Flintlock (9 page)

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Authors: William W. Johnstone

BOOK: Flintlock
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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Sam Flintlock and them pulled out early this morning,” Asa Pagg said. “Chasing their dream, I reckon.”
“Leaves us shorthanded if Geronimo attacks the fort,” Captain Owen Shaw said.
“He won't attack the fort,” Pagg said. “He lost five young bucks last night. That'll scare him away for a spell and give us the time we need.”
“I wish I had your confidence, Asa,” Shaw said.
“Best Flintlock and Roper are gone,” Pagg said. “With the job we got planned comin' down soon, them boys could have messed things up for us, lookin' fer a share, like.”
“That idiot Grove has already messed things up,” Shaw said. “He brought five men with him. Have you seen them? All of them have fought Apaches and there's isn't one that looks like he'd be a bargain.”
“Me and Logan and Joe will take care of them.” Pagg looked at the two gunmen, who were lounging against a wall in the captain's quarters. “Ain't that right, boys?”
Joe Harte smiled and said, “We're a sight worse hell in a fight than Apaches.”
“Damn right we are,” Dean said. “A hundred times worse.”
Pagg smiled. “See, Captain? The boys are primed.”
“Where are Flintlock and the others headed?” Shaw said.
“A breed by the name of Jack Coffin is scouting for them, taking them north to look for a golden bell.”
“What the hell is that?”
“It's a big windy tinpans tell, about a huge bell made of gold that the old Spanish men left in a cave.” Pagg waved a negligent hand. “I wouldn't put any stock in the story and only idiots like Roper and Flintlock would.”
Shaw smiled. “You're right. We have gold closer to home, Asa.”
“No, we don't, not until the coins are lying heavy in our palms.”
“The pay wagon will be here any day now,” Shaw said. Because of his wound he'd been served breakfast in his quarters. He poured coffee into a cup from a silver pot, then said, “With the Apaches out, we can expect an escort.”
“I can take care of them as well,” Pagg said.
“You and those two, Asa?” Shaw said. “Maybe this job is getting too big, too complicated. Damnit, the fort is filling up and there's more on the way.”
“You wouldn't yellow out on me, Captain, now would you?” Pagg said.
“I'm just saying—”
“I know what you're saying, that the job is too big for you. Well, it ain't too big, it's that you're too damned small.”
“Hell, Asa, then reassure me,” Shaw said. “Say something to make me feel better.”
Pagg smiled. It wasn't a pleasant smile.
“Here's reassurance, Captain Shaw. I start to think that you're turning yellow on me and I'll kill you.” He made a gun of his hand and dropped his thumb like a hammer. “Bang! Right between them pretty brown eyes.
Comprende?
”
“Harsh words, Asa,” Shaw said.
“Yeah, and I meant every one of them.”
A tense silence stretched taut and Joe Harte decided to lift the mood.
“Hey, Cap'n,” he said, “would you do that Grove gal?”
Shaw was surprised. “I never really thought about it. No, I don't think I would.”
“How about you, Asa?” Harte said.
“Maybe. If I was drunk enough.”
“Is she worth saving after the killing starts?” Harte said.
“Hell, no. She has to die with all the rest. We're gonna blame this on Apaches, remember?”
“What about you, Joe?” Logan Dean said. “Would you do her?”
“A beautiful woman is a poem, Logan,” Harte said.
“Mrs. Grove ain't beautiful,” Dean said.
“No, she's not. And she ain't a poem either, she's newspaper prose.”
“Well?” Dean said.
“Well, what?” Harte said.
“Damnit, man, would you do her?”
“Nah. Too scrawny.”
“Did we get that settled?” Pagg said. “Or do you want to discuss it further, Logan?”
“Yeah, I guess we got it settled,” Dean said. “I wouldn't do her either.”
“Then I got the last word,” Pagg said. “There are two women in this fort and when the time comes they die with the rest of them.”
“Hell, Asa, shooting ol' Mrs. Ashton will be like killing my own ma,” Dean said.
“You never had a ma, Logan,” Pagg said.
“Everybody had a ma, Asa,” Dean said.
Pagg said, “There are exceptions to every rule.”
“And you're one of them, Logan,” Harte said, grinning.
