the Strong Shall Live (Ss) (1980) (12 page)

"It needs a woman's touch, that's all. The right woman. Needs a woman like you, a pretty woman who's neat about the house and who will cook his chuck and keep the place revved up. I know he'd be speakin' for himself, but he's a shy man, not given to talking much."

"Tom! Listen! For God's sake!" His voice trailed off helplessly as Galway continued.

"He makes a little 'shine now and again, but I've never seen him drunk. Don't drink no more than to be sociable. He owns seven hundred head of steers and a milk cow."

"Did you say a milk cow?" The woman looked thoughtful. "If he's got a milk cow he's a sight more of a plannin' man than most. Mister, I reckon you've talked me into it!"

"Mount up, then!" Galway said cheerfully. "Mount up right there behind Piute and put your arms around him and hang on tight. By the time you get to his place on the creek I think he'll be convinced!"

Piute Bill, his eyes vicious and his face red, helped the young woman up behind "him. She flashed a smile at Galway which suddenly faded.

"Now see here! Ned wasn't much and he beat me when he was drunk. I wasn't sorry to lose him, him bein' what he was, but we were all married up, fittin' and proper!"

"Of course, ma'am!" Galway looked shocked. "I'll ride into Ten Mile as soon as I get you to the house. We will have a preacher out here before sundown. The barkeep was tellin' me there was a preacher there now. I'll get him. Meanwhile," he added, "you better just bake a wedding cake. Somehow without a cake a wedding doesn't seem real, does it now?"

"Maybe the preacher won't come?" Bill suggested hopefully.

"He'll come!" Galway said. "I'll see to that!"

"I just bet you will!" Piute said savagely.

Whistling, Tom Galway turned his sorrel toward Ten Mile. "Horse," he said, "I'd make a poor Cupid but sometimes there's things a man just has to do. And besides, she had a scatter-gun."

When Galway rode into Ten Mile the only sign of life was around the Gold Camp Saloon. Galway tied his horse and pushed through the bat-wing doors. There were six men in the place. One sat alone at a table. He was a red-haired man, short and stocky, with a pious look.

Galway stepped to the bar, noticing one of the men was Digger Cassidy, another was Tinto Bill.

"Rye," Galway ordered, and jerking a thumb toward the redhead he asked, "Is that the preacher?"

"It is." The bartender looked up curiously.

"If you've got a horse," he said to the preacher, "better get him saddled. I've got a wedding for you."

"A wedding? Of course, but--?"

"Everything is going to be all legal and proper, this woman wants to marry this man, and by this time," he chuckled, "he'll be wanting to marry her. If she doesn't have him convinced by now she doesn't have the taking ways I think she has. She looked to me like a woman with a mind of her own."

"Who's gettin' married?" the bartender asked.

"Piute Bill. He's been looking for a wife for a long time."

"Who's marryin' him? There ain't more'n three or four single women in the county!"

"Piute Bill," Galway replied carefully, "is marrying Mrs. Ned Wavers."

Tinto Bill choked on his drink. Digger Cassidy turned for the first time and looked right at Tom Galway. "Who?" he demanded, unbelievingly.

"Mrs. Ned Wavers and Piute Bill," Galway repeated.

"They are getting married this evening. Soon as I can get the parson up there."

"But she's married I" Tinto Bill said. "She's got a husband, and any time she hasn't, I guess I'd be first in line."

"There must be some mistake," Cassidy said. The light was not good and Galway's hat shaded his face somewhat. "Ned Wavers is--"

"Dead," Galway replied. "Mrs. Ned Wavers has been a widow for almost four hours."

Digger Cassidy spoke softly. "You say Ned Wavers is dead."

"That's right, Digger. Seems some of your boys drove off some horses of mine last night, so I rode over to drive them back. Robbins made a fool play and Gorman and Wavers tried to back him up."

Silence filled the room. The preacher swallowed, and the sound was loud in the room.

"Mrs. Wavers didn't want to be left behind and as she kind of hit it off with Bill they decided to get married."

