Showdown at Gun Hill (17 page)

“Hope that wasn't your dog, Mr. Siedell,” Anson called out as Siedell and his men stared at the unusual sight.

“It is not,” Siedell said regally, dismissing the matter. “I take it you're Bo Anson? The colonel telegraphed about you. Welcome to my rail-spur operation.” He spread a hand to take in the station, freight dock and entire town.

“
Gracias
, Mr. Siedell,” said Anson. “The colonel told me you needed more men—sent me to round some up.” He nodded at the men on either side.

Siedell eyed the men over, noting that he'd never seen a harder, tougher-looking bunch of gunmen. There were no familiar faces among them, which he found curious.

“Very good.” He nodded. “And where is the colonel?” he asked. “I want to show him my new Pullman ornament.” He gestured up to where three men were busily mounting the canvas-covered Gatling gun.

Even with the canvas hiding it, Anson could tell what was underneath. Seeing the print of the Gatling gun alone gave him pause. He knew that one man firing and one loading the big gun could wreak havoc on him and his gunmen. This was no place to launch an attack on Siedell. Anson decided to let the matter simmer a little while longer—get Siedell out of town on the
desert. Once there he could take the man captive and demand whatever amount he wanted from Siedell's businesses.

“I'm afraid I have some bad news about the colonel, Mr. Siedell,” he said. He motioned for Ape to throw the blanket off Colonel Hinler's body. “The sons a' bitches killed him only last evening, before me and these men got there to stop it.” He reached up, pulled off his hat and clasped it to his chest. “All we want now is the chance to kill them low, no-good dogs.”

Siedell looked at the colonel's body lying strapped down over the saddle.

“You're going to get that chance, Bo Anson,” he said. “I'm sending you and your men right back out there come morning.”

“You do that, Mr. Siedell,” said Anson. “And you've got my word we'll catch every one of them.”

“Let's make something perfectly clear, Bo,” Siedell said, already calling him by his first name, Anson noted. “I do not want Max Bard and his band of cutthroats simply
caught.
I want them killed, to the man.”

Anson stared at him for a moment, nodding.

“That right there,” he said, pointing a finger at Siedell, “is exactly what I've been hoping to hear.” He straightened in his saddle. “We'll be ready to go come morning. Nothing would please us more than you riding side by side with us.”

Siedell cocked his head a little to one side, visibly not pleased with Anson's words.

“You forget yourself, Anson,” he said. He gestured his cigar toward all the men around his Pullman, at the
Gatling gun atop the car. “When I travel I go with my
entire army
. We all may meet you and your contingent on the trail. But you're new here. Do not assume yourself to be my right-hand man.” He looked around at his detectives. They gazed flatly at Anson and his gunmen.

Bo Anson's face reddened.

“No, sir, Mr. Siedell,” he said, keeping a cordial tone even as anger raged in his chest. “Please excuse me. I only want to do the best job we can for you.”

“I understand,” Siedell said, but there was an edge of superiority in his voice. “Now take these men over there where I can summon you when you're needed.” He pointed out at a wide, barren sandlot at the far edge of town. “I'll have some elk stew sent over. I'll come and meet each of you later. That will be all,” he added.

Summoned? When he was needed . . . ?

Anson only sat staring for a moment, keeping his rage and humiliation from spilling over to his gun hand.

“Elk stew sounds just fine, sir,” Anson managed to say tightly without betraying his rage.

Curtis Siedell took the horse carrying the colonel's body and watched as the gunmen rode toward a barren stretch of ground at the far end of town and swung down from their saddles. He smiled to himself and drew on his fresh cigar as Arnold Inman held a long sulfur match to the end of it.

“Thank you, Arnold,” he said through the smoke looming around his head. He continued to stare where Anson and the gunmen stepped down to make camp. “Did Virgil get the meat chopper set up?”

“He did, sir,” Inman said, shaking out the match. “He was only waiting on word from you to take off the canvas cover.”

“Good, let's leave it mounted for the time being,” Siedell said. He nodded his agreement at two men who stepped out and led the colonel's body off the street.

“Covered or uncovered, sir?” said Inman.

“Covered, of course,” said Siedell. “Too much dust here. I would have only uncovered it for the colonel. But leave it mounted for now and make sure the ammunition crate is full.”

“Yes, sir,” Inman said, giving Siedell a curious look. “I'll see to it right away.”

Siedell remained staring out at Anson and his men as Inman hurried around the side of the Pullman car and climbed the iron rungs leading up to the roof.

At the sandy ground where the gunmen began setting up camp, Ape Boyd stood staring back at Siedell, a hundred and fifty yards between them.

“What are you looking at, you pillow-assed poltroon, son of a dripping—” Ape snarled under his breath.

“That's enough, Ape,” Anson said, cutting the wild-eyed gunman off.

“All right,” Ape growled. “But I don't know why you didn't let me shoot holes in him while I had him in pistol range.”