“Kiss my arse,” Dean said.
Shaw picked up the coffeepot, looked inside and then let the lid fall, like a period at the end of a sentence.
“I think our business is concluded,” he said. “Asa, we'll meet again when the pay wagon gets here and plan our strategy.”
Pagg got to his feet. “I got a hundred thousand dollars riding on you, Shaw,” he said. “Don't let me down.”
“If they catch me, I'll hang,” Shaw said.
“If they catch us, we'll all hang,” Pagg said. He scowled at the captain like an unhappy schoolmaster. “You scared?”
“Of course I'm scared. What man can plan to murder a score of people, steal a pay wagon from the U.S. Army and not be scared?”
“Then learn to live with it, Captain,” Pagg said. “It gets easier after a while.”
“When the time comes, Asa, please, no killing until I give the word,” Shaw said. “I want to be damned sure we wrap this up without any loose ends.”
“Sure, Captain, sure,” Pagg said. He shook his head. “God, you're a pathetic excuse for a man. A damned scared rabbit is what you are.”
Pagg turned to Harte. “Hey, Joe, he denies it, but Captain Shaw here would do Mrs. Grove.”
“Or she'd do him,” Harte said.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When a man reaches a certain age, he'll sometimes catch a glimpse of himself in a mirror and stop and wonder and ask himself, “Can that old coot really be me?”
Sam Flintlock was nearly forty, not quite old enough to seek out lying looking glasses, but his face reflected in the rock pool shocked him.
Despite a growth of stubble, the thunderbird on his throat stood out in stark relief. Grotesque was the effect, a startling image that caused children to run from him and women to take a step back and stare, fascinated yet half afraid.
Flintlock stared at himself, the reflection of the flaming scarlet sky framing his head like a man gazing into a mirror in hell.
Why had old Barnabas done this to him?
“So folks will remember you, boy,” the old man had said. “A man folks don't remember is of no account.”
Flintlock grimaced, as did the man in the rock pool.
They remember me all right, Barnabas. But for all the wrong reasons.
A rock splashed into the pool and threw water into Flintlock's face. He came up fast, the Colt that had been lying beside him in his hands.
Jack Coffin didn't flinch, only glared at him.
“Why the hell did you do that?” Flintlock said, angry. “I thought it was Apaches.”
“If it had been Geronimo and his band, you'd be dead,” Coffin said. Then, “Why do you stare into the water, Samuel? What pictures do you see?”
“This face. It was the only picture I saw.”
Coffin looked behind him to where Roper and Charlie Fong were bent over, encouraging kindling to flame, then directed his attention back to Flintlock.
“The bird on your throat troubles you,” he said. “I can see it in your eyes.”
“Sometimes it does. Tonight. It troubles me tonight.”
Coffin nodded. “The Lakota call the thunderbird
Wakiya
. It means—”
“I know what it means,” Flintlock said.
“Then you know you bear sacred wings on your throat. It is not an evil thing.”
Flintlock realized he still had the revolver pointed at Coffin. He shoved the Colt back into his waistband and said, “Why are you making this your business?”
“You will not die soon, Sam,” Coffin said. “You will live long.”
Flintlock smiled. “Well, that's good to hear.”
“You have great tribulations ahead and you will suffer a wound. But the thunderbird will bring you luck and you will not perish.”
“Hey, Sammy, fill the coffeepot and bring it here, like I told you,” Roper yelled. “We got a fire goin'.”
“Be right there,” Flintlock said. He picked up the pot he'd left by the pool as Coffin said, “Old Barnabas had lived with Indians and what they saw in dreams, he saw. He knew the thunderbird would one day save your life. That is why he had the Assiniboine put it there.”
“I guess it's good to think that way, Jack,” Flintlock said.
He brushed past Coffin, but stopped and turned when the man said, “Samuel, will you steal the bell?”
“Ain't that why we're here?” Flintlock said.
“It is guarded by Death. That is what they say.”
“So you told us already.”
Coffin said nothing, but he nodded and walked into the pines.
 
