Silver in the Blood (12 page)

The last brave died with six bullet holes peppering his back as he tried to run away and was flipped into a blood-soaked heap beneath the dangling feet of the hanging Zulu. Silence descended over the body-littered campsite like an invisible cloak, almost reverent in its intensity. It endured for no more than five seconds, to be broken by the rattle of small pebbles sent scuttling from beneath the feet of Jake Tabor and the remnants of his gang as they rose from cover and started towards the wagon. As if she had been afraid to be the first desecrator of the silent wake, Martha Wilder looked up at the advancing line of men and moaned her wretchedness.

"Thee will show thy gratitude to us, woman," Tabor thundered, stroking his flowing red beard. "We saved thee from obscene fornication with these heathen."  

Keene chuckled, showing his uneven gums. "But we ain't heathen, Miss Wilder," he yelled. "We know how to treat a lady."

Martha hunched her shoulders and crossed her arms in front of her nakedness, concealing her body from the lecherous eyes of the gang gathering around her.

"I still say she ain't much to look at," one of the men said with a sneer.

Another, named Hyman, poked a sharp elbow into the man's ribs. "You: been going with pretty boys for so long you forgot where a woman has it, Luke. You just keep your eyes closed and we'll guide you."

Martha cowered before their laughter, which ended abruptly as Tabor barked an order. "Hitch the wagon!"

Luke and Hyman moved towards the tethered team, the latter with reluctance.

"On your feet," Keene ordered, as Tabor went to the rear of the wagon and peered inside, his eyes gleaming at the sight of the silver bars in the opened crates.

"I think my ankle's broken," Martha complained, a tremor in her voice.

Keene showed his gums again. "How about that," he chortled, stooping over her and pushing his rifle towards the man with two fingers missing from one of his hands. "I'll sure get a boost out of giving you a boost, Miss Wilder."

His small frame struggled with the weight of the solidly built woman, but he gained consolation from his exertions as a hand found the curved firmness of one or her breasts. He tipped her unceremoniously into the wagon and the activity broke Tabor's trancelike concentration upon the prize of silver. He eyed the woman with disdain.

"The other man with thee?" he demanded. "Where did he go?"

Martha Wilder's bitterness was deep felt, generated almost entirely by the absence of Edge. "He ran out on me," she answered. "He's no better than you are."

"He can't have got far, Jake," Keene put in. "Not without a horse. Shall we go get him?"

Tabor pondered the suggestion for several long seconds, as Hyman and Luke coaxed the team between the shafts. Then he shook his head, his eyes burning with a slow fire. "First the silver, then the man," he pronounced. "He is a stranger to these mountains or we would have known of him. He will not get away from me."

Keene hoisted himself over the tailgate of the wagon, then held still as he met the stern, unblinking gaze of Jake Tabor. "I'll just make sure she don't fall off again, Jake," Keene said quickly, and swallowed hard.

"Treat her as thee would the silver," Tabor warned.

"Sure, Jake. Sure." The words tumbled over his lack lower lip in a rush. "No divvying up till you give the word."

Tabor nodded in acknowledgement and strode along the side of the wagon to check that the team had been harnessed securely. The man with two fingers missing appeared, leading the gang's horses.

"Bring the other two," Tabor ordered, nodding to where the mounts of Edge and Anatali stood. Then he hauled himself up on to the driver's seat. The rest of  the gang mounted, taking the reins of spare horses. Tabor released the brake on the wagon and flicked the reins to urge the team into motion.

The hooves stepped, delicately over the crumpled forms of the dead Indians, but the iron rims of the heavily laden wheels had only Tabor's firm hands to guide them. They rolled inanimately over the sprawled bodies without the mildest of bumps, tearing through cooling flesh and crushing dead bone to splinters, leaving patches of pulpy redness in the ruts. Tabor halted the wagon in front of the tall pine upon which the Zulu's body hung, the flesh of his shoulders now stretched to such an extent that it was possible to see daylight through the enlarged holes beneath the wooden skewers.

