Ambush at Shadow Valley (22 page)

Beck only shrugged. ‘‘I'm not a politician. I'm a thief.''

‘‘What's the difference?'' Billy Todd Carver asked with a laugh.

‘‘I'm told there's a difference,'' said Beck, ‘‘but I've never seen it.''

‘‘Don't insult a thief like Memphis Beck by calling him a politician!'' Kirkpatrick replied with a chuckle.

‘‘Forget all that,'' Flannery chuckled. ‘‘I want to know how you get this kind of information, Memphis Beck. I'm beginning to fear you are some sort of mystic.''

‘‘Don't lose sleep worrying about it,'' said Beck. ‘‘It might make you too tired to tote your gold when the time comes.''

‘‘Good point,'' said Flannery. He pulled a silver flask from inside his dark suit coat, twisted the top free and held it out toward Beck. ‘‘Indulge yourself, sir. This whiskey is distilled from a recipe handed down by my dear Irish forefathers.''

‘‘Obliged, but no thanks,'' said Beck. ‘‘I'm going to sit guard on the trail tonight. Your forefathers' recipe could knock out a field ox.''

Dave Arken cut in, ‘‘Go ahead, Memphis. I'll guard the trail tonight.''

‘‘No, Dave, that wouldn't be fair to you,'' said Beck. ‘‘You're always sitting guard while the rest of us get our sleep.''

Even as he protested, Beck had been hoping someone might volunteer for the job tonight. He'd wanted to stay close to the woman tonight in case Soto tried anything against her. He realized he'd put her on a bit of a spot, but there was no other way to ever let her know that he was on her side, except present it to her in Soto's face, the way he just did, and hope she believed him.

‘‘It's fair to me,'' said Arken. ‘‘I like being up on the hills alone. It makes me feel peaceful.''

‘‘Are you sure?'' Beck asked.

‘‘Sure I'm sure.'' Arken grinned. ‘‘I wouldn't offer if I didn't mean it.''

‘‘Then here's to us, and to a railroad as crooked as we are!'' Beck said, taking the flask and tossing back a sip.

‘‘Here here,'' said the men in unison.

As soon as Beck had taken the sip of whiskey, Dave Arken stepped away to the door, and said over his shoulder as he shook the stack of rawhide pouches in his hand, ‘‘Sweet dreams everybody. See you all in the morning, when we head out to go fill these things.''

Stepping over to the open doorway, Bowen Flannery watched the good-natured train robber ride away along the moonlit trail. ‘‘Dave never shut a door behind himself in his life,'' said Flannery, taking the doorknob and pushing the door shut.

A hundred yards into the purple darkness, Arken veered his horse off the trail. Taking a grown-over path leading up into a broken hillside, he followed it up through a maze of deeply sunken boulders and jagged cliff drop-offs. At a place a half mile below the crest, he stopped and looked down in the moonlight, seeing Pierman's hacienda in one direction and in the other direction the shadowy main trail snaking away toward the border.

He had traveled as silently as a ghost; when he stepped from his saddle to take a position overlooking the trail, he froze at the faintest sound of a hoof scraping a rock on a ledge below him.

Crouching, drawing his rifle, Arken eased over to the edge of a sharp drop-off, lay down on his belly and crawled forward enough to look below. Twenty feet straight down, in a thin slice of moonlight he saw the ears of a mule twitch. Beside it he could barely make out the dark silhouettes of three more mules huddled together beside a scrub cedar. He had no idea who was down there, or why, but he knew that Memphis Beck and the others had to be told, and told quickly.

Carefully he pushed himself back from the edge with his hands. But as he did so, the edge of the cliff broke beneath his hand. Dropping his rifle, he grabbed with his free hand to catch his weight and keep from falling forward. But more of the edge broke. ‘‘Oh no!'' he managed to whisper. ‘‘Why me?'' Then he felt himself tumble downward among loose dirt and rock, and land with a hard grunt on his back, only a few yards from the mules.

Struggling to catch his breath and rise onto his knees, he saw dark figures dressed in white step forward out of the greater darkness, some with their face hidden by wide-brimmed sombreros, one of them hatless, moonlight glistening on his shaved head. Arken saw machetes hanging from their hands as he tried to catch his breath.

