Kill or Die (20 page)

On what was destined to be the last day of his life Bonifaunt Toohy woke to a crash of thunder and the steam locomotive hiss of torrential rain. Stunned, he stared at the ridge of his wildly flapping tent but a split second later he saw only a black, lightning-scarred sky as the tent fluttered skyward like an injured bird.

Toohy sprang out of his cot and managed to grab his pants as they sailed off with his shirt in the wake of the tent. As he tugged on his boots he was aware of frantic horses galloping back and forth, loggers yelling to one another as they sought any kind of shelter and from somewhere far off Brewster Ritter shrieking orders to his men that nobody heeded.

Buckling on his gunbelt, Toohy looked around at the devastation wrought by the storm. Ritter's Landing was flattened. Every inch of canvas had blown away, including the big mess tent, and lay scattered across the bayou like stranded whales. Toohy stood stock still as wild-eyed horses galloped past and frightened loggers followed them, seeking drier ground. The loggers ignored Toohy's calls to stop. Panic is the bastard child of fear and, lashed mercilessly by wind and rain, deafened by thunder and harried by lightning, they ran headlong from the swamp, away from the proximity of the Gulf, toward . . . toward what they didn't know. In battle, panicked men don't think, they just run and run until they can't run any longer. And so it was with the loggers as they tried to escape a ruthless and infinitely more powerful enemy.

Ritter's hired guns were steadier. Val Rolfe and four others clustered around their boss as he staggered toward Toohy, buffeted by the howling wind. Ritter yelled something to Toohy that he didn't understand. Rain fell in sheets, thunder boomed and a searing bolt of lightning blasted just a few feet from where Ritter and his men stood. The two great steam saws, each longer and taller than a brewery wagon, were hit. For several seconds they sparked and bled thick black smoke as a billion volts of electricity, nine times hotter than the surface of the sun, blasted their insides and huge gearwheels. Then as fast as it happened it was over. Ritter and two of his men lay sprawled on the ground and Toohy walked toward them, his body bent against the wind.

Val Rolfe stepped in Toohy's direction, his hand on his gun. Like everyone else he was hatless, the wind a notorious thief of headwear. “Toohy!” he yelled. “Stay the hell where you are!”

The young gunman's words were lost in the roar of thunder and the wail of the wind. But then Rolfe stopped in his tracks and his face took on an expression of surprise. A moment later his surprise gave way to shock. He lifted up on his toes and the wind slammed him facedown into the dirt. Two arrows protruded from his back.

Brewster Ritter was on his hands and knees, the side of his face exposed to the lightning bolt was bright red. He turned his head as Rolfe thumped beside him, then screamed when he saw the arrows sticking out of the gunman's back.

Toohy drew his revolver and looked around for a target. But the wind and rain and constantly moving water oak and swamp privet at the edge of the morass made it a difficult task. An arrow thudded into the ground at Toohy's feet and he snapped off a fast shot at a glimpse of brown skin among the vegetation. He didn't know if he'd scored a hit or not. Ritter and his surviving gunmen were shooting at phantoms and one of the gunmen went down as a rifle roared from somewhere within the swamp.

Showing remarkable skill and a cool head, a gray-haired gunman backed away from the stricken camp, firing alternate shots from two Colts. Pounded by rain and abused by the wind, he managed to keep his feet and sustain a steady fire.

Flintlock, walking through a whirlwind of torn leaves and plant debris, appeared on the road behind the skilled draw fighter.

Toohy roared, “Behind you!” He fired at Flintlock. A miss.

The gunman swung to his left, saw Flintlock and worked his Colts. The hammers clicked on spent rounds. A stricken expression on his face, the man yelled, “Toohy!”

Bonifaunt Toohy and Flintlock fired at the same time.

Unnerved by the gunman's shout, Toohy hurried his shot and made his second miss of the day. Flintlock, not an elite draw fighter but a first-rate bounty hunter, had taught himself to be steady and unhurried in a fight. He fired. His bullet hit the hammer of Toohy's Colt, severed the top joint of the man's right thumb and then what was left of the fragmented .45 struck the right side of his chest like a charge of buckshot. The fragments lacked velocity and the wound was not severe—but the loss of Toohy's thumb was.

