Valley of the Gun (9781101607480) (24 page)

Barcinder had edged up closer. He craned his neck, took a close look and nodded in agreement.

“It's his, no doubt about it, Dad,” he said quietly. Noting the big gun in Dad's hand, ready to fire, Barcinder figured it was time he put some distance between himself and Jumpe, at least for the moment. “Now that I see this, some other things I've suspected him of are starting to fall into place.”

“Oh?” Dad said, without taking his eyes off Uncle Henry Jumpe.

“I have reason to believe his plans were to first kill Young Ezekiel. Then kill you and take over. All he has talked about lately is becoming one of our saints, taking his own wives, overseeing our mercenaries, getting his hands on our money, is what I'm thinking.”

Jumpe stared, dumbfounded.
What the hell . . . ?

“Uncle Henry, you dirty rotten son of a
you-know-what
!” said Orwick.

Son of a you-know-what?

Sam stared at Orwick.
Unbelievable.

“Wait, Dad!” Jumpe shouted. “Barcinder's lying too!”

But Orwick didn't wait. The big pistol began to buck in his hand. Bullets flew. The first shot nailed Jumpe in his chest, spun him around and slammed him backward into the guard on Sam's right. The second shot whistled past the Ranger's shoulder.

Sam, knowing he was still the enemy, raised his bootheel as he had planned to earlier and drove it down on the boot toe of Brother Shelby on his left.

Brother Shelby bellowed in pain and jackknifed forward; Sam grabbed the rifle from his hands, stood up just as Jumpe's body fell to the stone floor and slammed the rifle butt full force into the other guard's face. Another bullet sliced through the air as the guard flew backward, knocked out cold.

Sam swung the guard's rifle toward Dad Orwick, but only caught a glimpse of him as Orwick vanished, candlelight and all, into the blackness behind the smaller cave. The glow of the candle diminished as his boots resounded down a long stone tunnel. Sam raised his rifle for a shot, but had to swing the barrel toward Barcinder, who stood to the side of a smaller cave, the pistol raised from his waist, firing repeatedly in blazes of blue-orange flame.

“Men! Help me!” Barcinder shouted as he fired.

The rifle bucked in Sam's hands. Barcinder flew backward into the darkness. As Sam levered a fresh round into the rifle chamber, a small door carved into the stone wall swung open on the right side of the room. Sam flung himself behind the large chair as bullets barked toward him from the guns of Frank Bannis, Morton Kerr and Riley Dart.

Sam got off three shots as the outlaws scrambled for cover, seeing both Barcinder and Uncle Henry Jumpe lying dead on the floor.

“Frank, we're jackpotted!” Dart shouted, not knowing how many guns they were facing. He ducked behind a large stone embedded in the wall beneath a burning torch.

“By God, I'm not!” shouted Kerr. He made a stand in the open on the stone floor, his Colt blazing toward the Ranger. Brother Shelby, who had fallen to the floor holding his toes, rose into a crouch and tried to make a dash for cover. But a shot from Kerr's Colt stopped him cold. He hit the floor, a large Smith & Wesson sliding from a belly holster and skittering across the stones.

Sam took aim on Kerr, and in doing so caught a glimpse of Mattie Rourke as she ran in through the open side door. She didn't even slow down as she raced through the darkened grotto and vanished into the tunnel. Still on Orwick's trail, Sam realized. Kerr's shots ricocheted and whined, making long streaks of sparks in a black world of stone. Sam lifted himself from behind the thick bullet-riddled chair and sent a bullet slicing through Kerr's chest. The gunman fell out of sight.

From behind the large table where Orwick had stood, Frank Bannis fired three quick shots at the Ranger, the bullets kicking up more splinters for the tall-backed wooden chair. Sam ducked, then came up and pulled the rifle's trigger on an empty chamber. Bannis heard the empty rifle click, and came running.

Out of bullets. . . .

Pitching the rifle aside, Sam grabbed Shelby's Smith & Wesson and fired two shots into Bannis' chest. The outlaw fell to his knees and wobbled there, his gun gone, his bloody hands clutched to his ribs. Hearing gunshots from deep inside the tunnel, Sam rose into a crouch and ran across the room in their direction, knowing Mattie was in there.