‘‘You fellows . . . are making a . . . big mistake,'' he gasped in a halting voice, seeing them close in around him, silently, deliberately—terrible apparitions unaffected by time. He fumbled with his holster, finding it had been emptied by his fall. He wanted to shout and warn Beck and the others, but there was not enough breath in him to make it happen.

‘‘Well . . . damn you . . . make it fast,'' Arken managed to say, seeing the machetes rise above their heads in a flash of pale moonlight, knowing there was nothing he could do to stop them.

Chapter 19

In the night, Beck had awakened with a start, its cause he did not know. But upon opening his eyes, he looked across the sleeping forms strewn about on the floor. Everyone, including the woman, lay wrapped in blankets, sound asleep. The exception was Soto, who sat in the glow of the hearth, staring straight at him. He wore a cold, thin smile that hinted of his having something to do with Beck's sharp awakening.

Standing, Soto said, ‘‘Did someone just step over your grave?''

Beck only stared at him for a moment, then said, ‘‘If they did, they were wise enough to keep walking.''

‘‘Good one,'' said Soto, nodding. ‘‘I'll have to remember that answer.'' Standing he said, ‘‘I'll go get some wood for the fire?''

‘‘Tell me something,'' Beck said, keeping his voice lowered as Soto weaved his steps through the sleepers lying about on the floor. ‘‘Why is it sometimes I hear an accent when you talk and other times I don't?''

‘‘I have no idea why you hear whatever you hear,'' Soto said smugly, without stopping.

Beck stood also as if poised for anything as Soto walked past the woman who slept on a long, battered sofa in the middle of the room. ‘‘You and I are never going to be friends, are we, Suelo?''

Soto stopped at the door with his hand on the knob and said, ‘‘Is it that important to you that we are?'' He smiled coldly again. ‘‘Or is it better that we remain business associates and become rich together?''

‘‘I can live with that,'' said Beck, easing to a window and looking out as Soto stepped down off the porch, picked up two fire logs, turned and came back inside.

‘‘See, I came back, all done,'' Soto said, stepping through the sleepers atop the hearth and laying the logs into the fire quietly.

‘‘For us to become friends before riding out on this big job tomorrow, you'd have to give me that rifle in your arms, and let yourself go soundly to sleep,'' said Soto, ‘‘instead of catnapping with your hand wrapped around the gun stock. I would consider that a true act of trust, worthy of my friendship.''

‘‘Good night, Suelo,'' Beck said, as if not giving Soto's suggestion a second thought.

Three hours later as the first wreath of sunlight spread along the hill line, Beck stood up and walked out onto the front porch, hearing the sound of hoofbeats moving along the trail toward the house. ‘‘Wake up back there,'' he said over his shoulder. ‘‘We've got a rider coming! Dave gave us no signal.''

Flannery hurried to his feet and to the door first, his Colt in hand. ‘‘Somebody slipped past Arken?''

‘‘Unless it is Arken,'' said Carver, right behind Flannery, followed by Kirkpatrick.

‘‘It's not Arken,'' said Beck. ‘‘Dave always rides straight in. Whoever this is keeps stopping.''

‘‘Wait,'' said Carver, straining his eyes into the grainy morning gloom. ‘‘That's Dave's roan horse, sure enough!''

They all watched the riderless horse move into sight, then stop and lower its muzzle to pick at a clump of trailside grass. ‘‘But no Dave,'' said Beck. He stared at the horse warily, then said over his shoulder, ‘‘Keep me covered.''

Stepping down and hurrying forward, Beck retrieved the big roan and led it back to the hitch rail. Having looked out along the trail and seeing no one, he said, ‘‘All clear,'' and looked the animal over thoroughly for any sign of blood or foul play.

‘‘The horse is fine,'' Kirkpatrick commented. He looked off toward the gray swirl adrift along the hilltops. ‘‘I never knew Dave to slip a saddle. Something's gone wrong up there.''

‘‘I'm going up,'' said Flannery. He stepped over and picked up his saddle he'd slung over the porch rail the night before.

As he stepped down to the horses that had been grained and watered and spent the night at the hitch rail, Beck called out, ‘‘We're all riding up there. If something's gone wrong up there, it'll be time we skin out of here anyway.''