"Bet that hurts worse than the rheumatism," Luke said sourly, rubbing his own shoulder as if recalling a familiar ache.

"He don't look properly dead," Hyman opined, looking hard into Anatali's tormented face which was continuing to ooze moisture through wide open pores. "Still sweating, though."

"Then he must be alive, stupid," Keene called from the rear of the wagon.

Martha Wilder began to sob her sympathy for the Zulu's suffering.

"Quiet the woman!" Tabor barked and Keene grinned with sadistic pleasure as he hit her a vicious backhanded slap across the cheek. Tabor nodded and continued to look at Anatali. "He's still alive. Not for long, though." His face darkened with tacit rage. "His pain is nothing to that which Miller's murderer will suffer."

He flicked the reins again and the wagon rolled forward on its bloody path across the litter of dead Shoshonis. From his hiding place in a niche in the cliff face, Miller Tabor's killer watched the departure of the wagon and its escort of gunmen. His narrowed eyes, glinting between their slits, scanned the dead bodies, some of them cut in half by the passage of the heavily-laden wagon, oozing blood and gore. Then he looked into the far distance, at the sunlight dancing in silent beauty upon the white covered peaks. "Snow fits the pattern," he said: "It's turning into one hell of a silver sleigh ride." 

WHEN the wagon and its attendant riders were out of sight, disappearing over the jagged crest of a rise about a mile to the west, Edge came out from his cover and moved among the dead bodies towards the pine and its gruesome appendage. He sensed Anatali's eyes following his progress but realized this could be a trick of the imagination. So he halted in front of the hanging man and scrutinized the pain-wracked face for a sign of movement. "Hey," he called softly. "You still part of this wicked world or are you striding that, great green Veldt in the sky?"

The Zulu's lips cracked open, moved soundlessly for several moments, then allowed the words to gain exit. "All right I yell now?" His voice was a whispered croak.

"Rather you didn't," Edge told him, glancing towards the high ground over which the Tabor gang had disappeared. "Mountains have a strange effect on sound."

The lips moved again. "You cut me down, please?"

Edge glanced about him. "Wondering how long you figured to hang around," he cracked, and moved forward when he spotted three Shoshoni ponies standing nervously some yards off. Beyond them, high on a ridge, a group of coyotes had gathered, pushing their snouts into the blood-scented air. Edge moved slowly, whispering softly to the ponies in a language they didn't understand. But one of them was attracted to the gentle tones and held his ground while the others bolted. The animal allowed Edge to take up the rope bridle and lead him across to where the Zulu was continuing to endure his torture in determined silence.

"Easy does it," Edge said softly, offering the advice to himself, Anatali, and the pony as he swung astride the animal, drawing his razor.

The pony stood absolutely still with the patience of harsh training as Edge reached up, accepting the Zulu's weight with one arm around him as he used his free hand to slash through the restraining ropes. After having suffered so long and so cruelly, Anatali was forced to give out a groan of relief as the strain was relaxed on his shoulders. It took every ounce of Edge's considerable strength to maintain a grip around the Zulu's body and lower him gently to the ground. Then he kept his grip as he slid from the animal and allowed the massive body of Anatali to sink back against the tree trunk.

Working quickly but with cautious gentleness, Edge cut through the knots in the ropes around the skewers at the back, then took a firm grip on each from the front. "This'll hurt you more than it does me," he said in a rush and ended by jerking the skewers from the flesh.

The Zulu screamed his agony for the first time, the pain surging power to his limp arms so that he was able to bring his hands up to the shoulders and grasp at the wounds. Edge left him to go to the center of the campsite and pick up a torn remnant of Martha Wilder's dress. Then he found a run of water not stained with blood and soaked the material. The Zulu kept his eyes tight shut and his teeth grinding together as Edge bathed the wounds back and front. He had to return to the water several times to wash the material. Finally he tore the piece of dress into two and instructed Anatali to hold them in place over the wounds while he went to get the pin-stripe suit jacket and derby. Anatali held back the groans as Edge forced his arms into the jacket and then buttoned it down the front.