Frank Bannis watched him disappear into the tunnel.

“Isabelle,” he said as loud as he could, although it amounted to not much more than a strained whisper. Then he fell forward onto the cold stone floor.

Chapter 24

On his way across the body-strewn room, the Ranger jerked a burning torch from its stand on the wall. Then he picked up the rifle Frank Bannis had left lying on the floor behind the large table and ran on as two more shots echoed from deeper down the tunnel.

“Mattie. Mattie, it's me, Sam,” he called out loudly, knowing how quickly she would pull a trigger. “Don't shoot. I'm on my way.”

From thirty yards deeper down the descending tunnel, Mattie's voice echoed back along the stone walls.

“I'm down here, Ranger,” she said. “I've got him pinned. He's going nowhere but Hades.” She lay pressed against the stone wall in a chiseled-out indention, her torch burning low on the floor beside her. The flames illuminated ancient drawings of stick figures, one group chasing another with what looked like clubs and rocks in an ancient endless battle, their rewards unrevealed.

A few yards away, Dad Orwick lay behind a rounded pine timber that time had turned stonelike, to the color of sand. He peeped up over the timber at the Ranger's words, his hood still hiding his face.

“Mattie . . . did he say?” he called out, his extinguished candle standing in the dark at his side.

“Yes! I'm Mattie Rourke!” she ranted in reply. “Remember me, Dad? Remember everything you did to me? You beat me into submission, forced yourself on me, mounted and bred me like I was a beast in season—me and my poor sister, Isabelle! Your wife who you've now thrown aside?”

A silent pause fell over the darkness.

“Oh my dear God,” Orwick said finally.

Mattie levered a round angrily into her rifle chamber and fired a wild shot in the direction of his voice.

“You have no
dear God
, you pig!” she shouted as the bullet whined off the petrified timber in a streak of orange. “You never did have! All you ever had were fools who followed you. But they can't help you now, Dad. I am the
past
, come back to kill you!”

The Ranger heard her ranting as he drew closer. He slid to a halt and ducked against the wall at the sound of the rifle shot. He held his burning torch low, out at arm's length at his side. He heard Orwick's voice across the cavern he found widened before him.

“Mattie,” Orwick said. “You were never my wife. Neither was Isabelle. You've made a mistake coming here.”

“You can't talk your way out of this, Dad!” she shouted. Another rifle shot rang out. “We were your first wives, Isabelle and I. Now you've replaced her with more scared, hungry children.”

“You two were
never
my wives, Mattie! I had to turn Isabelle away for younger wives. She's my
mother!”
he shouted louder, to be heard above Mattie's ranting.

The Ranger froze at Orwick's words, the torch flickering at his side.

Silence fell again. This time it hung in place for what seemed like a long time, as if the darkness had run out of air and now had to struggle for breath and regain its essence.

“Oh, dear God,” Mattie said finally. A realization came over her. Then the silence returned, taking another moment to harness its sanity. “Ezekiel . . . ? Ezekiel Orwick?” she said in a hushed tone.

“Yes, I'm Ezekiel, your nephew,” Orwick said. “Only now
I am
Dad Orwick in the flesh. Dad went to glory last year. He sits at God's right hand. Both his name and his ministry are rightfully bequeathed to me, his firstborn. It has all been sealed and bound by the hand of God, through his most holy Council of Angels.”

Mattie fell silent again; the Ranger left his torch on the ground and inched over closer to where Mattie's torch lay burning in the dirt.

“Aunt Matilda?” Orwick called out. “Can you see now why I had to unbind Mother Isabelle—even a couple of my older half sisters who God had instructed Dad to take as wives years earlier?”

“Yes,” Mattie said quietly. “Stand and let me see you.”

“You won't shoot?” said Orwick.

“No,” Mattie said, “I won't shoot. Not if you're my nephew Ezekiel.”

The dark figure rose from behind the rounded timber and pushed the hood back from his face. Mattie looked at him, recognizing him from his childhood, seeing the family resemblance. She sighed.

“What became of my children, Ezekiel?” she asked.

He shook his head and spread his hands slightly.

