from the Listening Hills (Ss) (2004) (24 page)

Too much was known about Butcher Schaum. The man and his henchmen were cruel as Yaquis. They were killers, outlaws of the worst sort. Three years ago they had held up the bank in Silver City, killing the cashier and escaping with several thousand dollars. They killed one of the posse that followed them. In Tascosa, Dave Cornish had shot a man over a horse.

In Cripple Creek, where Brad Murphy had known Asa Moffitt, Asa was suspected of a series of robberies and killings. Escape from the canyon was now a case of out of the frying pan, into the fire. These men were not wondering what was in the sack; the only thing that could be that heavy was gold.

That gold would more than pay Brad for the three lonely months in the box canyon. It was gold enough to buy the ranch he wanted, and to stock it. His stake, the one he had sought for so long, was here. Now he and Ruth would have their own home. And a home for their son as well.

He suffered from no illusions. These men would kill him in an instant for his gold. They had delayed this long only because they had him, helpless, or practically so. Of course, there had been Asa's manner when he mentioned his name. Asa Moffitt knew about Brad Murphy. And Moffitt's queer reaction at the mention of his name had been a warning to Schaum.

"Ever have any more trouble with the Howells crowd?" Moffitt asked.

It was, Brad knew, a means of telling Schaum who he was. They would remember. His gunfight with the three Howells boys had made history.

"A little," he replied shortly. "Two cousins of theirs follered me to Tonopah."

"What happened?" Butcher Schaum demanded. Moffitt's question had told him at once who Murphy was.

"They trailed me to a water hole near the Dead Mountains. I planted 'em there."

Butcher Schaum felt a little chill go through him at the calm, easy way in which Brad Murphy spoke. Schaum was ruthless, coldblooded, and a killer. Moreover, he was fast enough. But he had never killed three men in one gun battle, nor even two.

For this reason, nobody was going to move carelessly around Murphy. After all, Murphy knew who Schaum was. He knew what to expect. Getting that gold wasn't going to be that simple. Getting it would mean killing Brad Murphy.

THE SHACK WAS tucked in a cozy niche in the rocks. The level of the plateau broke off sharply, and under the lip of rock, the shack was built of rocks and crude mortar. It was not easy to approach, hard to get away from, and was built for defense. Any posse attacking the Schaum gang here could figure on losing some men. You couldn't come within fifty yards of it without being under cover of a rifle. And that approach was from only one direction.

They swung down, and Butcher noted how carefully Brad kept them in front of him. He did it smoothly, bringing a grudging admiration to Butcher's eyes. This hombre was no fool. The sack never left his hand.

He followed them into the cabin.

"I'd like a horse," he said. "My wife and kid must think I'm dead. This is the longest I've been away."

"Too late to travel now," Cornish said. "That trail's plumb dangerous in the dark. We'll get a horse for you in the mornin'."

HIS RIFLE BESIDE him, Brad sat at the table as Moffitt went about getting supper. The sack of gold lay on the floor at Brad's side.

"How do we know you won't tell the law where we're holed up?" Cornish demanded.

"You know better'n that," Murphy replied shortly. "You boys gave me a hand. I never--" he added coolly, "bother nobody that don't bother me."

It was a warning, flat, cold, plain as the rocky ridge that lined the distant sky. They took it, sitting very still. Moffitt put some beans and bacon on the table and several slabs of steak.

Brad Murphy had chosen a seat that kept his back to the wall. It had been a casual move, but one that brought a hard gleam to Asa Moffitt's eyes. His thin, cruel face betrayed no hint of what he was thinking, but he knew, even better than the others, what they were facing.

Idly, they gossiped about the range, but when the meal was over, Butcher looked up from under his thick black brows.

"How about some poker?" he asked. "Just to pass the time."

Cornish brought over a pack of cards and shuffled. Murphy cut, and they dealt. They played casually, almost carelessly. They had been playing for almost an hour, with luck seesawing back and forth, when Asa suddenly got up. "How about some coffee?" he said.

Brad had just drawn two cards, and he looked up only as Asa was putting Brad's rifle in the rack.

