Sidewinder (26 page)

There were three cots in the small room where Felicity and Pilar were held prisoner.

The door was locked, as Maude said it would be, and all afternoon the two women had been listening to the voices downstairs, unable to understand what the people below were saying. But as the day wore on, Felicity began planning how they might escape. There was a single small window letting light into the room. But it was at the top of the wall, near the roof, and slatted to let air in.

Felicity looked at the bunks. They were made of lumber. Old, dirty mattresses and soiled blankets lay atop them under filthy pillows, one with the stuffing leaking out, old yellowed chicken feathers, and probably, she thought, families of lice.

Pilar had sat on the edge of a bunk and wept most of the afternoon. Quietly, Felicity thought, but she knew how the woman felt. She had tried to comfort Pilar, but the woman was distant and beyond any help that words or a touch could bring.

She walked over and knelt down in front of Pilar. She reached up and smoothed the hair on the top of Pilar’s head with her hand.

“Pilar, listen to me. Please. Forget about yourself and Julio for a moment, and please listen.”

“I—I can’t,” Pilar said.

Felicity grabbed Pilar’s chin and tilted her head so that she could look into her eyes.

“We can’t just sit here, Pilar. We have to do something.”

“What can we do?” Pilar’s voice was weak and shaky, but Felicity had her attention.

“You have to help me. And we have to be very quiet. I want to take apart one of these cots. We can use the legs for clubs. Do you understand?”

“Yes. I—I think so. What good would that do? They are too many. They have guns.”

“You’re right, Pilar. But look, at least one of them has to come up here and bring us food and water. Or take us downstairs. If Maude comes up, we can beat her with our clubs and take away her gun.”

“They will hear. They will come and shoot us.”

“We have to do it quick, and we have to hit Maude or that Phil or Hiram real hard. They probably won’t send the old man up. We have to be ready when we hear that key in the lock. And we have to hit real hard. We have to hit hard enough to kill whoever comes up. Do you think you can do that? Do you think you can help me? It might be our only chance.”

“I will try, Felicity.”

“Now, help me take that other bunk apart. We might have to pull and kick, but we can do it.”

The two women lifted one corner of the bunk to look at its leg. Felicity threw the mattress, blanket, and pillow under Pilar’s bunk.

“You grab onto the top, Pilar, and I’ll start jerking this leg back and forth to loosen it. Hold on real tight.”

“Yes,” Pilar said, and set herself. She held the corner while Felicity pushed and pulled on the leg. She could feel it loosen. She heard a nail screech, and the sound startled her.

“We must be quiet,” she whispered to Pilar, and began jerking the leg back and forth, twisting it until it loosened enough that she could wrestle it from the bed itself. She made sure it didn’t strike the floor. She set the leg on Pilar’s bunk.

“Now, the other side,” she said.

The task completed, they waited on either side of the door, both with a makeshift club in hand. They waited and listened.

Downstairs, it was quiet. Then they heard the clanking of pans and utensils in the kitchen. The front door opened and closed. Footsteps back and forth. The front door opened again and stayed open for five minutes. Then it closed.

Felicity looked up at the small window. The light outside was fading. The room grew very dim.

Night was coming on.

And still, nobody had come up the stairs to bring them water or food. They were both hungry and thirsty.

“When will they come?” Pilar whispered.

“Shhh. I don’t know. Just wait. Move your fingers so they don’t get stiff. Be ready.”

“I am ready,” Pilar said.

They both felt the chill in the room as the sun set and darkness spilled in the window. Neither woman could see the other.

All they could hear was the sound of their own breathing.

All they could feel was the chill and the fear that nestled in their stomachs like something cold and crawling, like something they could only see in nightmares.

And then, they heard footsteps. Coming up the stairs.

Man or woman?

Felicity didn’t know.

Tap, tap, tap, tap. So slow. So steady. The closer, the louder, and the taps turned to stomp, stomp, stomp.

Felicity pressed her ear against the wall.

Maude or one of the men?

The wait was nerve-racking.

Clump, clump, clump.

The key rattled in the lock. Both women stood up, holding their cudgels high, ready to strike.

The key turned in the lock.

The sound struck terror in Felicity’s heart.

She held her breath.

She waited for the door to open.

The wait was an eternity in a single trickle of sand through the hour glass. One tick of the clock. One breath away from life—or death.

Abner Wicks was surprised to see Delbert Coombs waiting outside the jail for him when he was released on bond by one Walter Stoval, Justice of the Peace.

Ridley Smoot was also surprised to see Delbert, who was sitting on his horse, but had the reins of two other horses in his hands. Both the riderless horses were saddled.

“Looks like Del’s got a bee in his bonnet, Ab,” Ridley said.

“And, looks like we’re both going somewhere. Damn. I was hoping to get back to the High Grade.”

“You and me, too.”

“Come on boys,” Delbert said. “Shake a leg.”

The two men walked up to Delbert, and he handed reins to both of them.

“Mount up,” he said. “Ridley, you’re coming with me. Abner, you sonofabitch, you’re going back up to the Storm ranch and hunt down that Mex what got away. There’s grub aplenty in your saddlebags. You got a six-gun and a rifle. I want that bastard dead, you hear?”