“Because then
you too
would be dead, Ape,” Anson said, knowing the futility of trying to reason with Ape Boyd.

“Yeah, so?” Ape said, turning his stare away from Siedell, looking around at Anson.

Anson shook his head and took a patient breath.

“I want you alive, Ape,” he said. “Don't worry, you'll get all the killing you crave, as soon as I get things set up just right here.” As he spoke, some of his men gathered around him, their bedrolls under their arms, rifles in hand.

“Holt, you worked the rails,” he said to one of the gunmen who'd joined him on the trail. “How much fuel do you say is in the wood bin?”

“Enough to run easy for three days, maybe,” said
Gus Holt, who stood staring back at the big black steam engine and its three-car train.

“How about running hard?” Anson asked.

“A day, a day and a half,” Holt said. “Run any harder than that, you'd likely blow the boiler.”

Anson nodded and said, “How often they have to run that boiler just to keep the water ready?”

“In the heat of the day every two or three hours,” Holt said with authority. “Likely they'll stoke it up and let it idle all night, though, keep the water boiling enough to get them going if they needed to.”

“I see.” Anson nodded and looked back at the station.

Lou Stiles, another gunman who'd joined him along the trail, gestured down at the bedroll he held clamped under his arm. Saddlebags draped his shoulder.

“Before I throw down here, Bo,” he said, “are you sure we're here for the night?”

Anson stared at him for a moment.

“Throw down, Stiles—and all the rest of you,” he said, looking around at the other gunmen. He raised a finger for emphasis. “But always be ready to drag up and leave when you're riding with me.”

Bedrolls hit the ground with muffled flops. Lou Stiles grumbled to himself under his breath, “That's about the sort of answer I expected.” He kicked his bedroll out and pitched his saddlebags down on it.

At the rear of the gathered gunmen, Lyle and Ignacio Cady sat down stiffly in the dirt, having no bedroll, no saddlebags. They looked around at the gunmen rolling out their blankets.

“We're in a dire state of want,” Lyle said. “Anson strikes me as not giving a damn about the bribe money.”

“He strikes me as not giving a damn about us,” said Ignacio. He wrapped his forearms around his shins and leaned his head on his raised knees. “If we get a chance tonight, I say we skin out of here while we can.”

“He'll kill us if he catches us, Iggy,” Lyle warned.

“Why?” Ignacio asked in a blunt voice.

“I don't know
why
,” said Lyle. “Because he's
crazy
, I guess. He just will.” He lay on his side in the dirt and drew himself up in a ball, his arms crossed on his chest. “If we live through this, I say we ought to go kill Edsel Centrila, for putting us here.”

“Put Edsel Centrila out of your mind,” Ignacio said with resignation. “We're not going to live through this.” He stared intently at his brother. “Look around us, Lyle. These are mostly new faces. Anson's gunmen don't appear to last long.”

“Jesus, Iggy, you're right,” said Lyle, looking all around in the evening light. “You and I are lucky we've made it this far.”

*   *   *

After midnight, three of Anson's men walked crouched and shadowy among the sleeping figures on the ground near the low-burning campfire. Hands reached out and shook the sleepers by their shoulders until they awakened and sat up on their bedrolls.

“The hell is this?” asked a bleary-eyed gunman named Chris Jackson. Instinctively he jerked a long-barreled revolver from under his head.

“Get up. We're leaving,” another gunman named
Randy Meeks whispered close to him. “Wake the man next to you.” As an afterthought, he said as he turned away, “Loosen your trigger finger—it's going to get bloody tonight.”

“All
right
!” Jackson whispered in reply, excited at the prospect of a gunfight. He sprang up into a crouch himself and kicked the man lying rolled up in the blanket next to him. “Get up, Marvin! We've got gun work to do,” he growled under his breath.

As the men awakened, staying low, gathering their guns and bedrolls, Bo Anson, Ape Boyd and three other men hurried along on the ground beside the freight dock, guns and knives in hand. Making their way under the cover of darkness, they hurried toward the idling steam engine and stopped and looked up at the glow of a cigarette perched like a firefly atop the big engine.

“Ape, he's all yours,” Anson said sidelong. “You'll only get one chance, so cut deep and fast.”

“I'll cut his damn head
off
, if you want me to, Bo,” Ape said, barely keeping his voice down to a whisper.

“Shh, keep quiet,” Anson warned. “Now get going.” He and the other two men watched as Ape disappeared along the side of the dock. A moment later, they saw him climb upward almost in a crawl and make his way over to the idling engine. He ascended its iron rungs to the top. They waited, almost holding their breath, until they saw the small ball of cigarette fire fall and break into sparks down the black-shadowed side of the locomotive.

“Ape got him,” Anson whispered to the two men
beside him. “Here we go.” As the three slipped along the side of the dock, on the Pullman platform one of Siedell's guards stood up and stared out into the darkness, his senses piqued.

“What you looking at, Felix?” another guard asked, sitting sprawled in a folding chair, his boots propped up on the iron handrail. He held a tin cup of coffee in his gloved hand. A rifle leaned against his side.

