Golden Riders (9 page)

She let the front of the dress fall and washed her sides, her neck, under her arms. She stood up and thought for a moment, then decided to push the dress down, to step out of it.

But a sound caught her attention and she looked around quickly. On a thin, steep path leading up between two large rocks she saw dirt and fine, small gravel trickling down.
A coyote . . . ? An animal of some sort? No!
She didn't think so. She heard a muffled grunt like someone who'd fallen and was trying to keep it quiet.

Grasping her dress, she yanked it up and held it against her.

“Who's there?” she said in shaky voice. More dirt and gravel spilled down. “Who's up there?” she demanded, in a louder tone of voice.

“Don't be scared, little lady,” a thick voice called out from up the path, more dirt and small rock spilling down. “I'm not going to hurt you any.”

Lindsey saw a large bare head appear around the side of the rock beside the path of spilling dirt. A bare arm reached out and waved at her. A broad grin appeared through a thick ragged beard. “I'm just looking at you, is all.”

“Who are you? What do you want?” She called out, backing away as she spoke, hoping her brother would hear her and come running with the goose gun.

She stared in terror as the man stepped out naked onto the thin path and stood with his hairy arms spread wide. His organ stood out short and stiff, bobbing as if on a spring.

“Don't worry none. I'm just plain ole
Arnold
here,” the man called down to her, stepping forward into full sight. “Nekked as the day I's born!”

Lindsey let out a scream.

Thirty feet away, two more men stood up from behind a cover of rock.

Lindsey screamed again. She watched the two men stare at the naked man as if in disgust and disbelief.

“Arnold, you
son of a bitch
!
I warned you!
” she heard one of the men call out. She saw him raise a
pistol toward the naked man. He cocked the gun and took aim. But before he fired, the second man grabbed his wrist and pulled the gun down.

“Don't shoot him, Roy!” she heard the second man call out. “We don't want gunshots!”

Toby Delmar, hearing his sister's shrill screams had turned from his unsuccessful hunt and ran loping down the hillside like a deer, bounding over brush and rock to get to her. Falling, he slid down a path on his rump the last twenty feet, then rose into sight at the water's edge. He saw his sister run to the side of the wagon and climb inside quickly, still screaming. He saw her through the open front of the canvas cover as she rummaged wildly among the wagon's meager contents.

The naked man advanced across thirty feet of rock ground toward her.

Without hesitation, Toby threw the goose gun to his shoulder and fired. The sound of the blast rolled and echoed out across the desert floor. As soon as he fired the big single-shot shotgun, he pulled a fresh load from his pocket and fumbled with it, trying to hurry and reload.

Among the rocks on the hillside, Roy Mangett slumped, his cocked Colt still in hand and watched the large naked gunman take the shotgun blast in his chest and fall backward onto the ground, blood flying.

“Damn it to hell,” Mangett said to Chris Weidel standing beside him. “There goes keeping things quiet.” The two looked down the hillside at Toby reloading the shotgun. Shaking his head, Mangett raised his Colt as Arnold Pulty struggled up onto his feet, bleeding all over from the load of buckshot.

“Yep,” said Weidel, “it don't matter now.” He raised a big Remington he'd drawn and held down his side.

“Adios, Arnold, you crazy bastard,” Mangett said under his breath. He pulled the trigger on his Colt just as Toby finished loading the shotgun and raised it to his shoulder. Before Toby could pull the shotgun's trigger, he heard three shots in close succession and watched the naked man bounce backward a step as each bullet nailed him hard in his bloody chest.

“Damn, Roy, that was good shooting!” remarked Joey Rose, standing up from among the cover of rock on the hillside.

“Yeah . . . ,” said Roy, “you keep that in mind, before you ever go acting a-fool like that.” He nodded down at Arnold's body in the dirt.

“Jesus, Roy,” said Joey Rose, an offended look on his face. “I'd never do nothing like that—”

“You up there,” Toby called out, the shotgun still raised and pointed up the hillside. “Drop your gun . . . keep your hands where I can see them. Walk down here,
real slow
.”

Mangett and Weidel looked at each. They gave guarded grins and looked downhill at Rose, then at the young man holding the shotgun pointed up at them.

“I know we've made what you might call a real bad
first impression
,” Mangett called down to Toby. He gestured a nod at Arnold's bloody, naked body in reference. “I'm wishing we can start all over and forget that fool ever skint out of his pants.” As he replied, he started walking slowly down the hill path. Weidel followed a step to his side. Mangett slipped his cocked Colt down into the holster on his hip.

“Hunh-uh, mister, stop right there,” Toby demanded, advancing forward, closer to his sister as he spoke. “I didn't say
holster
it, I said
drop
it!” His eyes and gun barrel moved back and forth quickly among the three, seeing the older gunman step farther away as the two descended the last few feet of the hillside.

