Desert of the Damned (4 page)

Breen, done with his counting, reluctantly extended a fat sheaf of currency.

“Just put it on the floor there and dig out the rest of it.”

Breen’s jaw went slack. His eyes began to goggle. For one graphic moment he didn’t say anything; then the hatred and suspicion, the black fury that was in him, surged beyond restraint of caution and he cried in a raging half-strangled voice: “I
give
you your share! You want the
whole goddam business?”

Reifel tipped up his gun snout and thumbed back the hammer.

It looked as though Breen would blow up right there. His hands spread like talons. The shirt pulled tight across his swelled-up chest and his tiger stare turned bright with violence. Murder was in him all right in that moment but it was stoppered by the bore of that gun focused on him. Snarling obscenities he jerked the money from his pockets and slammed it on the floor. “You won’t git away with it! You won’t never git out of these goddam mountains!”

“Now shove those counted bills back in your pockets and get out of those clothes.”

Breen’s snarl skreaked off in mid-career and he stiffened. The upper half of him leaned forward to peer at Reifel disbelievingly.

“I ain’t goin’ to fool with you much longer,” Reifel told him. “Put my pile in your pockets and get out of them duds.”

Breen licked his lips. He sidled off a step nervously. “Y’ mean plumb nakid?”

Reifel, scowling, started forward. Breen almost tore the shirt getting out of it.

Three minutes later, with Breen’s clothes on him, Reifel called out to Turner, “I’m leaving your six hundred right here in the doorway.”

He didn’t bother hunting for the gun Breen had dropped but he picked up the gunbelts and Breen’s other pistol and heaved them through the feedroom window.

He went outside then and untied the blue roan.

He never looked back. He acted like a man who couldn’t get away fast enough. Almost before he’d settled into the saddle he was slashing the horse with the knotted reins. He left town, pointed west, with the roan wide open.

N
OT FOR
an instant did Reifel imagine he could escape by heading west. He was laying the foundation for an appearance of panic which he hoped might deceive — at least for the moment — not only Bo Breen but anyone else who’d taken note of his departure. He’d done some pretty dumb things in his time, he suspected, but trying to fool himself hadn’t ever been one of them.

He was in a tight spot.

Schmole’s killing, out of all relation to its actual significance, would be seen as the culmination of a trend the civic-minded of this region had long been threatening to wipe out. They would envision it as a challenge and it would band them all together in a spirit of indignation. Where erstwhile they’d been muttering they would now become vociferous. Past connections would be abandoned, past relationships forgotten. The Law would be spurred to action and it took no effort on Reifel’s part to understand what would happen.

There’d be hell along the owlhoot.

And this was only a part of his problem. Turner he could forget about but powerful needs would be at work in Breen. The man’s need to cover his own trail would spur him on where shame might not.

And Ben was graveled by his own code of conduct. While perhaps not strictly orthodox, this was strict enough to rub his pride raw. He had never been able to abide the kind who dug for the tules at the least hint of danger. Yet here he was backed into a corner from which flight seemed the only plausible answer.

It turned him furious, for by his own way of looking at things this placed him too exactly on a footing with the country’s untouchables.

Yet he saw no way around it. He knew he couldn’t in his present condition expect to stand off the law and Breen too. Nor could he stand many grueling hours in the saddle.

The hole Breen’s shot had torn through his chest looked pretty damned ugly. The slug hadn’t lodged and he had patched the thing up as well as he’d been able, but he could tell from experience there was going to be fever and the only safe place for a man with a fever was flat on his back.

Ben Reifel cursed.

It would be sheer suicide to hole up here. Within two days these roundabout mountains would be crammed full of scalp-hunting jaspers. Nor would Breen be content to keep his mouth shut when a few choice words dropped in some dim barroom could so effectively get Ben taken care of for him. All the law had to go on right now was what Perkins and his passengers might happen to remember of his probable height and general build plus, of course, his clothes and the horse he’d been forking. If he had paid Breen off in the coin his duplicity so richly merited he’d be having no occasion to remain in the saddle. He’d be free to go or stay as he chose. The law would be hunting a buckskin horse and the duds he’d dropped, rock weighted, in the creek behind Tim Foley’s.

Chicken hearts had no place on the owlhoot. He should have turned that new page long ago. He should have put a slug through Breen’s damn head, then dressed him up as Curly Ben and left the buckskin’s reins in his fist. That would have been the end of this deal.

Instead he had left Breen free to squawk. And squawk he would — no doubt about that. The skunk would make his pitch to the first piece of tin he could latch an eye on. And anything he’d leave out wouldn’t be worth mentioning.