“We were never told,” he said. “You must remember how things were done back then. People were kept in the dark about most things.” He added in a deep sincere tone, “That's something I'm going to change, once I get things the way I want them. No more hiding the truth, misleading people.”

“Does anyone know you're not
the
Dad Orwick yet?” Mattie asked.

“Not yet,” he said, “other than my closest saints. But they'll be told, when I decide the time is right—when I know they can accept it.”

From the cover of darkness, the Ranger cut in.

“I hate to interrupt a family reunion,” he said, “but like you said, we're still enemies, you and I, remember?”

Orwick half crouched, gun still in hand, and looked around in the darkness.

“Ranger? I believe you now,” he said. “I know it wasn't you who killed Young Ezekiel. Is there any way we can square things between us? Now that I'm Dad, I want to get along with the lawmen across the border the way Dad himself always managed to do.”

“Not a chance,” Sam said. He edged along the wall in the darkness, the Smith & Wesson up, cocked and ready. “You rob banks and kill people. You're leaving here today with your hands behind your head, or your bootheels dragging dirt. You decide which suits you.”

“The Goble's bank money is on the table out there. Take it back,” said Orwick.

“I plan to,” Sam replied.

Before Orwick could say anything more, Mattie suddenly blurted out, “Young Ezekiel is the boy I shot at the water hole?”

“What, you shot my son?” Orwick shouted.

Sam saw him turn back in the direction of Mattie's torchlight, still crouched, still ready to fire.

“Oh my God! I didn't mean to,” Mattie said standing, stepping out of the indentation into the small circle of flickering fire. “I didn't know. . . .” She held her rifle, but Sam felt doubtful she would use it right now.

“Mattie, stop, look out!” he shouted, seeing Orwick taking aim at her.

Without waiting another second on her, Sam fired. His shot hit Orwick dead center of his long robe and sent him staggering backward a step, still aiming at Mattie. Sam fired again, and this time Mattie swung the rifle into play and fired with him. Both of their shots hit Orwick, knocking him backward to the stone floor. His gun fell in front of the timber. The two stood ready to fire again, seeing a bloody hand reach over the rounded timber and feel around weakly for a moment. Then the fingertips fell limp to the ancient dirt.

Stepping over to where Mattie stood, Sam reached out and took the smoking rifle from her hands.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I shot my nephew—Isabelle's son. I shot her son, and her grandson,” she said. She shook her head. “Vengeance has betrayed and misused me, Ranger.”

“Vengeance betrays and misuses us all, Mattie,” Sam said quietly. He stuck the Smith & Wesson down into his waist.

“How will I ever tell poor Isabelle?” she said.

Sam took a breath and looked at Orwick's body lying on the stone floor.

“You didn't kill her grandson. Jumpe did,” Sam said. He nodded toward Orwick's body. “As for this one, was it your bullet or mine that killed him? Who can say?” He paused. “Some folks who wouldn't tell her about this at all,” he said.

“I—I don't know that I can be one of those folks,” Mattie replied. She stared at Orwick's body. “Would it be wrong not to tell her I shot him, Ranger?” she said.

“I'm not the one to ask, Mattie,” Sam said. “That's something you'll have to settle with someone who knows more than I do.”

“You mean God,” she said.

Sam didn't reply. Instead, he turned toward the tunnel. But before taking a step, he saw another flickering torch moving fast toward them. He stepped back and pulled Mattie around behind him.

Suddenly, in the tunnel opening, Brother Caylin stood tall and broad-shouldered, a thick club in his right hand, a burning torch in his left.

“There you are,” he growled at the Ranger, stepping forward. A thick white bandage covered the left side of his face. The spoon handle still stuck out from his eye socket. A circle of blood on the white bandage surrounded the protruding spoon. “Before they remove this from my eye, Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack, I'm going to beat you to death as bad as I can! Then I'll be able to lie down and let them do what they need to do.”

A club . . .

Sam stood still, staring at him, the rifle leveled at him waist high.

“I'm holding a rifle aimed at you,” Sam said, wondering if maybe the big man didn't see it.

“I know it. I've got one good eye, still enough to see how to properly bash your brains out,” he said, moving closer a step at a time.

All right. . . .

