Destined to Die (17 page)

He told of his early morning arrival at the Engel place. Of seeing a man ride away. Of finding the corpses of Virgil and Mary-Ann Engel. Of Joanne’s admission of guilt and involvement of Jesse. Of her threat and how she carried it out at the Gershel homestead. Of Jesse’s story that he stayed out all night because he was sick from liquor. Of Joanne’s taunts when he was a prisoner in the Gershel’s parlour. Of JL Larkin’s evidence that Jesse was fine when he rode past his place. Of Anne Kruger’s account of Jesse not getting drunk - instead, just enraged by envy of Clinton Davis going upstairs with her. Of how he, Gold, had remained in town instead of resorting to guilty flight. Of how Jesse was the first to start shooting at Davis in front of the Wolfe homestead, at the hotel window in the wake of Fran Dalton’s shout and at Anne Kruger when he thought she was Gold.

‘And I guess he was the one,’ Barnaby Gold concluded, ‘who talked you people into holding off from coming to town. When the two gunslingers rode up the valley and told you they were looking for me.’

Will Gershel shook his head. ‘Somethin’ else you figured wrong, boy. That was my idea. Seemed like the sensible thing to do. Them bein’ the same kind you are. And outnumberin’ you two to one. Why risk our lives if others was prepared to take care of you?’

‘And why have my death on your consciences, along with the way you killed Clinton Davis? When you couldn’t be sure I’m guilty?’

‘You’re guilty, boy. Only reason you stayed around here was to show how big you are. But you ain’t big enough to get out of this. The townspeople heard you spout all that stuff, same as me. Heard you tell what old JL Larkin and the whore is supposed to have said. Which wasn’t much. And they’re both dead anyways.’

‘Hey, that’s right, Pa!’ Jesse grinned.

‘Shut up, boy!’ Will Gershel did not look away from Barnaby Gold at the window. ‘So what d’you figure the townspeople are gonna do? When the men come back up out of the timber? And you’re gonna have to either start shootin’ or give yourself up without a fight. Maybe Jesse and me’ll be dead. A few other men. But so will you, boy. Shot dead, or hung for whatever new killings you do here.’

Gold clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. ‘Everyone is destined to die some time, Mr Gershel.’

‘Your time has come, boy,’ a man said from the open doorway of the bullet-ravaged room.
‘Now, with a bullet in your back. Or you can hang.’

Gold turned his head slowly. And saw Festus Wolfe standing on the threshold, aiming a Winchester from his shoulder. He had taken off his boots to enter the rear of the hotel and climb the stairs. The same as the other two homesteaders who had moved into the doorway to flank him. They aimed revolvers.

Down on the street out front of the hotel, Jesse Gershel stooped to reach for his discarded hand-gun. His father kicked it clear just before Jesse’s fingers were about to close around the butt.

Gold let go of the Murcott and it hit the window-sill and bounced down on to the balcony.

‘Now take off the gun-belt,’ Wolfe ordered tensely.

‘Sure.’

He unbuckled it and let it fall to the floor. All three men in the doorway vented sighs.

‘We got him!’ Wolfe yelled.

The rest of the homesteaders came out on to the street. Emerging from around both sides of the hotel.

Gold looked out of the window just before strong hands gripped both his upper arms. Not to survey the grim-faced men and the grinning boy immediately below. Instead, to rake his expressionless green-eyed gaze along the sloping curve.

It was deserted, the widely spaced buildings on either side giving no sign or sound that there was anybody inside them.

‘Wasn’t nobody heard you who’s goin’ to help you, boy,’ Festus Wolfe growled, moving out of the room ahead of Gold and the two men who held him prisoner.

‘Like a lady said awhile ago, Mr Wolfe, everyone makes mistakes.’

‘Too late for you to learn from this one.’

CHAPTER NINETEEN

HIGH tension augmented the heat of the blazing sun to bead every face with sweat as preparations for the lynching of Barnaby Gold were made.