Irascibly Reifel checked the roan and pulled up and took a long look behind him. He hadn’t been riding more than two or three minutes but the horse had covered considerable ground. Town lay well below and behind him, its lights like jewels in the moon-dappled night. He listened hard but caught no sound of pursuit.

Breen, of course, would have to get some clothes on before he would dare set up an alarm. He’d never risk being seen bare naked. That would lose him too much face in this camp. He would get on some clothes and probably wait for the rest of the crew to ride in. Then he’d spin some yarn about Reifel cutting west with the gang’s buried swag and, after that, if the gang caught up with him Ben wouldn’t have a chance for talking.

If the law came first he’d make sure they found out the man they were hunting was Curly Ben. They could get his description from anyone then and, acting downright surprised, he would probably admit to having seen the fugitive heading west like a bat out of Carlsbad. “Was on a blazed-face roan that looked a lot like that Bugler horse of Turner’s.”

Breen would find a way. Or he would make one.

He might even admit to having had a few words with him. Or an argument maybe which had ended in gunplay. There were plenty of lies Breen could tell which would give him the chance to guess Ben had been wounded. And once they knew that …

He could feel the rough bite of the hemp around his neck. There was just one possibility. If he could get far enough east before Breen’s jaw got to working there was an outside chance he might still make it clear while they were scouting these mountains. Or get enough of a start that he could hole up some place they had already searched.

But to get east at all he’d have to backtrack through Paradise. If anyone lamped him he would be a cooked goose.

He would be cooked anyway if he kept traveling west. Turner hadn’t supplied him with that rifle he’d requested. He had no provisions and barely enough shells to fire three rounds from his belt gun. Against a man with a rifle you could do about as well with a peashooter.

Even if he eluded Breen’s bunch and the law — which wasn’t hardly likely — there was still this hole in his chest to be reckoned with. When the fever set in he’d probably go off his rocker. Or he sure as hell would when the buzzards started gathering. He had seen guys before after the buzzards….

Reifel swore.

Already his cheeks were beginning to feel flushed.

He kneed the roan around and sent him jogging back toward camp. He kept his eyes peeled grimly.

He reached the camp’s west edge without trouble. Three shacks away, and to the left of the road, the front of Carradine’s showed in the moonglow.

He slowed the horse to a cautious walk and turned him right through a stand of scrub ash that took him back of the buildings across the road from Turner’s. He clung to the gloom of the wind-tossed foliage until he saw the dark bulk of the gulch’s south wall before him and then moved east with both ears cocked.

Crickets made a steady throbbing and the clatter of branches was an eerie thing but one which helped considerably to keep his progress secret.

The ash gave way to sycamore, the roundabout darkness deepened and he knew he must be getting pretty close to the rear of Babcock’s. He could feel his muscles contracting as strain laid a heavier hold on his nerves and he raked the gloom with desperate eyes. Someplace pretty near here now was where he’d ground hitched Bucky….

He slowed the gelding’s pace still more.

If the buckskin hadn’t wandered off he might catch their scent and whinny. Or someone may have found him and, even worse, be waiting now for Ben’s return.

But these were things he had to chance. Unless he were willing to risk the street he had no other means of getting east of his town except by continuing the way he was headed.

He lifted the sixgun out of his holster. This was a sample of life on the owlhoot. This was what it meant to be hunted, to know no rest, no security ever. Eternal vigilance was the price a man paid for continued living the moment he stepped outside the law. No place you dared call your own. No friends.

Cold sweat broke through the pores of Ben’s skin. He commenced to see spots in the darkness, to conjure up shapes where none existed. The gloom seemed to curdle; it appeared to close in on him with a creeping stealth that shortened his breathing and once, when the wind tapered off for a moment, he thought to catch the rumor of booted feet making toward him.

Every nerve in his body was twisting and jerking. Dilated, his eyes stabbed wildly about. Blind panic was reaching its hands out for him when, about to scream, he got hold of himself with a lifting anger which recognized this for what it was. He slipped his gun back in leather and, trembling a little, urged the roan circumspectly forward again.

The wind turned more violent, slamming through the trees with the roar of a waterfall, tossing their tops about, whipping them savagely. It was impossible to hear any lesser sounds but there wasn’t as much danger from nickering now. No man could hear their approach in this racket. It seemed a good time to hunt for the buckskin. If he could get hold of Bucky he would have his rifle and that was something that was certainly worth trying for.