He was watching Cassidy, and a few feet to one side, Tinto Bill. "By the way, Cassidy, I told that other fellow, the one who's alive, to suggest you keep to your side of the creek and I'd keep to mine. I went to a good deal of trouble to catch and train those horses, and I don't want to lose them."

Neither Cassidy nor Tinto Bill had moved. Without turning his attention from them, Galway said, "Rev'rend, get your horse. I'll be with you in a minute."

The preacher vanished through the door.

Cassidy spoke suddenly. "You can't get away with this! I don't care if you are Galway of Tombstone!"

"Take it easy. If we shoot it out now, I'll kill you. Maybe you'd get me, but that wouldn't help you any. You'd be just as dead, and I never missed nobody at this range."

"Why should you get killed over horses you didn't have no business stealin' and a woman who's obviously been living a dog's life?"

"I didn't steal your damn horses!" Cassidy said. "It was that fool Robbins!"

"I can believe that," Galway agreed. "In fact, I'd of bet money on it. So why should we shoot it out? It makes no sense. Now I'm going to leave. I've got to get that preacher back up on the mountain because that's a decent woman yonder."

"Damn it, Galway!" Cassidy protested. "Why couldn't you have come when I was to home? Once I knew those were your horses I'd have driven them back!"

"All right," Galway said, "I'll take your word for it." Deliberately he started to turn his back and when he did, Tinto Bill went for his gun.

Galway palmed his gun and shot across the flat of his stomach. Tinto, his gun up, fired into the ceiling, took two slow steps and fell on his face, his gun skidding along the floor.

Digger Cassidy stood very carefully near the bar, his hands in plain sight.

"Looks to me, Digger," Galway said, "like you're fresh out of men. Why don't you try Montana?"

He turned abruptly and walked out.

Digger Cassidy moved to the bar and took up the drink the bartender poured for him. "Damn him!" he said. "Damn him to hell, but he can sure handle a gun!"

He downed his drink. "Bartender," he said, "if you ever go on the road, steer clear of hotheaded kids who Slink they are tough!"

Tom Galway rode up to the stone cabin with a saddle-sore preacher just after sundown. Piute Bill, in a clean shirt and a fresh shave was seated by the fireplace with a newspaper; from the stove came a rattle of pans.

The future Mrs. Piute Bill turned from the stove. "You boys light an' set. It surely isn't right to have a wedding without a cake!"

"I couldn't agree with you more, ma'am!" Galway said. "Nobody likes good cooking more than me."

Piute Bill stared at Galway, the venom in his eyes fading under a glint of humor. "You durned catamount! You durned connivin' Irish son-of-a-..."

"Ssh!" Tom Galway whispered. "There's a preacher present!"

*

HATTAN'S CASTLE

Hattan's Castle, a towering pinnacle of rock that points an arresting finger at the sky, looks down on a solitary frame building with a sagging roof, a ruined adobe, and several weed-covered foundations, all that is left of a town that once aspired to be a city.

On a low mound a quarter of a mile away are three marked graves and seventy-two unmarked, although before their wooden crosses rotted away a dozen others had carried the names and dates of pioneers.

East of the ruined adobe lies a long and wide stone foundation. Around it there is a litter of broken bottles and a scattered few that the sun has turned into collector's items. Twenty feet behind the foundation, lying among the concealing debris of a pack-rat's nest, is a whitened skull. In the exact center of that skull are two round holes less than a half-inch apart.

Several years ago the scattered bones of the skeleton could still be seen, but time, rain, and coyotes being what they are, only the skull remains.

Among the scattered foundations are occasional charred timbers, half-burned planks, and other evidences of an ancient fire. Of the once booming town of Hattan's Castle nothing more remains.

In 1874, a prospector known as Shorty Becker drank a stolen bottle of whiskey on the spot. Drunk, he staggered to the edge of the nearby wash and fell over. Grabbing for a handhold hepulled loose a clump of manzanita and the town of Hattan's Castle was born.