"I'll just set this rifle out of the way," he said, with a malicious gleam in his eye. "I reckon you won't be needin' it."

Schaum chuckled, deep in his throat. He won a small pot, and his eyes were bright and hungry as he looked at Brad Murphy.

"You fellows have played a lot of poker," Brad drawled. Coolly, he began rolling a smoke. "Ain't never wise to call unless you're pretty sure what the other feller's holdin'."

Cornish stared at him. "What do you mean by that?" he asked sharply.

"Me?" Brad looked surprised. "Nothin' but what I say. Only," he added, "it'd sure make a man feel mighty silly if he figured an hombre had a couple of deuces, then called and found him holdin' a full house."

Butcher Schaum's eyes were cautious. Somehow, Murphy was too confident, too sure of himself. Maybe it would be easier to get the gold by winning it over the table. He fumbled the cards in his big hands, then dealt.

Brad Murphy, his eyes half closed, heard the flick of the card as it slipped off the bottom of the deck. He smiled at Schaum, just smiled, and Butcher Schaum felt something turn over inside of him. He was a hard man, but in Murphy's place he would have been scared. He knew it. Only once he had been cornered like that, and he had been scared. Luckily, some friends arrived to save him. This hombre wasn't scared. He was cool, amused.

Schaum picked up his cards, glanced at them, and straightened in his chair, his face slowly going red under the deep tan. The three kings he had slipped from the bottom of the deck, all marked by his thumbnail, had suddenly become deuces!

Trying to be casual, he turned a card in his hand. The mark was there!

He looked up, and Brad Murphy was smiling at him, smiling with a hard humor. Brad Murphy had dealt last. Obviously, he had detected the marks and added his own, to the deuces.

Suddenly, Butcher Schaum knew there was going to be a showdown. He wasn't going to wait. To the devil with it!

He tossed his cards onto the table. Brad Murphy looked up, surprised.

"Murphy." Schaum leaned over the table. "You figger to be a purty smart hombre. You know us boys ain't no lily-fingered cowpokes. We been owl-hootin' for a long time now. You got a lot of gold in that poke. We want a split."

Brad smiled. "I'm right grateful," he said, "for you pullin' me out of that canyon, and I wouldn't mind payin' you for a horse. But the future of this gold has already been accounted for, and I ain't makin' any sort of split."

He shifted a little in the seat, turning his body. One hand placed two double eagles on the table, taken from the pocket of his jeans. He then shifted his winnings from the game to the same pile. "Now, if you boys want to let me have the horse," he said, "I'll split the breeze out of here. Like I say, it's been a long time since I seen my wife and kid."

"You play a pretty good hand of poker," Schaum said, "but it's you that's bucking a full house. Asa's over there by the door. Yore rifle's gone. Cornish and me here, we figure we're in a good spot ourselves. It's three to one, and them ain't good odds for you."

"No," Brad admitted, "they ain't. Specially with Asa off on my side like that. The odds are right bad, I reckon. Almost," he added, "as bad as when the Howells boys tried me."

He smiled at Schaum. "There was three of them, too."

"Split your poke," Schaum said. "Ten pounds o' that for each of us. That's plenty of a stake."

"I'm not splittin' anything, Butcher," Murphy said quietly. "If you shorthorns want to be paid for draggin' me out of that hole, there it is." He gestured to what was on the table. "But I worked down in the heat and misery for this gold. I aim to keep it."

"We're holdin' the best hand, Brad," Schaum said. "So set back and make it easy on yourself. You divvy up, or we take it all."

"No," Murphy replied, "I'm holdin' the only hand, Butcher. You three got me cornered. You might get me, but that wouldn't help you--you'd be dead!"

"Huh? What do you mean?" Butcher sat up, his lips tight.

"Why, the six-shooter I'm holdin', Butch. She's restin' on my knee, pointin' about an inch under yore belt buckle." He tapped the underside of the table with the barrel.

He shoved back in his chair a little, then stood up, the Frontier Colt .45 balanced easily in his hand. "I'm takin' a horse, boys, an' I wouldn't figure on nothin' funny; this gun's mighty easy on the trigger."