Without raising the cocked rifle, Sam squeezed the trigger. The bullet hammered the big man in the chest, sliced through and out his back in a red mist of blood. The big man grunted, staggered, but righted himself and kept walking. Sam fired again. The second bullet hit him two inches below the first. More blood misted behind him. He kept coming, staggering more, but with the club and torch still raised chest high.

That does it. .
 . .

Sam raised the rifle to his shoulder and took aim. This time when he pulled the trigger, the bullet hit Brother Caylin in the center of his forehead. He tumbled backward and fell dead on the floor.

Sam stepped forward and looked down at him; a cloud of rifle smoke gathered overhead on the cave ceiling. Out of habit, he toed the thick club away from the man's hand.

Bare hands . . . then a knife . . . Now a club, Sam reflected. He shook his head and looked at Mattie.

“Did this man not own a firearm?” he said quietly.

“I don't know,” Mattie said. “There's so many people here I never knew, never seen before.”

Sam shook his head again. He considered some of the people he'd encountered, Brother Caylin, Brother Shelby, Elder Barcinder, Isabelle . . . and Ezekiel Orwick himself.

“I have to say, Mattie, these people are the strangest folks I've ever come across. What makes them all act this way?” he asked.

Mattie stood silent for a moment, until he turned and looked at her questioningly.

“What way?” she asked.

Seeing she was serious, Sam said, “Never mind.” He picked up the burning torch Caylin had dropped, and the two walked into the long tunnel back the way they came. On the way past Orwick's desk, Sam picked up the canvas bag, checked it and saw the pile of stolen bank money inside. With the bag in his free hand, they walked on.

—

Outside the large house, at the bottom of the stone pathway in the center of the compound, Sheriff DeShay and Arlis Fletcher sat atop their horses, their rifles covering the few remaining churchmen who had not vanished when they rode in. The churchmen sat bunched together on the ground, their rifles and shotguns in a pile off to the side. DeShay and Fletcher kept watchful eyes moving around the wide valley and up toward Orwick's house on the rocky hillside.

Behind DeShay, Lightning Wade Hornady lay draped over his horse's back, a long, thick string of black blood hanging from a gaping hole in his head, bobbing slowly toward the ground. A skinny cat sat licking at the black puddle of blood in the dirt.

“Here they come now,” Fletcher said, seeing the Ranger and Mattie Rourke walking down the path, looking back and forth, appearing surprised to see no fighting going on, just the sheriff and his posse man watching over the churchmen as if they were a small herd of sheep.

DeShay raised his free hand to let Sam know everything was all right.

“I see you got the bank's money,” he called out.

“Looks like I've got it all,” Sam said, “some of the payroll money too.”

“That's welcome news,” DeShay said. As Sam and Mattie stepped down the last few feet of hillside, DeShay turned his horse quarterwise to the Ranger.

“Can you believe this?” he said. “We rode right in here without a shot fired. A lot of them cut out at the sight of Hornady's brains dripping out of his head. But mostly the rest just carried their guns over and gave them up. Said they didn't know what Dad wanted them to do, so they weren't going to do a damned thing.”

“Pardon me, Sheriff,” a churchman said from the ground, his hands chest high. “Nobody used
that
word when you arrived.”

“Oh? What word?” DeShay asked.

“You know,” the man said.
“D-a-m-n-e-d,”
he spelled out.

Sam and DeShay just gave each other a bemused look.

Fletcher slumped in his saddle, shook his lowered head and said in disgust, “I don't know—is there any difference in
saying
than there is in
spelling
? Don't it both mean the same thing?”

“Easy, Arlis,” said DeShay. “It's these folks' religion. They've got the right to it.”

“Yeah,” said Fletcher, “pay me no mind. I'm still sick from unripe mescal.”

Sam and Mattie looked at Fletcher.

“It's true. He's got the worst mescal sickness I've ever seen,” the sheriff said. “He's puked up stuff would kill a lizard.”

Sam turned and looked at Wade Hornady's body.

“How'd he get here? What happened to him?” he asked, eyeing the torn duster hanging down from the dead man's shoulders, the brimless hat hanging by its string.

“He came following us at a full run,” DeShay said. “We set a rope line between a pine and a cactus. What a jolt he took.”