Read The Loner: Dead Man’s Gold Online
Authors: J.A. Johnstone
The Loner: Dead Man’s Gold (18 page)
“You intend to make me your hostage?” Fortunato’s voice shook a little with rage.
“That’s the idea,” The Kid said.
“Never!”
“Well, then, the alternative is to shoot you down right here and now. You reckon those fellas who are working for you will stick around once you’re dead and can’t pay them anymore?”
The Kid had moved forward enough so that he and Fortunato could see each other clearly. The two men traded cold, level stares.
There was no telling how the standoff would have ended. At that moment, a high-pitched scream ripped through the night. It was such a horrible, blood-curdling sound that everyone looked to see where it came from. The Kid saw a tall, skinny hombre in a dusty suit run frantically into the light. A bronzed figure stumbled after him, slashing at him with a knife but missing.
With Fortunato distracted, Father Jardine moved suddenly, acting with surprising speed for a man of his age, especially a man who had undergone torture at the hands of the Yaquis. He twisted in Fortunato’s grip and grabbed the barrel of the count’s rifle. He tried to wrench it out of Fortunato’s hands, and as he did, he shouted, “Fight, Mr. Morgan! Fight them!”
“Kill them all!” Fortunato yelled as the unexpected assault by the priest made him stumble backward.
The Kid threw himself forward in the cave mouth, calling, “Doctor, get down!” as he did so. He saw muzzle flashes from the guns ranged around him, but the bullets went over his head. The Colt in his hand bucked and roared as he triggered it. He heard Annabelle’s Lightning blasting, too.
Fortunato lost his footing and fell, and since Father Jardine still had hold of the rifle, the priest went down, too. The two men tumbled over and over down the slope.
Muzzle flashes lit the night over the malpais. The Kid saw that one of the Yaquis was already sprawled face-down on the lava. The Kid shifted his aim and drilled the other Yaqui through the lungs. That left the other gunman, a lean, lantern-jawed man dressed in red and black. He had a rifle in his hand, spewing lead and flame as he worked the lever. The Kid and Annabelle fired at the same time. The man’s rifle flew out of his hands into the air as both slugs, The Kid’s .45 and Annabelle’s .41, caught him in the chest and drove him backward. He crumpled.
That left Fortunato still struggling with Father Jardine, and the other man about to be killed by the Indian who had chased him into the light. The last Apache, thought The Kid as he recognized the leggings, the tunic, the bright blue band of cloth around the man’s jet-black hair. He had caught up with his quarry, knocked him to the ground, and knelt on top of him with a knee in the man’s back. The Apache caught hold of the man’s hair and jerked his head up so that the skin of his throat was drawn taut. He was about to bring his knife across the man’s throat in a deep slash that would open it up wide.
Up on a knee now, The Kid shouted, “Apache!”, and when the warrior’s head turned toward him, he put his last bullet between the Indian’s eyes. The Apache’s head jerked back as the slug exploded out the back of his skull. He dropped the knife and collapsed, slumping forward over the man he’d been about to kill.
As The Kid and Annabelle started down the slope, Fortunato finally tore the rifle loose from Father Jardine’s grip and slammed the butt against the side of the priest’s head. Father Jardine rolled across the lava. Fortunato whirled toward The Kid and Annabelle. The Kid hadn’t had time to reload. Fortunato lifted the rifle, grinning as he said, “Now all the German’s treasures will be mine!”
Annabelle pulled the trigger of her Lightning, but the hammer clicked on an empty chamber. She was out of bullets, too, which meant they were at Fortunato’s mercy.
And The Kid knew exactly how much
that
was worth.
Nothing.
Before Fortunato could pull the trigger, Father Jardine lunged at him from behind, grabbed his ankles, and pulled his feet out from under him. With a startled cry, Fortunato pitched forward. The rifle in his hand blasted as his finger involuntarily jerked the trigger. Chips of lava sprayed in the air as the bullet slammed into the ground.
And Fortunato screamed.
The scream turned into a hideous gurgle. He rolled onto his back, the rifle forgotten. His hands fumbled at his throat, where bright red blood gushed between his fingers. By the time The Kid reached his side, the light was going out in the count’s eyes. Fortunato peered up at him and tried to talk, but nothing came out of his ruined throat except incoherent sounds. Annabelle reached Father Jardine and helped him onto his feet, and along with The Kid, they stood there and watched Fortunato die.
“I will pray for your immortal soul,” Father Jardine told him.
“I don’t reckon it’ll do any good, padre,” The Kid said. “Fortunato’s shaking hands with the Devil by now. He’s dead.”
Father Jardine prayed anyway, as he leaned on Annabelle.
The Kid turned away from the corpse as he heard a feeble, “Help! Please!” He went over to the dead Apache, who was still sprawled on top of the man The Kid didn’t know. The man must have heard The Kid’s footsteps, because he said, “Please, could…could you remove this savage?”
The Kid thumbed fresh cartridges into his revolver, then hunkered beside the warrior’s corpse and the man pinned underneath it. “Who’re you, mister?”
“My…my name is Arturo. I’m Count Fortunato’s manservant.”
“Well, Fortunato’s dead, so I reckon that means you’re out of a job. How does that sit with you?”
The man closed his eyes and sighed. “That’s regrettable.”
“Not from where I sit, it’s not.”
“What I meant to say was, I bear you no ill will, sir. Could you please get this dead Indian off me? And take me back to civilization?”
“Can we trust you?”
“I give you my word.”
“All right, then.” The Kid took hold of the Apache’s tunic and rolled the corpse to the side. Arturo sat up and hunched over, hugging his knees in what appeared to be sheer terror. “Take it easy,” The Kid told him. “Nobody’s going to hurt you now.”
