Snake Eyes (9781101552469) (25 page)

“I'll show you who's a damned fugitive,” Wagner said and flipped his slicker open to draw his sidearm.

Brad pulled his pistol from his holster and cocked it on the rise. He leveled it at Wagner's chest, plumb center, and squeezed the trigger. The Colt belched flame and spewed lead and sparks within ten feet of Wagner. The barrel of the foreman's pistol was still half sheathed in the holster when the bullet struck him just left of his heart.

He jerked to his right with the force of the bullet and gasped a dying breath. The bullet ripped through ribs, nicked a corner of his heart, and exploded the veins and arteries connected to that organ. Blood spurted from the wound and splattered his slicker with dozens of red splashes as if the raincoat had erupted with a skin rash.

Wagner's hand went limp, his fingers splayed away from the butt of his pistol, and the .45 slid back into its holster.

Wagner pitched sideways out of his saddle, and he fell to the ground. Rain beat a muffled tattoo on his slicker as a thin plume of smoke spiraled upward out of the barrel of Brad's gun.

“Payback,” Brad murmured.

Dub and Finnerty rode up. They both looked down at the body of Wagner.

Then Finnerty reached for the rifle in his boot.

“I'd think long and hard before you pull that rifle out,” Brad said. “Wagner and Schneck murdered a whole bunch of women and children, plus a couple of sheepherders, up in Poudre Canyon. I gave Wagner a chance to surrender and he went for his gun. I shot him.”

“You a lawman?” Finnerty asked.

“Detective,” Brad said.

Finnerty's hand rested on the butt of his rifle, but he made no move to jerk it from its boot.

“This ain't none of our business,” Dub said. “Let's get back to them cows.”

“Good advice,” Brad said. “Or else you can join Wagner there on the ground.”

“Mister, I don't know who in hell you are, but you don't sound like no star packer to me.” Finnerty grabbed the butt of his rifle. Dub reached over and grabbed his partner's wrist.

“Don't chance it,” Dub said to Finnerty.

“I'll give you three seconds to turn your horses around and ride back to that ravine,” Brad said. “Otherwise, I empty two saddles.” He cocked his pistol and they all heard the click as the hammer locked into place.

“We're goin', mister,” Dub said. He turned his own horse and grabbed the bridle on Finnerty's horse and turned the horse's head.

The two men rode off through the rain and disappeared from sight.

Brad ejected the empty hull and replaced it with a fresh cartridge. He set the hammer down between two cylinders of the magazine and holstered his pistol.

He rode off, heading south, as the rainfall got heavier and gusts of wind began to lash at him. He closed up his slicker and pulled his hat on tighter.

“One down,” he said to his horse, “and one to go.”

Ginger whickered softly, dipping his head as a foil against the wind.

Sheets of rain staggered across the trail and washed away all the tracks.

But Brad knew that the night was as black and wet for Schneck as it was for him. He would not seek shelter but ride through it until he caught up with Schneck and his trail boss. If they stopped to get out of the storm, that would make Brad's journey shorter. If not, he would catch up to them eventually.

He was certain of that. All Schneck was thinking about was his cattle.

And when Schneck found them, Brad would find Schneck.

That's when he would kill a snake if the man didn't surrender.

Brad had a strong hunch that Schneck would not give himself up.

And he didn't give a damn.

As far as he was concerned, Schneck didn't even deserve a choice of whether to surrender or die.

Payback was payback.

And Schneck owed a big debt.

Vivelda and Thor rode into the lower valley late in the afternoon. The clouds had all drifted out of the mountains and were hovering over the foothills, their fluffy folds turning blacker by the minute, as if the sky itself was becoming enraged.

Mike and Joe saw the two and walked away from the chuck wagon with coffee cups in their hands.

Joe reached up and helped Vivelda alight from the horse she was riding.

“I have bad news,” Sorenson said. “Vivelda here is the only one who escaped alive.”

He dismounted and stood there before the two dumbstruck, bewildered men.

Vivelda began to sob. Joe put his arm around her but could not speak.

“All dead?” Mike said.

Sorenson nodded. “Every last one. Horses, men, women, and all the little kids.”

“Oh no,” Mike said, in disbelief.

“It—it's true,” Vivelda said. “It was awful. I—I ran away. Brad and Thor found me.”

“I want to hear the whole story,” Mike said. “Did you see what happened, Sorenson?”

“No. Brad and I got there too late to save anyone. We tracked Vivelda here and found her hiding in some rocks.”

“Where's Brad?” Joe asked.

“He's tracking Schneck and his foreman, Jim Wagner. We got two of the men who shot and killed all those people.”

Joe crossed himself.

“Tell me what happened, Vivelda,” Mike said. “Do you want some tea or coffee? Something to eat? You're all cut up.”

She shook her head. Her legs were weak, and she started to collapse, but Joe grabbed her and held her up.

Vivelda told them all that she had seen and heard from the beginning of the attack until she ran away and was found by Sorenson and Storm. She sobbed throughout the entire account, and both of the Basque men were touched by her painful recollection.

“You're going to need four horses to take down there to pull those two wagons back up here,” Sorenson said. “I'll help you gather up the dead and load them into the wagons. It's not a pretty sight.”

“Most of the men are in the upper valley with the sheep. Joe and I will get the horses and go with you. Vivelda, will you be all right? Renata and Nestor can look after you.”

“I—I'll be all right,” she stammered.

Joe led her over to the chuck wagon where a curious Renata was standing with her husband, Nestor, wondering why Vivelda had come back with that tall blue-eyed man with the funny accent.