So he reined the roan gelding north for a bit in the direction of the street until he saw lights gleaming from what he took to be Babcock’s. He was twenty feet away before he found it wasn’t Nick’s at all but the dancehall two doors east of it. Even then he might not have guessed where he was except a leather-lunged voice abruptly bawled from the guts of it: “Grab yo’ podners fo’ chase that rabbit!” and a wail of fiddles rode the wind.

He eased Bugler off and wheeled him under the trees. He urged him into the thickest of shadows and held him there while he tried to decide if the advantage of recovering his Winchester would offset the time it might take him to find it. His need for such a weapon might become very urgent, especially if pressed or if driven to cover. But suppose he went back and then didn’t find it?

Time wasn’t going to stand around for nobody. With each passing moment Reifel’s danger was mounting for there was no way of guessing what a snake like Breen would do. He might be content to wait for the law but if the other boys showed he might decide to use them — and he could damn well do it. He had only to tell them he had caught Ben Reifel plundering their cache and he would have them hellbent to murder Ben for him. He could show them the empty hole beneath the floor and tell how he’d found Ben fighting with Turner. He could say he’d tried to stop him — that they’d exchanged a couple shots — he could tell them Ben was wounded.

Breen could do it all right.

Or he might even now be riding for the law with some other fine story brewed up to finish Ben. Whichever thing he did Breen would be right along with them, determined to make certain Ben had no damned chance to talk.

Nor would the law be picking any daisies, either. The star-packing tribe would be wild to avenge Schmole and, while it might take them weeks to associate this camp with the bunch they were after, if they happened on Breen’s trail they might be very near here now. It was a cinch Breen hadn’t stopped to hide his trail any.

The wind wasn’t cold yet Ben Reifel shivered. He had a moment of giddiness then when the moon-dappled shadows whirled round and round him and he thought by God he was going to pitch from the saddle.

After that he didn’t worry any more about the rifle. He concentrated what was left of his strength on staying in the oxbows and getting the hell away from this camp. If only his head would quit trying to float off he thought he might make it despite loss of blood and the white-hot ache of that hole in his chest.

The shock of impact had long worn off and each jolting step the gelding took was a searing agony impossible to avoid. The waves of nausea were getting worse and the intervals between them shorter and shorter. Even with both hands clamped to the horn he grimly doubted being able to stay another hour in the saddle. His face felt like it had caught a bad sunburn and was hot as fried leather.

He couldn’t recall getting clear of town but he was a long way out of it if he could judge by his surroundings; he couldn’t glimpse its light on his backtrail or catch the glow of their reflection against the star-studded sky. He morosely reckoned he’d dozed off for a spell and thought that damned careless in a man whose neck was near a rope as his was.

How far he may have come he had no means of knowing. He could not wholly be sure if he were still in the canyon though he was traveling low ground because he could sense the vague bulk of cliffs to the left of him.

He seemed to be following some kind of trail or, at least, the horse seemed to be, though it stopped now and again to crop at especially tempting clumps of sedge grass.

A crazy laugh cracked out of his swollen lips at the thought of sedge grass in country like this, but the damned stuff looked like sedge sure enough, and it was just about then that he became aware of the gurgling of a creek and pulled up, startled. There was no sedge growing along Silver Creek — so what water was this?

He peered owlishly about, trying to get his bearings.

If it wasn’t Silver then it must be Turkey Creek, though he had no recollection of passing the mesa where Bill Graham’s bunch had used to hang out. And this worried him, for if he were drifting off into spells like that there was no telling where he might wind up. No place good, that was certain!

Suppose he fell off his horse or got thrown or something? He knew how long he would last afoot in this kind of country in the shape he was in. About as long as a June frost in Texas.

God, but the splash of that water sounded good!

He was burning up.

He knew he should be thinking of how the hell he might stay in this saddle till the gelding fetched him to one of those isolated ranches scattered along the eastern slopes of this range, but all he could think of right now was water. Every burning inch of him cried out for it; and he was turning Bugler into the willow brush screening this trail from the creek bed when he caught the near tinkle of spur chains. He stopped Bugler sharply, clamped a hand to his nostrils, every fibre of him suddenly alert and hard listening.

There was no doubt about it. There were riders approaching along the creek’s farther bank. He could plainly hear the screak of their saddles, the splashing thud of shod hoofs in the shale of the ford.

He forgot about water. If he’d been given more warning he’d have tried to run for it. But it was too late for that; this bunch would blast him from the saddle before he’d gone forty paces. He dared not even attempt to hide lest, discovering him, these riders beyond the willows the more readily jump to the conclusion of his guilt.