Waving Asa around with the other two, he gathered his sack with his left hand and edged around the table toward the door. Slowly, he backed to the door, his gun covering them.

He stepped back. Butcher Schaum, his face swollen with fury, stared at him, his right hand on the table, fingers stretched like a claw, and stiff with rage.

He stepped back again, quickly this time. His foot hung. Too late he remembered the raised doorsill, he fell backward, grabbing at the air. Then a gun blasted and something struck him alongside the head. With his last flicker of consciousness, he hurled the sack of gold at the slope that reared itself alongside the cabin. It struck, gravel rattled, and he felt blackness close over him, soft, folding, deadening.

THE FIRST THING he realized was warmth. His back was warm. Then his eyes flickered open, blinding sunlight struck them, and they closed.

He was lying, his head turned sideways, sprawled facedown on the hard-packed earth outside the cabin door. It was daylight.

Butcher Schaum's voice broke into his growing realization. "Where'd he put that durned sack?" he snarled angrily. "My shot got him right outside the door, he didn't have no more'n two steps, an' now that gold is plumb gone."

"You sure he's dead?" Asa protested.

"Look at his head!" Cornish snapped. "If he ain't dead he will be. I couldn't get no pulse last night. He's dead all right."

"Should we bury him?" Asa suggested. "I don't like to see him lying like that."

"Go ahead, if you want to," Schaum snarled. "I'm huntin' that gold. When I get it, I'm leavin'. You can stay if you want to. The buzzards'll take care of him. Leave him lay."

His head throbbing with pain, Brad lay still. How bad was he hurt? What was wrong with his head? It felt stiff and sore, and the pain was like a red-hot iron pressed against his skull.

Something crawled over his hand. His eyes flickered. An ant. Horror went through him. Ants! In a matter of minutes they'd be all over him. If there was an open wound--yet he dare not move. His gun? He had lost it in falling. No telling where it was now. If he tried to move they would kill him.

He could hear the three men moving as they searched. Schaum began to curse viciously.

"Where could it get to?" he bellowed angrily. "He didn't go no more'n a few feet."

Other ants were coming now, crawling over his arm toward his head. He knew now that he was cut there. The bullet must have grazed his skull, ripping the scalp open and drenching him with blood, making it appear that he was shot through the head.

Piercing pain suddenly went through him. The ants had gone to work. He forced himself to lie still. His teeth gritted, and he lay, trying not to tense himself.

"I'll bet he throwed that sack down the gully," Cornish said suddenly. "It couldn't be no place else."

He could hear them then, cursing and sliding to get to the bottom of the gully that curved close to the cabin from the left. The bank against which he had thrown the sack was to the right.

Two of them gone. The ants were all over him now, and he could not stand the agony much longer. It was turning his head into a searing sheet of white-hot pain.

Where was Moffitt? He could hear no sound. Then, as he was about to move, he heard a step, so soft he could scarcely detect it. Then another step, and Asa Moffitt was bending over him.

"In his shirt," Moffitt muttered. "Where the gun was!"

Moffitt caught him by the coat and jerked him over on his back. "Ants gittin' him," he muttered. "Too bad he ain't alive." Asa knelt over him, and pulled his shirt open, cursing when he saw no sack. Then he thrust a hand into Brad's pants pocket.

It was the instant Brad had waited for. He exploded into action. A fist caught Asa on the head and knocked him sprawling. Lunging to his feet, Brad jumped for the man, slugging him twice before he could get to a standing position, and then as Asa grabbed at him, Brad jerked his knee into the outlaw's face.

Asa cried out sharply, falling over on his back, and Brad stooped over him, slugging him again as the man continued to yell, then he jerked Asa's gun from his holster and wheeling, ran for the rim of the gully.

His own gun lay nearby, and then he saw the standing horse. Grabbing up his own gun, he raced for the horse.

A shot rang out, and he saw Cornish come lunging over the rim of the gully. He tried a shot, saw that he'd missed. Realizing all chance of escape was gone, he ran for the house. Another gun roared, and then he plunged through the door and slammed it shut. Panting, he dropped the bar into place.