The gunman turned away, bent over his cradled right hand, just as the gray-haired man fired at Flintlock. At a distance of ten yards Flintlock returned fire. But the wild, wind-blasted conditions were not favorable for accurate shooting and neither man did any execution. Thumbing his Colt, Flintlock walked forward, closing the distance. He took a hit high on the right shoulder and another bullet nicked his gun arm, but he fired at a distance of fifteen feet and scored a center chest hit, fired again as the Colt recoiled and missed. But his first shot had been effective and the gray-haired man fell without a whimper.

Out of the fight, Bonifaunt Toohy transferred his Colt to his left hand and stumbled along the edge of the swamp. Behind him what had been a thriving camp of two hundred souls was now a deserted wasteland, but agonized shrieks and screams of terror carried in the wind. Toohy guessed that the Indians were killing the scattered loggers and laborers, settling old scores.

Pelted by rain, whipped by tossing branches, Toohy's plan was to loop around the scene of slaughter, reach dry land and head for Budville, where he could find a doctor. He had no doubt that his draw fighter days were over. He could train his left hand, but it would never be as fast and accurate. As for his plans of wealth, something might still be salvaged. He just needed to get away from the death and dying and take time to think. But it was Bonifaunt Toohy's great misfortune that he met Evangeline in the storm.

She stood talking to an Indian, her face concerned. Toohy supposed the man was some kind of chief and she was telling him to end the slaughter of the mostly unarmed loggers. The rain had soaked her shirt and her golden skin glowed under the wet fabric. Toohy stopped, watching her, and wondered if he could take Evangeline with him. The pain in his thumb was so great, the shock of a battle lost to a saddle tramp and a few savages, that Toohy wasn't thinking straight. Now all he could think about was taking the woman.

Firing the Colt in his left hand he could kill the Indian and then drag the woman with him. No one could track them in a roaring, flashing storm that threated to tear the world apart.

Toohy took a step toward Evangeline and Puma, and a twig cracked under his boot. He stopped, staring at the woman, his gun coming up.

Evangeline saw only a man with a gun and instantly realized the danger he represented. She drew both her Colts and in the space of a single hell-firing moment hammered four shots into Toohy.

Hit hard, the man dropped to his knees. And his eyes locked on Evangeline.

“You . . .” he said. “No, not you . . . never you . . .”

He died with a look of wonderment on his face.

“Twenty-eight loggers and laboring men are dead,” Sam Flintlock said. “There were no wounded. As far as I can tell all eight of Ritter's hired guns are dead. On our side an Indian was killed when a cypress log fell on him and three more have bullet wounds.”

“What about Ritter?” O'Hara said.

“I don't know. He may have died in the storm.” Flintlock met O'Hara's eyes. “You saved lives today.”

“I tried to stop the Atakapan from killing unarmed or injured men and saved a few loggers, but whether or not they eventually survived I don't know. The Indians wanted to kill them for cutting the cypress.”

Flintlock said, “Evangeline, you did—”

“I know what I did, Sam. I killed a man. I had no choice.”

“It was Toohy who gave you no choice.”

“Toohy did what he had to do, and so did I,” Evangeline said.

Flintlock stepped to the window and stared into the day's dying light. “The moon is coming up,” he said. “There's a lot of wreckage scattered around the swamp, but all the trees are still standing.”

“It will be cleared,” Evangeline said.

“And the flying machine.”

“Yes. That too.”

Evangeline sat in a robe by the fire, her long, shapely legs bared. She had a glass of whiskey in her hand that glowed amber in the light. O'Hara, who seemed incapable of sitting, squatted on the floor, but Flintlock kept up his restless pacing. Finally he built a cigarette and stepped outside. The storm had passed but the swamp was still quiet. As he lit his smoke an alligator glided past, just inches away.

Old Barnabas sat on the edge of the deck. He'd taken off his boots and dangled his feet in the water. His top hat and goggles lay beside him and in his hands he held a book. Without turning his head he said, “This book is called
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
written by a feller by the name of Jules Verne. But since it's all in French I can't read a word of it.”

“Then why do you have it?” Flintlock said.