Joe explained what had happened, and Renata made the sign of the cross with her shaking hand while Nestor's eyes filled up with tears. Renata enfolded Vivelda in her arms and hugged her while they both wept.

Joe walked back and followed Mike and Thor as they headed to the stables leading the two horses.

“We can use this one on one of the wagons,” Mike said.

“We might have to use a mule,” Joe said. “I got a horse and Mikel has a horse, but . . .”

“We have enough,” Mike said, cutting his friend's dialogue short.

Within a half hour, the three men were ready to make the journey down Poudre Canyon. Joe rode over and said good-bye to Nestor, who told them that Renata had taken Vivelda into the cabin where she had last stayed.

“It'll be dark before we get back, Nestor,” Joe said. “You take good care of Vivelda.”

“We will,” Nestor said, his eyes still brimming with tears.

It was turning cold, and the canyon was filling with shadows by the time the three men came to the place of the slaughter. Joe and Mike were horrified at what they saw, women and children scattered, stiff and dead, around the wagons, the horses beginning to reek, the two dead men looking like wooden mannequins. Buzzards flapping up into the remaining radiant shafts of sunlight on broad black wings, coyotes skulking off into the timber. It was hard for the men to look at those bodies that had already been violated by the scavengers.

Joe and Thor struggled with the traces on the dead horses and swung the wagon tongues back straight. They hooked up the horses and one mule to the two wagons, then helped load the dead into the passenger wagon. They did this with solemn reverence, their faces grim and stolid as fire-blackened iron.

When Joe and Mike lifted the stiff corpse of Leda and carried her to the wagon, both men wept uncontrollably and without shame.

“Such a tragedy,” Joe sobbed.

Mike could not speak. His throat was constricted as if he had swallowed a gallon of astringent. He could not look at Leda's pale and bloodless face, the wound in her body, the dried blood, the soiled dress.

He thought of happier times when she and her husband were part of his family. He thought of the night before he had sent all the women and children down the mountain where he thought they would be safe. He cursed himself for that misguided deed. And his hatred of the cattlemen, especially Otto Schneck, rose black and monstrous in his mind.

Yet he knew that such blinding hatred was dangerous. Such a rage could lead to further bloodshed that would solve nothing.

He thought of what his father had told him once when he was a young boy living in the Pyrenees, a shepherd boy with his own little flock to tend.

Enos Garaboxosa was then a very old man, in his sixties, and Mikel was about thirteen.

“Guard what you think, Mikel,” he said after his son had been fighting with another shepherd boy. “If you hate, you give off hate and hate comes back to you. If you give off love, then love comes back to you and wipes out the hate.”

“But that boy hit me,” Mikel had wailed.

“And you hit him back. So, his hit made you hit. His anger gave you anger and you gave him back his anger. You must break such chains or you will live a sad and lonely life.”

“I do not see how,” Mikel had said to his father.

“That is the way of the universe, my son. There is an energy in the heavens, a force that comes in sunlight and in rain. It is a force that we cannot see, but it guides our lives here on earth. The Father of All made it so. We, like the trees and the ocean and the rivers, the grass, the sheep, are all influenced by the stars and planets high up in the sky. The moon raises the rivers and the ocean tides, and it raises our blood as well.”

“I do not understand such things, Pap,” Mikel had said.

“Ah, nor do many, but if you believe in that hidden force which is in all things, you will live a long and happy life. It is this force which makes a seed grow into grass or into a flower. It is this force which tells the bee to make honey and the mothers to make milk for their babies. It is a powerful force, and it is invisible. You cannot see this force, but it is everywhere, and it is in all things.”

Mike wanted to kill all the cattlemen, but in that instant he heard again his father's words. They came to him over the years and he knew, in the deepest part of him, that his father had much wisdom and that he was right. It did him no good to hate. That is what killed all these people. Hate.

Only now, hate had a different name.

That name was Schneck.

The Snake.

He and Joe laid the body of Leda in the wagon, and each said a silent prayer for her eternal soul. Thor carried the body of a small boy up to the wagon and laid him next to Leda.

It went on that way as the sun fled the sky and streamed its rays into the aching blueness, showered a shimmering golden glow behind the snow-clad peaks and left the shadows to grow and thicken in the canyon, to darken the Poudre to a crystal mélange of subdued colors except for the foaming whitecaps that seemed impervious to darkness or shadow. They flocked the tumbling waters like small mantles of white lace.

When the wagons were loaded, the men turned them and headed back up the canyon. Joe drove the supply wagon while Mike took the wagon of the dead, with their horses tethered behind each. Thor rode ahead. He felt as if he were in a funeral procession. The buzzards had disappeared from the sky, and along the river, there was a feeling of solitude and emptiness. He did not know any of the dead, but he saw the effect they had on the two men, and he could feel their grief, the deep sadness in their hearts.

It was full dark when they reached camp, and he helped Joe and Mike lay a tarp over the wagon with the dead and tie it down.

“We will take turns standing guard over our people,” Mike said.

“I will take the first watch,” Joe said.

“I will take a watch if you'll let me,” Sorenson said. “I feel some obligation.”

“You need not,” Mike said. “But you can relieve me in the morning. You have had a longer day than I.”

“That is true,” Joe said. “You eat, Thor, and you get some sleep, eh?”

“I could use some shut-eye, I reckon,” Sorenson said.

They ate a solemn supper that Renata prepared for them, and Vivelda sat with them and picked at her food. She kept glancing over at the tarp-encased wagon with a disconsolate look on her face.