Arturo stared wide-eyed at Fortunato’s body. “What…what happened to him?”
“That’s a damned good question,” The Kid said.
It didn’t take them long to figure it out. The shot Fortunato had fired as he was falling had exploded one of those bubbles in the lava, leaving an opening with sharp, jagged edges all around it. His head had slipped into that opening, and the lava had slashed his throat wide open. Call it fate, call it justice…call it whatever you wanted to, The Kid thought. The important thing was that Fortunato and all his men were dead, except for Arturo, and The Kid, Annabelle, and Father Jardine were alive.
And the Konigsberg Candlestick was going back where it belonged.
A week later they were in a hotel in Santa Fé. The candlestick was locked up in the hotel’s safe until Father Jardine and Annabelle caught the train that would take them back east. There would be a stop at Yale, and then Annabelle planned to accompany the priest all the way to the Vatican, where the candlestick would be turned over to Church authorities and eventually make its way back to Spain, where it had come from. Highly efficient guards, paid for by the Church, would accompany the candlestick on its journey.
Annabelle had asked The Kid to come with them. “I’d…feel safer with you along, Kid,” she had said.
But he had turned her down as gently as possible, saying, “From what I’ve seen, Doctor, you’re plenty able to take care of yourself, and the padre,
and
that candlestick.”
Annabelle had Konigsberg’s journal to take back to Yale with her, too. It had historical interest, even though it was of no practical value.
“This doesn’t seem fair,” Annabelle said as the three of them lingered over coffee after having dinner in the hotel dining room. “What have you gotten out of all this trouble, Kid?”
“Some excitement?” he said with a smile. He grew more serious as he went on, “I was able to help out some folks who needed help, and because of us, Fortunato won’t be around to plunder and kill to get what he wants anymore.”
“Because of me,” Father Jardine said quietly. “I’m the one who ended his life.”
The Kid knew it had been bothering the priest that he’d had a hand in Fortunato’s death. He said, “You didn’t end his life, padre. If anything, his own greed did that. You were just trying to protect Dr. Dare and me. I don’t pretend to be on the best of terms with
El Señor Dios
, but even I don’t see how He could hold that against you.”
“I pray that you’re right, my son.”
Annabelle touched The Kid’s hand and nodded toward the arched entrance into the dining room. Arturo stood there, clutching a hat in his hands, and when the servant spotted them, he came across the room toward them.
“Pardon me for intruding,” Arturo began as he came up to the table.
“It’s fine,” The Kid said. He gestured to the empty chair. “Sit down. What can we do for you?”
True to his word, Arturo didn’t seem to be holding a grudge against any of them for being involved in Fortunato’s death. In fact, in talking to the man as they were riding out of the Jornada del Muerto, The Kid had gotten the idea that Arturo hadn’t really liked the count that much.
“I was wondering…” Arturo began. “I mean, I don’t particularly wish to return to Italy, and I thought perhaps…would you be in need of a servant, Mr. Morgan?”
The question took The Kid by surprise. He leaned back in his chair and frowned. “No offense, Arturo, but do I
look
like the sort of hombre who needs a butler?”
“Oh, I’m not actually a butler, sir. I’m a manservant. What the British, in their inelegant fashion, call a batman.”
“Well, I don’t need a batman, either,” The Kid said, although there had been a time in his life when he’d had any number of servants. A thought occurred to him, and he went on, “You go to San Francisco and see a man named Claudius Turnbuckle. He’s a lawyer. Tell him Conrad sent you, and that I said he should help you find a suitable position. I’ll stake you to the train fare.”
Arturo smiled. “That’s incredibly generous of you, sir. If there’s ever anything I can do to repay your generosity, please don’t hesitate to call on me.”
“Might take you up on that one of these days,” The Kid said.
When Arturo was gone, Annabelle looked intently at The Kid and said, “Conrad, eh? Conrad Morgan?”
“Not exactly.” The Kid took a sip of his coffee.
“You can’t blame me for being curious…Kid. I’m a historian, and—” she grinned. “—I’d bet a hat you have a fascinating history.”
“I don’t know that I’d call it fascinating.”
“What would you call it?”
That was a good question. Dark? Bloody? Tragic? His history was all of those things and more.
But it wasn’t really
his
history anymore, he realized. It belonged to Conrad Browning, not Kid Morgan. Kid Morgan was a clean slate.
“I’d call it forgotten,” he said. “As forgotten as old Albrecht Konigsberg will be, one of these days.”
They had left the bones in the cave. Father Jardine said they should not be disturbed. And as the years passed, that was the case. No one went to the cave in the malpais. No one bothered Albrecht Konigsberg’s bones. No one ventured into the Jornada del Muerto without good reason.
The men who went in 1945 had a good reason. Twenty-two kilotons of good reason, in fact. On July 16, 1945, they detonated it in a place called Trinity Site, two miles east of the cave where the bones of the man who had pinpointed that spot more than two centuries earlier still rested.
No one looked up. No one noticed the twelve stars moving into alignment. Even if it had been night, they couldn’t have seen the Twelve Pearls. The explosion was too bright.
The shockwave rolled over the barren landscape, and in the cave, the concussion blasted away the rocks that covered the rest of the bones and then turned the bones themselves into powder and ash.
But in that last split second, as the skull of Albrecht Konigsberg peered into the heart of a power greater than any ever seen on earth, it seemed to wear a grin of vindication.
Even if he
had
been off by two hundred and sixty years.
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Copyright © 2009 J. A Johnstone
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