“Thought I saw something out there, Herb,” said Felix Otto. He kept searching the darkness as he spoke.

“You're jumpy as a damn cat,” Herbert Shiller said with a little chuff. “Sit down and have some of this coffee before the pot gets cold on us.”

“I'm just doing my job,” Otto said, still searching the dark as he backed up to his folding chair and sat down. He laid his rifle across his knees and relaxed a little. “I could have sworn I saw something moving around.”

“Might've been a coyote,” said Shiller. “They get bold and brazen when there's been elk gutted and skint for dinner.” He patted a hand on his belly. “Can't say that I blame them.”

“If I am
jumpy as a cat
,” said Otto, “I think we all have good reason to be. Did you get a good look at those new gunmen—I mean
detectives
—who rode in here?”

“I saw them,” said Shiller with a short little grin, “but I didn't let the sight of them ruin my day.”

“Hell, neither did I,” said Otto. “But I would feel better if they had rode on a few miles instead of bedding down right next to us.”

“Best get used to them,” said Shiller. “That's the kind of gunmen Mr. Siedell wants riding for him until he gets shed of Max Bard and his men.” He paused and drew a Colt from its holster and twirled it on his finger. “Besides, we ain't exactly schoolboys ourselves, are we?”

Otto relaxed a little and gave a low chuckle.

“Hell no, I expect we ain't at that,” he said, patting his repeating rifle on his knees.

*   *   *

Inside the plush Pullman car, Curtis Siedell lay on his bed with a cigar glowing in the dark. At his left side a young local woman named Violet Kerns lay naked outside the bedcovers. Siedell's left hand lay on the small of the woman's back. His fingers tapped lightly, idly as he stared up in thought and blew smoke at the car's ornate ceiling.

When a scuffling of boots sounded on the rear platform, he cocked an eye toward the door and listened closely, smoke looming around his head. After a moment, all was quiet, and he started to go back to his thoughts. But a tapping on the door caused him to sit up and listen again. He stood up and wrapped his robe around his nakedness.

“Yes, Otto, what is it?” he said, a little annoyed, knowing it had to be Felix Otto, certain that Herb Shiller would never interrupt him while he had a woman in his bed.

When he heard no response from the other side of the door, he walked over to it, cursing under his breath.

“This better be important, damn it,” he growled. He swung the door open and saw no one standing there, just the two guards sitting upright in the folding chairs. He gave them a questioning stare when they didn't even look around at him. “Are you two asleep?” he asked angrily.

Still no answer . . . ?

“I better not see either of you—” His words stopped short when he saw Shiller's hand fall limp at his side and dangle there.

“My God!” he said, seeing blood run down Shiller's fingertips and pool on the platform floor.

“Uh-uh-uh,” Bo Anson said, stepping around from beside the door, clamping his boot down to keep Siedell from slamming it shut. “It's just me,” he said coolly. “Waiting to be
summoned
, King Curtis.” He held a cocked Colt only inches from Siedell's face. As Anson took a step forward, Siedell stiffened.

“What the devil are you doing, Anson?” Siedell said, trying to sound in command, even though he fully realized he wasn't.

“You didn't come to see us,” Anson said, still stepping forward as Siedell stepped backward. “We figured we'd come see you.” He glanced at the naked woman lying asleep on the bed.

“I hope we didn't interrupt anything.” He grinned. Behind him the other two men stepped inside and closed the door. On the bed the woman stirred only slightly and mumbled, but never awakened.

“Nobody saw nothing,” said one of the new gunmen named Frank Castor.

“Good,” Anson said. “Holt, you and Harvey get up the engine. Make us ready to back out of here. There's a switch track a hundred yards out. Back us into it when we get there, and cut the other car loose.”

“You got it, Bo,” said Holt. He and a gunman named Harvey Clausen hurried away through the front door of the Pullman.

Anson looked all round at Siedell's plush private car with admiration.

“My, my,” he said as if in awe. On a silver tray stood a selection of whiskey, brandy, wine, an open leather bag of brownish Mexican cocaine. “It's almost a shame killing a man who has so much to live for.”

“I don't know what you're up to, Anson,” said Siedell, “but it's not going to work. My men will chop you to pieces. Did you see what I have mounted overhead?”

“I saw the Gatling gun,” said Anson. He reached his rifle barrel up and tapped it three times on the ceiling. Immediately Ape replied with three taps of his rifle butt. “But that's my little meat chopper now.”

“What is it you want?” Siedell said, sounding less unyielding now that he saw Bo Anson and his men were building an upper hand on him. “Has Max Bard put you up to this?”

“Huh-uh,” said Anson, “although we did once talk about taking over your operation, see how long we could run it before anybody realized you were dead.” He shook his head. “No, this is all my idea. I'm even going to kill Max and his men and collect the reward you've got on their heads—the reward says
redeemable at any rail station belonging to Siedell Enterprises.” He grinned.