 
“What were you and the breed jawing about?” Roper said.
“This and that. The bird on my throat, mostly.”
“If that had happened to me, when I got big enough to hold a scattergun I would've cut that old man in half,” Roper said.
“Coffin said Barnabas did it to save my life,” Flintlock said.
“The breed is crazy, everybody knows that.”
“Maybe so,” Flintlock said. “How's the coffee?”
Roper lifted the lid of the pot, the firelight red on his face.
“We'll let it bile some more,” he said. “She still won't float a silver dollar.”
“What do you think, Sam, will Coffin lead us to the bell like he said he would?” Charlie Fong said.
“I believe he will. He says it's guarded by Death.”
“Yeah, I know he says that,” Roper said. He smiled. “I'll gun Death like I'd gun any man who gets between me and sixty thousand in gold.”
“Death can't be killed, Abe,” Charlie Fong said. “He is not a man, he's an immortal god, and some say a demon.”
Roper shook his shaggy head. “Never expect to get a lick of sense out of a Chinaman,” he said.
“Well, I guess we'll find out soon enough,” Flintlock said.
His eyes were troubled.
 
 
Often swept by a north wind, the Chuska Mountains are restless, and around Flintlock the pines rustled, and higher the aspen trembled, made uneasy by the whispering night. Gibbering things haunted the darkness and squeaking things scuttled in the long grass.
A slight summer rain ticked across the clearing where Flintlock lay awake in his blankets. Roper and Charlie Fong slept by the sputtering fire, but of Coffin there was no sign.
Flintlock closed his eyes and wished for sleep.
He was slipping into the dim twilight between wakefulness and slumber when he felt a rough hand shake his shoulder.
Flintlock was alert instantly and his hand reached for the Colt at his side.
Jack Coffin held a forefinger to his lips then waved Flintlock to rise and follow.
Flintlock got to his feet and shoved the revolver into his waistband.
“What the hell do you want?” he said.
But Coffin, walking on feet that made no sound, had already stepped into the pines and Flintlock, wary and ready, went after him.
The misty rain did not penetrate the pine canopy but the way ahead was lost in gloom. Coffin set a fast pace and Flintlock followed him, dogtrotting through patches of aspen and unexpected open areas here and there where a few spruce grew.
The game trail Coffin followed left the aspen and again wound through pine, and Flintlock, his eyesight not keen in darkness, was slapped by low-hanging branches that stung his face and streaked cobwebs into his hair, and he cussed himself for ever leaving his blankets.
Coffin led the way to an open meadow. Then he angled to his left toward a high rock cliff that over the ages had eroded into the vague shape of a man's face—heavily lidded eyes, a wide mouth and a great V-shaped outcropping forming the nose.
As he trotted after the breed, Flintlock fancied that the face had a passing resemblance to George Washington . . . or somebody's maiden aunt.
A moment later he saw the Apaches.
Five of them stood at the bottom of the cliff, shadowy figures lost in the gloom and slanting rain. Far off thunder boomed and to the north above the Carrizo Mountains lightning scrawled across the sky like the signature of a demented god. The night smelled of ozone and wet stone.
Alarmed, Flintlock's hand moved for the Colt in his waistband, but Coffin stopped him. “Geronimo will not harm you,” he said. “He is honor bound to respect this truce.”
“Why are we here?” Flintlock said. “What's going on?”
“I told him you were a great wonder and he wanted to see for himself.”
“The bird?”
“It is powerful medicine. Geronimo says his body bears the scars of seven great battle wounds, but even those don't compare to a man with a thunderbird on his throat. Already he believes that the bird has flapped its wings with the noise of thunder and stirred the wind and rain. Geronimo will be afraid of you, but he will keep his fear hidden.”
“I'll ask you again, Jack, what the hell are you up to?”
Coffin smiled, a rare event. “Barnabas says you're an idiot, and that's why you carry the old rifle. He told me you should meet with Geronimo, because he will spare your life one day.”
“How did you speak to Barnabas?”
“He came to me in a dream. He's a rough old man and his ways are strange.” Coffin's smile went away. “Now come, we will talk with the Apache.”
 
 
“Geronimo says the thunderbird is a wondrous thing,” Jack Coffin said. “He is afraid of your medicine and that is why his knees tremble so.”
The old Apache peered through the darkness, his stare fixed on Flintlock's throat. The young warriors with him hung back, but their black eyes shone like obsidian and when thunder crashed they winced and clutched their rifles tighter.
And they glanced uneasily at the sky. The thunderbird in flight is a terrible thing.
Geronimo wore a Mexican peon's cotton shirt, breechclout and knee-high moccasins. His headband, as befit a medicine man, was bright red. Slanted across his chest he held a Springfield rifle, a barrier between him and Flintlock's medicine.
The Apache said something and Coffin translated.
“Geronimo wishes to know if the thunderbird was placed there by
Usen
, the creator of all things,” he said. “Humor him, Samuel, say it was. The Apaches don't hold the Assiniboine in high esteem.”
“Tell Geronimo that
Usen
came to me in the night and after we talked of many and great things, he left the thunderbird as a gift,” Flintlock said. “And damn me fer a liar.”
“I won't translate the last part,” Coffin said.
He spoke to Geronimo in his own language and the young bucks looked at Flintlock with wide eyes, though the old medicine man's face did not reveal his thoughts.
Geronimo talked again, then Coffin said, “Geronimo says he will remember you.”
Lightning gleamed like steel on the wet cliff and the face in the rock was shadowed. Now it looked more like a grinning skull than George Washington or anybody.
There is no word in the Apache language for
good-bye
. Geronimo and his young men simply walked away and were soon swallowed by darkness and rain.
“You did a good thing this night, Samuel,” Coffin said.
“I did nothing,” Flintlock said. “I did nothing at all.”
“Geronimo will protect you.”
“From what?”
“From death.”
 
 
When Flintlock returned to his damp blankets the rain had stopped but thunder grumbled in the distance and the black clouds shimmered with inner light.
Old Barnabas sat by the guttering fire, whittling a stick. He turned and stared hard at Flintlock and the blade of the Barlow gleamed in his right hand.
“Go away, old man,” Flintlock said. “I've got nothing to say to you.”
Barnabas rose to his feet with the athletic grace he'd possessed even when he was eighty years old. He turned and silently walked into the trees.
The old, lost smell of a great buffalo herd hung in the air.

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