The whole group, ten men and the woman, rode up along the hill trail, following Arken's tracks in the first light of morning. At the spot where Dave had fallen, Carver eased down onto his belly, crawled forward and looked down. ‘‘Oh no,'' he said, staring down at the dismembered corpse lying in a bloody heap, the next level down, partly hidden amid a stand of low juniper.

‘‘What is it, Billy Todd?'' Flannery asked, seeing the look on Carver's face.

‘‘It's Dave, the poor sumbitch,'' said Carver. ‘‘At least, the face looks like it might be his.''

‘‘I'm coming,'' said Beck. Having led Arken's horse back up into the hills with them, he passed the reins to Flannery, then stooped down and started to crawl out toward the broken edge. But Carver waved him back.

‘‘This ledge ain't safe out here, Memphis,'' he said, his voice stricken with grief. ‘‘Ride down to the hillside and find a way to him. We can't leave one of our own lying here like this.''

For the next half hour the riders searched until they found a thin path leading around the hillside to the ledge where Arken's chopped up body lay, piled out of sight in a juniper thicket. The men carried the body out one piece at a time and laid them loosely together on the dirt path. Standing over the gruesome remains, Beck said, ‘‘Whoever did this never meant for us to find his body. Luckily, you spotted it looking down from up there, Billy Todd,'' he said to Carver.

‘‘He was a good-natured ole boy,'' Carver said, looking down, shaking his head. ‘‘Never harmed nobody.''

‘‘Yeah, I know,'' said Beck, ‘‘and to think I let him go and take my place.''

‘‘Don't blame yourself for this, Memphis,'' said Flannery. ‘‘Dave asked to take your place. Neither he nor you saw anything like this coming.'' He dropped the saddle and bridle from Arken's roan horse and slapped it on its rump, setting the animal free. As the horse trotted away and turned to the trail leading down to the hacienda, Flannery looked all around, seeing no sign of tracks, animal or man, in the dirt or along the rocky path. ‘‘What kind of craven devil does something like this and doesn't so much as leave its tracks in the earth?''

‘‘Only something not
from this earth
,'' Cruzan said with a look of terror. He looked all around frantically. ‘‘I've heard of some awful things in these hills, things that ain't human.''

‘‘Stop it, Cruz,'' said Flannery. ‘‘Whoever did this to Arken is as human as you and me. Maybe they'd like for you to think they're not human.'' His eyes went to Soto accusingly. ‘‘That's the way they wield power over a bunch of scared, ignorant dirt farmers. But they're not devils. You'll see that if we can get our gun sights on them.''

‘‘You keep looking at me,'' Soto said coolly to Flannery. ‘‘Is there something you've got on your mind? Are you blaming me for this?'' As he spoke, his hand brushed back across his gun butt and poised there.

There it was, Beck noted, listening closely to Soto, hearing that slightest trace of an accent creeping into his voice.

‘‘Yeah, I've got something to say,'' Flannery replied, his left hand answering Soto's challenge by sweeping back his lapel and revealing a big Colt in a shoulder harness up under his arm. His right hand lay poised and ready across his flat stomach.

‘‘Get it said,'' Soto demanded.

‘‘In all the years that there's been a Hole-in-the-wall Gang, there's never been an innocent person killed, and we've never lost one of our own,'' Flannery said. ‘‘Now that you're here, we've done both inside of two days. You're damn right I'm blaming you.''

‘‘Hold it, both of you. This is not the time or the place!'' Beck said, not wanting anything to interfere with their plans. ‘‘We don't know who did this, and we don't know who could be on our back trail right now. One gunshot and this whole operation is off. Is that what you want, Flannery?'' He looked all around at the grim faces. ‘‘Is that what any of you want? I know it's not what Dave would have wanted.''

While the men spoke back and forth, Clarimonde spotted the butt of Arken's Colt lying half-hidden in the low-lying juniper thicket. She inched over to it, stooped and picked it up. Before anyone could notice her, she'd hidden the Colt beneath her serape, stepped back and breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever happened, she was no longer defenseless.

Settling the two men for the time being, Beck said to everyone, ‘‘Whatever differences any of us have right now, it's time to put them away. We've got to get Dave into the ground and get out of here. It's a long, hard ride to where we're headed.''