Feeling a little safer now that she saw the big naked man was lying dead in the dirt, Lindsey stepped down from the covered wagon bed, a long butcher knife in her shaking hand.

Instead of stopping, instead of raising their guns from their holsters and dropping them, the three men remained spread out, and walked slowly closer to the wagon. Toby hurried. He got to the wagon first and stood close to his sister's side, the shotgun held firmly in his hands.

“I got this side covered, Roy,” said Joey Rose.

Mangett only nodded.

“I'm warning the three of you!” he said loudly. “Not one more step.” He placed his face on the gun stock as if to take aim.

“Now you see, young fellow,” Mangett said calmly, without slowing a step, “we're not going to drop our guns. That would be foolish.” He raised a finger as if
for emphasis. The three stopped fifteen feet away. They kept spread out a few feet between them. “We saw what that idiot did,” he said, “and you saw how we dealt with it.” He gave a slight shrug. “That's all you get.” He looked from Toby to Lindsey, then back. “You might have guessed, that ain't the first gun that's ever pointed at us.” He nodded at the barrel of the goose gun.

“Don't try nothing,” Toby warned, unrelenting, but looking a little shaky about his situation.

Mangett shrugged again.

“We won't,” he said. “Like I told you, I wish we could start all over. All we want to do here is water our tired cayuses, and ourselves. Then we're gone.” He nodded, looking back and forth between the two closely, curiously. “Say, you two look just alike, except that—”

“We're twins, mister,” said Toby, cutting him off. “This is my sister.” He still held the shotgun up, but he let the barrel slump, easing his grip a little. Mangett took note of it and stepped in closer.

“Twins, you say?” he gave a thin smile, eyeing them each up and down. “Well, I'll be damn—” he caught himself. “
Darned
, that is,” he corrected quickly, touching his hat brim toward Lindsey. He noted the big butcher knife in her hands. She gripped it tightly.

“All right, then,” Mangett said, “in the spirit of starting anew, ny name is Dave Johnson. This here is Jack and—”

“He called you Roy,” said Toby, cutting him off again, stiffening his grip on the big goose gun.

Roy winced at his mistake.

“Yes, you're right. He did,” he said. He half turned to
Joey Rose as he said, “But this one—?” He shook his head. “Hell, it don't matter,” he said, dismissing it. He turned back quickly, grabbing the shotgun barrel quickly, jerking it so hard Toby had to let it go, or fall.

Catching himself, Toby started to grab and retrieve the gun, but the gun reversed itself in Mangett's hands. The metal-trimmed butt came forward with a hard snap and struck him squarely in his forehead. Lindsey shrieked as she saw Toby fall backward and lie limp on the ground. She lunged at him with the butcher knife as she screamed. But Chris Weidel caught her by her wrist and slung her around.

“Where you going with that pigsticker, little gal?” he said gruffly. Before she could catch her balance, he dealt her a hard backhand slap across the face and wrenched the knife from her hand as she fell backward herself.

Joey Rose's gun came out of his holster. But he stood only watching now that everything was over. Stepping in over Toby, he stared down at him, at the vicious rising gash on the young man's forehead. Toby eyes were half open, turned severely upward. His boots twitched in the dirt, his shoulders jerked spasmodically.

“I believe you've killed this one, Roy,” he said.

“Did I, sure enough?” said Mangett. He stepped over and stared down at Toby with a bemused look on his face. “Damn, I expect I don't know my own strength sometimes.” He looked at the metal cover on the goose gun's butt plate and wiped a streak of blood from it with his thumb. “If he stops wiggling and carrying on, tie him to the wagon wheel. See if you can keep him alive.”

“We going to leave them here?” Rose asked.

“Was going to,” Mangett said. He looked back and forth at the twins, trying to guess their ages. “Now, I'm not so sure. I know traders south of the border would thump down a chunk of money for a real live pair of twins.”

Joey Rose, stepped in closer and looked down at the two. Lindsey had begun to recover; she sat up in the dirt, hand to the side of her burning face.

“I hear what you're saying, Roy,” said Rose. “They might pay for this girl.” He nodded at Lindsey.

“They'll pay for both, Joey,” said Roy. “Use your head. What good is one twin without the other?”

“I am using my head,” Joey replied. “I know what they'll do with a young woman. But what are they going to do with a boy?”

Roy Mangett just stared at him; Chris Weidel gave a chuff under his breath. He grinned flatly.

“You've got a lot to learn, Joey Rose,” he said knowingly.

It was dark when Toby awakened, propped back against the wagon, his hands behind his back, tied around the wheel. The front of his head throbbed with pain. His vision took a few seconds to clear, so did his memory. But as the plight of his sister and himself came back to him, he sat still, and looked around guardedly.

