Murcott’s twin loads. He lay on his back in the settling dust, his thighs and belly and face sheened with crimson. A portion of his intestines hung out through a hole in his flesh. He made moaning sounds and blood bubbled in his mouth. His hands kept clenching and unclenching, as if he imagined there was some physical hold with which he could cling on to life.

Barnaby Gold got quickly up from the rocker, holding the shotgun low down at his side. Went to the gap in the balcony rail and drew the Peacemaker from the holster.

They... said... you... was... just... a... frigging ...kid.’

‘Growing up fast, mister.’ He aimed the Peacemaker at Chester’s blood-covered face and stooped so that the muzzle was just an inch from the pain-creased brow. Squeezed the trigger.

The hole drilled into his skull looked insignificant compared with the gory injuries that the shotgun blast had caused. He twitched once and was still.

Up on the balcony, the whore gasped. And accused in a shocked tone: ‘My God, he wasn’t a horse. The sawbones could maybe have saved his life.’

Barnaby Gold glanced up at her as he slid the gun back in the holster.

‘Lady, he tried to kill me.’

He said nothing else before turning to go up on to the stoop.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE breeze outside quickly neutralised the acrid stench of gunsmoke. But within the confines of the saloon the exploded powder of Jake’s two shots still clung to the atmosphere. This as Barnaby Gold crossed to the bar counter and leaned over the heap of the gunman’s corpse to pick up a sheet of paper from beside the still-filled shot glass. The stub of a pencil lay nearby.

While he was reading what was scrawled on the paper, he heard the doors from the kitchen open. And the whore’s tread on the stairs.

Barnaby Gold staying here?
one of the gunslingers had written. Then, on another line:
Write yes or no or well kill you first.

Dalton’s hand was trembling with fear, so that the
Yes
he wrote was barely decipherable.

Keep talking. Which room?

Ferst left top of stars.

Chester had known what the terrified Dalton meant

Give answers. Go to bed.

‘You can see they made me,’ Dalton said fearfully after Gold put the paper back on the bar. ‘Not only me. I was afraid for Fran, too. And Annie.’

Gold folded the paper neatly and put it with the telegraph he had taken off the corpse of Clinton Davis.

‘It’s all right, Mr Dalton. I’ve got no quarrel with you.’

‘What was their quarrel with you?’ Fran asked.

She had draped a large coat over her nightdress and was clutching it together across her sparse breasts. Her eyes were red from weeping. There was the beginning of a dark bruise on her left cheek where Arnie had hit her into silence.