Will Gershel had taken the rope from his son and broken from the group of his friends and neighbours. To ignore the footbridge and wade across the creek ford. Heading for a tree on the other side of the trail from where a mound of fresh dug earth marked a two-man grave.

Some of the homesteaders gathered the reins of the horses and began hitching them to the rail outside the hotel.

Festus Wolfe continued to aim his rifle at Gold while the two other men who had made him a prisoner in the room held his upper arms. And Jesse Gershel took a length of twine from a pants pocket to bind the captive’s wrists behind his back.

Except for the area out front of the Riverside Hotel, the entire length of the street remained deserted.

Gold gazed directly ahead, ignoring the sweating men close to him to look at Will Gershel. Watched him as he tossed the noosed end of the rope toward a stout branch some fifteen feet from the ground. At the third attempt he succeeded in looping the lynch rope over the branch. Kept his back to the activity in front of the hotel when he yelled: ‘All of you bring him over here! Bring a horse, too!’

‘Yeah, Pa!’

Jesse hurried away from Gold to unhitch the reins of a horse from the rail. This as the men holding Gold’s arms urged him forward.

The other men shuffled to obey Will Gershel’s command.

From the law office came a strange sound. Like laughter. But also like sobbing. The sound of the venting of hysteria. Silenced by the crack of flesh against flesh.

The booted feet of men and the hooves of a horse splashed in the slow-moving, shallow water of the creek.

Drops of water and beads of sweat dripped from the men to the dusty surface of the trail on the other side of the creek.

‘Get him up on the horse.’

Still Gershel avoided looking at Gold’s implacable face. By stepping up behind him, to
knock off his hat and place the noose around his neck as he rasped the order.

Jesse giggled as the prisoner was awkwardly raised and settled in the saddle: his shiny-booted feet not in the stirrups.

‘Shut up, boy!’ He cleared his throat and spat at the ground. ‘There’s a man about to die here!’

He held out the loose end of the rope.

‘What you want, Will?’

‘I want every one of you men to have a hand on this. When I set the horse to runnin’.’

‘He’s your son, Will,’ one of the homesteaders complained, taking off his hat to wipe a shirt-sleeved arm across his forehead.

‘The Engels were friends and neighbours to all of us, Clyde.’

There were grunts of reluctant agreement. Then Clyde was second only to Jesse in taking a grip on the lynch rope.

Will Gershel now moved forward, to stand alongside the horse and look up at Barnaby Gold who sat erect in the saddle, gazing across the rippling creek and down the curving, deserted street. The older man on the ground was outwardly more tense than the one in the saddle.

‘Anythin’ you wanna say, boy?’

Hoofbeats hit the southern end of the street, the horse and rider hidden by the intervening buildings on the curve. Voices shouted, indistinct over the distance.

‘Just Goddamnit to hell I never got to Europe.’

‘That all?’

‘Bye-bye.’

A shot rang out from the direction of the galloping horses. And a whole chorus of voices were raised.

‘Hit the friggin’ horse, Pa!’ Jesse’s words were shrill, almost like those of a woman.

‘You just gotta have a death wish, boy,’ Will Gershel said in strained tones.

Sheriff Floyd Polk raced his horse around the curve and into view of the lynch mob and its intended victim. Fired his revolver into the air a second time. He continued to yell at the top of his voice, but the words were lost under a cacophony of sound. The hoofbeats of his horse. The running footfalls of Bacall’s citizenry as they wrenched open their doors and spilled on to the street. And the din of a wagon and team being driven hard up the hill behind the lawman.

‘What the hell?’ the man at the side of the horse growled.

‘We do things our way, Pa!’ Jesse roared. And lunged forward. To bring down his splayed hand on the rump of the horse.

‘No, boy!’ Festus Wolfe cried.

The horse snorted and leapt from a standstill: his head going up to jerk clear of Will Gershel’s hand reaching for the bridle.

Polk reined his mount to a skidding, turning halt. And was thrown from the saddle out front of the hotel. This as a flatbed wagon came hurtling around the curve of the street in a cloud of dust. At the same moment as the animal spooked by Jesse raced across the ford.