“I hear you, Del,” Wicks said. “Hell, ain’t I got time for a drink?”

“You’re lucky I don’t shoot you where you stand. You got a bedroll there. You hurry, you can make it up there by morning. Hunt the Mex down, shoot him dead. And bring me proof.”

“Proof?”

“Yeah, cut off his head. I want to see his dead face, or I’ll come huntin’ you, Abner, sure as you’re standing there.”

“Shit,” said Abner, and mounted up. He saw the anger in Delbert’s face, and he wanted no part of it. He checked his rifle, patted his full saddlebags.

“Be seein’ ya, Ridley,” he said, as he rode off.

“Where we goin’, boss?” Ridley asked.

“To Ma’s place. We got a heap of unfinished business.”

Ridley settled in the saddle.

“Oh, that Storm feller?”

“Him and a Mex. Them first, then their women. Ain’t gonna be no eyes on me, Ridley.”

“No, sir.”

“You see Kathy?”

“She come with the money for Stoval, then went back to the bank. Said she’d meet you tonight at the hotel.”

“She’ll be real sad when I ain’t there,” Delbert said.

“Say, where is that Storm feller anyways? Him and that Mex.”

“My guess is that they’ll be at Ma’s before us. I hope they’re waitin’, or else Ma and Pa have done put their lamps out.”

“I guess we’ll burn some gunpowder tonight, Del.”

“You can bet on that, Ridley. I hold most of the good cards in this deck.”

“You know what that Storm feller calls hisself?”

“I heard. Sidewinder.”

“Funny moniker.”

“Well, you know what they do to sidewinders out in Arizona, don’t you?”

“No, sir, I reckon not.”

“They shoot their heads plumb off, that’s what they do, Ridley.”

Ridley grinned.

“You gonna shoot Storm’s head off?”

“Yeah, after I shoot off his balls.”

Del put the spurs to his horse, and the two men galloped off. The sun was falling in the west, hanging there above the snowcapped peaks like a blazing golden cauldron, firing the clouds strung out across the sky like gilded coffins all lined up, waiting to be loaded on the night’s caissons.

It was a glorious sunset, by any man’s measure, and it was just starting, Ridley thought.

And there was blood in it, as well as gold.

They hid their horses behind a hillock and walked a quarter of a mile to Pete’s old observation post. By the time they reached the copse of trees, the sun had set and the light was fading in the glowing western sky. All three men carried their rifles. Brad and Julio had reloaded their six-guns as they left Oro City.

“You can see the layout,” Pete said. “Mite near impregnable. I mean you can’t ride across that bridge without coming under fire. Can you see the gunports?”

“Just barely,” Brad said, but his mind was already working, and he saw a way in. He would have the darkness, too.

“I’m going to make a wide loop,” he said, “and come in from the right. You two stay here with your rifles. I’ll leave mine here, so you’ll have one extra.”

“There are gunports on the sides of the house, too,” Pete said.

“I’m going to crawl to the front door. Under the front gunports. I doubt if they’ll have rifles poking out those side ones.”

“Maybe.”

He handed his rifle to Julio, took off his hat.

“You watch that front door. If it opens and somebody steps outside and it’s one of them, shoot.”

“Then, what will you do?” Pete asked.

Brad was already hunched over, walking to the south of their position.

“I’m going in with my six-gun blazing,” he said.

The dark came on fast. Brad waded across the creek about a hundred yards from the house. He took it slow, so he wouldn’t splash. When he got directly opposite the front of the house, he dropped to his belly and began to crawl.

He pushed one knee forward, then brought up the other a foot or so at a time. He crawled over grass, cactus, and rocks, and around brush. When he got to the side, he raised his head and looked up. No rifles in the side gunports.

He crawled on.

When he reached the front door, he saw a rifle barrel poking through a gunport on that side. The windows were all shuttered, but he could see a thin rim of light as someone inside lit a lamp.

He stood up and flattened himself against the house, held his breath.

Then he took out his rattle and held it right next to the gunport. He shook it furiously, and the rattling made his skin jump. He heard a commotion inside.

“They’s a damn rattlesnake a-tryin’ to get in the house.” A man’s voice, yelling.

The front door opened, and Brad shook the rattle faster.

The old man stepped out, a rifle in his hand.

There was the crack of a rifle from across the creek and road.

The old man clutched his chest and staggered for two or three steps, then pitched forward. He hit the ground with a thud.

Brad crouched and ran through the door. The man at the gunport to his right turned and stared at him. He was young and big. He started to pull the rifle from the gunport when Brad shot him, right between the eyes.

The man tumbled backward and collapsed in a grotesque sprawl, blood oozing from a black hole between his eyebrows. His straw hair was stippled with blood drops as if he had been looking into an exploding can of barn paint.

There was shouting and screaming from upstairs. A man entered the front room, a tray of food in his hand.

“Hey,” he yelled, and dropped the tray. Food splattered everywhere as he bent down into a fighting crouch, and his hand flew to the pistol on his hip.

Brad shook the rattle with his left hand.

The man lost that one second of time.

Brad squeezed the trigger and his .44 Colt exploded, spewing lead and orange sparks, smoke and flame from the muzzle.