"Ought to be tight enough to hold," Edge said at length, bending the Zulu into a sitting position and placing the hat on his wiry black hair. "Reckon you can ride?"

Again Anatali had to get his lips working several moments before he could speak. "You going after them?"

"I got two hip pockets," Edge answered. "Having only one of them stuffed full with money spoils the hang of my pants."

"Money all you care about?" Anatali asked, struggling to get to his feet. He had to have the aid of the pine trunk and Edge to achieve his objective.

"It don't buy happiness," Edge allowed, and grinned. "But it makes being miserable easier."

"You get my
assegai
and
knob kerry?"
the Zulu asked.

"Sure," Edge replied. "You don't look right without them."

He turned and moved over to the scene of the first killing. The dead eyes of the earless Running Bear watched him with blank disinterest. When he started back with the Zulu's weapons he saw hauled himself astride the Shoshoni pony.

"You got a horse?" the-black man asked.

Edge grinned. "They always run-out on me," he answered. "Let's go, feller."

He
took hold of the pony's bridle and led the animal and its pain-wracked rider in the wake of the wagon. Their progress was watched with hungry interest by the coyote pack on the ridge and as soon as the men had passed over the rise to the west the slavering animals descended upon their inert prey; snarling and snapping at each other for the most tender morsels.

As they crested the rise, Edge and Anatali saw that the ground fell away in a series of rocky steps into a deep valley. High up where they were, the ground was rocky with only a few patches of earth offering nourishment to coarse grass, razor sharp at the edges. But as the valley got deeper so the terrain became more green, with clumps of brush giving way to stands of timber. Far below, like a length of discarded white thread, they could see the stage trail winding across the floor of the valley, rising at the far end towards the last pass in the mountains before the long run down to the shores of the Pacific.

"There!" Anatali said suddenly, pointing.

Edge followed the direction of his accusing finger and saw the wagon and its escort, like a large white bug and a number of small black ones crawling down the banks of a rushing stream towards a broad shelf hewn in the side of the valley. On the slope down to the shelf was the tiny box of a cabin and below this on the shelf itself was a grey sheet of water, fed by the stream the Tabor gang were following.

"Looks like its got rooms with views," Edge said.

"Merriman's Folly," the Zulu said.

"Come again?" Edge didn't take his eyes off the slow progress of the wagon on the steep downgrade.

"It famous," Anatali explained, his voice stronger now, as if sight of the outlaws had refreshed him. "When men got rich from Comstock many spend their money foolishly. Some shoe their horses with silver. Others make beautiful silver furniture for their houses. Mr. Merriman decided to guild hotel overlooking Bottomless Lake."

"Don't look much of a hotel," Edge put in.

"Big snow come," Anatali continued. "It sweep down valley in avalanche. You see all that left. Hotel go into lake."

"What about Merriman?"

"He in hotel. It said Bottomless Lake go deep to center of the world. Fifty people staying at hotel go with Mr. Merriman to find out."

"Looks like Tabor and his men either haven't heard the story or don't care. They seem intent on checking in."

"We follow?" Anatall asked.

"What do you think?"

Incredibly, the Zulu found it within himself to favor Edge with a grin that had a glimmer of humor backing it up. "I don't. I brawn. You brains."

Edge glanced at the terrain above the last remaining structure of the hotel and recognized how it was the ideal line of least resistance for a winter slide of snow. There was just one obstruction: a natural monolith of rock, so top heavy it seemed to be teetering on a finely balanced point.  

"
If
I was really smart I'd head straight down to the stage trail and hightail it for San Francisco," he murmured.

"With only half your money?" the Zulu posed.

"You read me like a book," Edge said sourly, as he jerked on the bridle and set the pony on the downward path.

AnataIi grinned again. "I ignorant," he said. "Books I can't read. But men easy."

"I should have left you swinging," Edge snarled. "Then you wouldn't have given me a pain."

Anatali was bewildered. "I give you pain?"

"Yeah. In the ass!"