Barnaby Gold was still in the saddle, the noose around his neck: the rope trailing behind horse and rider - every man with a hand on it having let go at the moment Jesse made his frantic move.

The black-clad man with his wrists lashed together at his back fought to stay astride the bolting horse: knees pressed to the saddle fenders while his feet sought the stirrups.

The animal came up out of the creek just as Polk regained his feet - reached as Gershel had
done to try to grip the bridle. But the horse veered suddenly to the side, frightened more by the sight and the sounds of the braking, slewing wagon than by the attempted capture.

Barnaby Gold was pitched in the opposite direction. Could do no more than tuck his chin down on to his chest and bring his knees up to his belly. He hit the street with his right shoulder and hip. The breath rushed out of his lungs and a sea of boiling pain washed over him. He thought he screamed his agony aloud, but could not be sure. For sounds were being vented from too many other throats.

He rolled over twice and then came to a halt. On that side of his body that felt on fire with the effects of the fall.

He had instinctively closed his eyes. Now he opened them and orientated himself.

He was up against the water trough, facing out across the street. First saw Sheriff Floyd Polk who still had his gun drawn, but hanging down at his side. The lawman was staring toward the creek. Barnaby Gold, his vision blurred by spontaneous tears of pain, looked in that direction. Saw the homesteaders coming across the ford. Will Gershel in the lead, having to half-drag Jesse by the wrist. The boy was directing a string of babbling words at his father, who showed no sign of hearing.

Down the street, in front of a half-circle of Bacall citizens stretched from one side to the other, was the stalled wagon with a sweat-lathered team in the traces. Something close to a dozen women had climbed down from it. Gold recognised Martha Gershel and Gertrude Wolfe. The young woman he had seen take her child into the house when the stranger rode by. And Joanne Engel held between two women he had never seen before.

‘Mr Gershel, you can thank your—’

The Gershel father and son went right on by the lawman, followed by the other men from the river valley. And the tense and suddenly enraged Polk curtailed what he was saying. Began to whirl, but caught a glimpse of Anne Kruger’s body sprawled face down at the corner of the hotel. He cursed and went toward the dead whore.

Gritting his teeth against the pain it caused, Barnaby Gold forced himself up into a sitting posture against the water trough.

‘Explain yourself, woman!’ Will Gershel thundered.

‘Tell him, girl!’ his wife responded woodenly.

The group of men had halted some ten feet in front of the gathering of women. All the homesteaders were equally grim-faced, with the exception of Joanne Engel and Jesse Gershel. She looked proudly defiant: he expressed deep-seated dread.’

‘Go to hell, all of you!’

Martha swung toward the girl trying to act a woman, and backhanded her hard across the cheek.

‘Tell him! Tell everyone here!’

Polk had crouched to look at the waxen face of the dead whore. Now he came to the water trough, and helped Gold to his feet. Took out a penknife from a pants pocket, opened it and cut through the wrist binding.

‘Appreciate it, sheriff.’

‘You tell it, woman,’ Gershel demanded of his wife.

‘All right, Will!’ she snarled. But then moderated her tone. ‘I had my doubts, right from the time the stranger brought the girl to our place. Ain’t none of us livin’ in the valley don’t know about the womanly airs this child puts on. But I kept tellin’ myself it was her ways give encouragement to the stranger to have his way with her.’

‘All right, Ma, but that don’t mean I had nothin’ to do with—’

‘Shut your mouth, boy!’ his father rasped, still holding him by the wrist. Tightly enough to make Jesse wince with the pain of the grip.

‘But then I kept thinkin’ about Jesse bein’ gone from home all night for the first time ever, Will. And about him and the girl been walkin’ out together for so long. Him a man with man’s needs and her a child with ideas ahead of her years.’

‘All that thinkin’ don’t mean not a damn thing, woman!’

‘You didn’t come home last night, Will.’

‘We waited at Clyde’s place. Ready to come into town, see if two gunslingers had taken care of Gold for us.’