Under the roots and clinging to the roots were flecks and bits of gold, and Shorty Becker, suddenly sober, filed on one of the richest claims in the state's history.

Nineteen other lucky gentlemen followed, and then a number who were only fairly lucky. Hat-tan's Castle went from nothing to a population of four thousand people in seven days, and three thousand of the four came to lie, cheat, steal, and kill each other and the remaining one thousand odd citizens, if such they might be called.

Spawned from an explosive sink of sin and evil, the town lived in anarchy before the coming of John Daniel. When he arrived the town had found its master. With him were the hulking Bernie Lee and a vicious little murderer who called himself Russ Chito.

Marshal Dave Allen went out in a burst of gunfire when he had words with John Daniel. Daniel faced him but fired only one shot, the others were fired by Russ Chito and Bernie Lee, in ambush on opposite sides of the street and taking the marshal in a deadly cross fire.

Shorty Becker was found dead two days later, a gun in his hand and a bullet in his brain. John Daniel, a self-appointed coroner, pronounced it suicide. Becker was found to be carrying a will naming Daniel as his only friend and heir.

Daniel turned the working of the mine over to others, and opened the Palace Saloon & Gambling Hall. From the Barbary Coast he imported some women and a pair of bartenders skilled in the application of mickeys, knockout drops, or whatever most suited the occasion.

Four years passed and Hattan's Castle boomed in lust, sin, and murder. The mines continued to prosper, but the miners and owners remained to spend, to drink, and to die. The few who hoarded their gold and attempted to leave were usuallyfound dead along the trails. Buzzards marked their going and if a body was found it was buried with the usual sanctimonious comments and some hurry, depending on the condition of the remains. John Daniel, aloof, cold, and supercilious, ruled the town with a rod of iron.

Chito and Lee were at his right hand but there were fifty others ready to do his bidding. Immaculate always, coldly handsome and deadly as a rattler, John Daniel had an air of authority which was questioned by none. Of the seventy-five graves on boot hill at least twenty had been put there by him or his henchmen. That number is conservative, and of those found along the trail at least half could be credited to John Daniel's cohorts. Then Bon Caddo came to town.

He was Welsh by ancestry, but what more he was or where he had come from nobody ever knew. He arrived on a Sunday, a huge man with broad, thick shoulders and big hands. His jaw was wide and hard as iron, his eyes a chill gray and calm, his head topped with a wiry mass of rust-colored hair. The claim he staked four miles from the Castle was gold from the grass roots down.

Within two hours after the strike Russ Chito dropped in at the Palace. John Daniel stood at the end of the bar with a glass of sherry.

"Boss," Chito said, "that new feller in town struck it rich up Lonetree."

"How rich?"

"They say twenty thousand to the ton. The richest ever I"

John Daniel mentally discounted it by half, possibly even less. Even so it made it extremely rich. He felt his pulses jump with the realization that this could be what he was waiting for, to have enough to be free of all this, to buy a home on Nob Hill and live the life of a gentleman, with no more Russ Chitos to deal with.

"Invite him in. Tell him I want to see him."

"I did tell him, and he told me where I couldto." Russ Chito's eyes flickered with anger. "I'd like to kill the dirty son!"

"Wait. I want to talk to him."

Bon Caddo did not come to Rattan's Castle and 'his gold did not leave the country. Every stage, every wagon, and every rider was checked with care. Nothing left the country but Bon Caddo continued to work steadily and hard, minding his own affairs, uninterested in the fleshpots of the Castle. He was cold to all offers from John Daniel, and merely attended to business. Efforts to approach him were equally unsuccessful, and riders always found themselves warned away by an unseen voice and a rifle that offered no alternative.

At the beginning of the third month, John Daniel called Cherry Creslin to his office. She came at once, slim, beautifully curved and seductive hi her strictly professional way.

"You like to ride," Daniel said, "so put on that gray habit and ride my black. How you do it is your own affair, but get acquainted with Bon Caddo. Make him like you."

She protested. "Sorry, John. Get one of the other girls. I want no part of these drunken, dirty miners."