“I liked the title, though I don't know what the hell leagues are.” Barnabas tossed the book into the swamp, where it instantly caught fire and burned. “Time you was moving on, Sam. You got things to do, places to see. Catch up to your ma over here to the Arizony Territory.”

“I know.”

“The woman will keep you here, won't she, Sam?”

“Maybe. I don't know.”

“Hell, boy, you're ugly enough to clabber a mud hole. Why would a right handsome woman like that want you?”

“For the first time in your life, and death, you may be right, Barnabas,” Flintlock said. “Why would she want me?”

“Now you're talking sense, boy.” Barnabas laced up his boots, put on his hat and goggles and rose to his feet. “It was bad here today, Sam, huh? Too many dead men.”

“You know it.”

“Then git out of here. You go find your ma, boy, and get your rightful name.” Barnabas smiled. “The fat man that got et by the crocodile, I tried to warn him, left a busted steam valve in his office. But he ignored it.”

“Not much of a warning, Barnabas,” Flintlock said.

“It was warning enough, boy. See you in Arizony.”

Barnabas vanished into moonlight. Flintlock flicked his sparking cigarette butt into the swamp and stepped into the cabin.

 

 

“Sam, who were you talking to out there?” Evangeline said.

“Myself,” Flintlock said. Then, “O'Hara, can you leave us for just a spell?”

“Sure thing,” O'Hara said. He rose to his feet but stepped to the table and poured whiskey into a glass. “Here, Sammy, take this,” he said. “You may need it.”

After O'Hara left, Flintlock took the seat opposite Evangeline. “I have something to say to you,” he said. He took a swig of whiskey, then, “I know my face would clabber a mud hole, but—”

“You have a fine, strong face, Sam,” Evangeline said. She rose and got herself another drink. When she sat again she said, “I know what you want to say to me, Sam.”

“Has that damned Injun been talking out of turn again?” Flintlock said.

Evangeline smiled. “Sam, don't you think a woman knows when a man is in love with her?” Flintlock made no answer to that and she said, “You're a brave, loyal and honest man.”

“Fairly honest,” Flintlock said. “I have lapses.”

“And I wouldn't hurt you for the world,” Evangeline said.

“But you don't love me,” Flintlock said.

“No, I don't. Even if I did it wouldn't make any difference. I'm already married, Sam.”

That last was a knife twisting in Flintlock's heart. “Who?”

“Cornelius. We've been married for a long time.”

“But—”

“We don't live together?”

“Yes. That.”

“We live separate lives, Cornelius and I. He has his work and I have mine. But we love one another, Sam. We love each other deeply.”

Flintlock said, “So I don't fit in anywhere, do I?”

“You can fit in as a friend, Sam. To both of us.”

“It's strange, but I've never loved a woman before,” Flintlock said. “Now I feel . . . I don't know, I guess I feel empty. It seems that the bottom has fallen out of my life and now there's nothing left.”

“I'm so sorry, Sam,” Evangeline said. “I wish I could help you feel better.”

Flintlock managed a wan smile. “I think maybe time will take care of that. I don't want you to feel bad, Evangeline. It's not your fault, it's mine for being so damned stupid.”

“Sam, no one who loves can be completely unhappy. Even love unreturned has its rewards.”

Flintlock's smile was more genuine. “Do you think I'll ever find them? Those rewards, I mean.”

“I'm sure you will,” Evangeline said.

O'Hara tapped on the door and said loudly, “Can I come in?”

“Yeah, come in,” Flintlock said.

O'Hara stepped inside and said, “I'm not spoiling anything, am I?”

“Not a thing,” Flintlock said.

“I hate to talk this way, but a man's body just drifted past the cabin. Sam, we have to get those dead men buried.”

“I know. We can't leave white men to the buzzards,” Flintlock said.

“I'll talk to the Atakapan and the swamp people,” Evangeline said. “There ought to be enough of us to bury them decent.”

“It wasn't Ritter,” O'Hara said. “I'd sure like to know what happened to him.”

“Me too,” Flintlock said.

He glanced at Evangeline, seeking her eyes, but she stared fixedly into the fire. What had passed between them had already set out on the long road to the land of faded memories.