He saw Lindsey lying in the dirt only inches away, her hands also tied, only hers were tied in front of her. A long rope circled her waist, knotted at the center of her back. The rope ran from her back to the wagon
wheel, long enough to allow her to move around in a ten-foot radius.

Keeping his head lowered, Toby gazed sidelong through the pain in his forehead and saw the three men seated around a small fire. He watched and listened as Joey Rose stood in a crouch and refilled Mangett's tin cup with hot coffee from a blackened coffeepot.

When Joey finished filling Mangett's cup he stepped over to Weidel and offered to pour.

But the older gunman pulled his cup away.

“No, thanks,” he said. “If that little gal is as bad at everything else as she is boiling coffee, you'd better sell her quick then run like hell.”

Mangett and Rose gave a short laugh.

“She'll have to learn as she goes,” Mangett said, “just like everything else.”

Up the side of the hill came the sound of thrashing in the dried brush along the rock paths. Amid the thrashing, a sharp yelp, followed by a deep growl.

“How far off did you drag that son of a bitch?” Mangett asked Rose. Glancing at the horses tied a few yards away, Mangett saw them grow restless and mill back and forth at the sound of wolves.

While Toby listened, he felt around behind him and ran a thumb along the sharp metal edge covering the face of the wagon wheel. The hot desert sand had honed the metal as surely as a grinding wheel over the past weeks.

“I don't know,” Rose replied to Mangett with a shrug. “Far enough I reckon.”

One of the horses nickered. At the wagon, the mule stood stone still as if frozen in place.

“I hope you did,” Mangett said. “I'm not going to spend the night tossing while every wolf in the badlands is chewing and lapping at Arnold's innards.”

Weidel gave a short dark chuckle.

Toby wasted no time. He began rubbing the rope on his tied hands against the steel edge of the wheel behind him. He kept watch on the men around the fire as he worked, making sure they didn't hear him, and look around. He knew the metal edge was doing its job, he could feel it cutting into the rope. Knowing it, he rubbed faster.

Toby stopped rubbing suddenly as Mangett stood up and slung coffee from his tin cup and dropped the cup to the ground.

“That is some terrible coffee, sure enough,” he said. He looked over at Lindsey lying a few feet away. “I might better check and see what she
is and ain't
any good at.” He stepped over to her.

Toby saw his sister spring up and try to scoot away in the dirt.

“Stay away from me,” Lindsey cried out. “Don't touch me!”

But Mangett grabbed the rope and yanked her to a halt. He laughed, looking down at her. He loosened his gun belt and laid it aside.

“Settle down. You ain't going nowhere,” he said.

Toby rubbed harder, faster on the rope, his head bursting with pain. The two gunmen turned and watched over their shoulders.

Holding Lindsey by the rope, Mangett stooped down, held her face in his hand and studied it closely.

“How old are you, little darling?” he asked, tightening his grip on her face to keep her from pulling away.

Lindsey didn't answer; at the wagon fifteen feet away Toby rubbed harder, feeling the rope widening as the metal bit deeper into it.

Mangett shook Lindsey's face in his hand.

“I asked you a question,” he demanded.

“Check her teeth,” Weidel called out with a dark laugh.

“I will,” said Mangett. “Open your mouth,” he ordered the frightened girl.

“Hunh-uh!” Lindsey shook her head.

Mangett squeezed her cheeks until she was forced to open her mouth. He put his thumb against the edge of her teeth and ran it back and forth.

“Ouch,” he said with a dark laugh. “She's a young one, Chris.”

“Stop it, Roy,” said Joey Rose, sounding nervous at such rough play.

Mangett ignored Rose. At the wagon wheel Toby continued sawing back and forth madly, knowing where this was headed.

Mangett let go of Lindsey's face. He reached down and unbuttoned his fly.

“How old are you, young lady?” he asked.

Lindsey lied quickly, hoping, praying. . . .

“Thirteen,” she said in a shaky voice.

Mangett slapped her, not hard, a warning slap.

“Damn it, Roy, don't do this!” said Rose. His hand
went to the gun on his hip. But he stopped as Weidel gave him a warning stare.

“I know you're not twenty, girl,” Mangett said. “I know you're not eighteen.” He grabbed the top on her dress, twisted it in his fist, ready to tear it away. “But I know
damn well
you're not thirteen.”

“Please,
please
,” she sobbed, struggling against his grip.

“If you're going to lie, I ain't going to listen,” Mangett said. He tightened his grip.

Toby sawed madly at the rope.

But just as Mangett started to rip the dress away, a terrible yelping, growling, snarling sound came from the hillside so intensely that it pulled Rose and Weidel to their feet.

“Jesus!” said Weidel. “A wolf fight.”

“Damn it to hell!” said Mangett, springing up, buttoning his fly quickly. “I ain't having this.” He stepped over, grabbed his gun belt up from the dirt and slung it around his waist. “How damn far did you say, Joey?”