The Last Hard Men (15 page)

Portugee rose up on his dignity. “Ain’t no call for you to pull iron on us, Mike.”

“Just back off, then, and I’ll put it away. I’ve got no fight with you two.”

Portugee and, Gant looked at each other. They were wavering, and Shelby helped them along: “You know damn well both of you together couldn’t pour piss out of a hat if the instructions were written on the brim. Fooling with me can only buy you wooden suits—either from me or from Zach when he gets back. Come on now, be sensible. Go on over in the woods and jack your rocks off if you need to, but leave her be.”

Gant took his hand out of his pants. Color suffused his face. Absurdly, he said. “That ain’t no way to talk in front of a lady.”

It made Menendez, over in the shade, laugh until he almost ruptured himself.

Provo came into the trees on his horse. His crag of a face was stern, the dark eyes had a hard glitter. “Assholes,” he said, voice grating in his windpipe. “You fools have got a fucking gift for trouble. Leave you alone five minutes and you find some stupid way to bring us grief. I told you two bastards to keep your pants buttoned. And you, Mike, you made a mistake pulling that gun—but once you pulled it yon should’ve used it. Don’t pull iron on a man unless you’re fixing to shoot him.”

Portugee said uncomfortably, “Shit, you don’t miss much, do you?”

Shelby, stiff and stung by the rebuke, said defensively, “I’d have used it if they’d forced it. Hell, I didn’t need to.”

“Then you shouldn’t have pulled it.”

“Jesus, Zach, even Menendez thought it was all a big laugh.”

“Balls. We can’t afford a killing here, the Navajos won’t put up with it Menendez was right to head it off. He used his head. Maybe you’ll learn to use yours if you live long enough. Now everybody gather round here.”

The others drifted in. Shelby went to take Susan Burgade’s elbow but she jerked galvanically when he touched her. He stayed with her and listened to Provo from where he stood.

“Were all set. They’ll side with us as long as we treat them friendly. Everybody remember that. Anybody lays one finger on a Navajo and I’ll personally cut that finger off.”

Will Gant said, “How’d you do it, Zach?”

“Reminded them it’s white men after us and white men’s money we stole. I told them it’s Burgade back there. Everybody up here knows it was Burgade killed my wife. She was a fullblood Navajo and she was innocent as the day she was born; she didn’t have a thing to do with Burgade’s fight with me and. the people know it. So Sam Burgade ain’t about to get any favors from these people.

“That posse’s bound to pull in here soon,” he continued. “The Navajo police will keep them busy a few hours and then they’ll turn the posse back to the Reservation line—white man’s law can’t set foot on this Reservation. Burgade figures to come on after us, and he’s good enough to slip through past the Agency police, unless he’s got awful dumb or awful unlucky in his old age, but he’s just one man. I aim to set him up where I want him and kill the old bastard one bullet at a time.”

Susan’s eyes were almost closed. She swayed on her feet. Shelby reached out to prop her up but she shoved herself away from him. Her rigid back expressed rage and terror all at once. Shelby felt vaguely uncomfortable. He didn’t care what happened to Sam Burgade—everybody’s father had to die sometime. But it made him uneasy to see what it was doing to Susan. Listening to Provo talk about his dead wife made him pretty sure Provo had something just as ugly in mind for Burgade’s daughter.

Will Gant, who was shrewder than he looked, said, “Hepping us can get these Innuns in trouble with the Innun Bureau. You must of done a heap of persuading.”

Offhandedly Provo said, “Sure. But I told them where they could go dig up ten thousand dollars in gold to help folks out on the Reservation. Up here ten thousand dollars is more than the whole tribe sees in a year. They’ll side with us long enough to suit me. By the time the Bureau starts leaning on them we’ll be long gone.”

“Ten thousand,” Shelby said. “You said you had forty-eight thousand buried.”

“You don’t think I was stupid enough to cache it all in one place, do you? It’s scattered in four hideouts. One cache, maybe somebody could stumble across it by accident. But not four of them.”

“Smart,” Shelby said, and filed it: one more good lesson to memorize.

Will Gant was looking at Susan with a strange light in his eyes. “What we aiming to do about her, Zach?”

Provo smiled a little, not with his eyes. He quoted softly, “Patient, ever patient, and joy shall be thy share. Bear that in mind and you’ll be all right, Will. Just don’t crowd things.” He looked at the girl and his gentle laughter had the cruel dry sound of dead leaves rattling in an autumn wind.

Don’t get too het up about her problems
, Shelby told himself.
You got enough of your own.

Provo said, “Taco, Quesada, saddle ’em up.”

The two of them turned and went. George Weed went with them.

Portugee said, “Where we going now?”

“Down the Little Colorado,” Provo said. “Redrock country. I’ve got a place in mind up between Cedar Ridge and Marble Canyon.”

“That where you got the rest of that gold hid?”

“That’d be telling,” Provo said. He smiled with his mouth again. “But I ain’t got a double-cross in mind. I saw you thinking about what happened to Lee Roy, but Lee Roy was no good, you could see that. He’d have found some way to get us all killed. You’ll get your share of the gold, Portugee.”

“That’s right,” Portugee said. “I will. But what then?”

“Then you can go wherever you want. Personally I’d recommend northeast. Nobody’s going to track up through the Rockies. Straight on up through Colorado and Wyoming and Montana. Right into Canada and maybe ship out for Vancouver. But that’s up to you-all.”

“What about you?” Shelby said.

“Me?” Provo laughed unpleasantly. “All I want is Sam Burgade.”

Eight

The Navajo policemen subjected the posse to the long-winded rigmarole of formal protocol. After an hour of argument during which nobody budged and everybody remained excessively polite, Sam Burgade uttered a curse and stamped outside the Agency police shack. A blowsy woman gave him a flat stare of evident dislike and made a point of absenting herself from his vicinity. A stray vesper brought to his nostrils a malodorous outhouse smell.

Nye came outside and said, “We ain’t about to change their mands, Captain.”

“I know. Provo got to them.”

“What you reckon he give them?”

“A lot of sweet talk and some of that Santa Fe gold he’s got buried up here.”

“I’d admire to bust rat through here and keep after them, but I don’t reckon that’d set well with the federal gov’ment. They don’t cotton to anybody pushin’ onto the Reservation without the Navajos allow it. All them bleedin’ hawts back East git all up in arms about white folks bustin’ treaties. My deppities and me could maybe get in dutch, but rat now I don’t reckon that’s my main worry. Main thing is, Captain, I’m a sworn officer of the law. If I go on after Provo now I’m bustin’ the law. I’m out of my bailiwick on Navajo land, I got no authority here at all.”

“I know that, Noel.”

“Gravels hell out of me to let you down, Captain.”

“You’ve got your duty.”

“Yes, sir, I do. But I sure don’t lak it much.” Nye’s eyes flickered when they touched his. “Captain, we got to turn back.”

“I won’t argue with you.”

“You got to come back with us.”

Burgade’s silence argued with him.

“Captain, you got no authority here neither. You got no right on Innun land.”

“I guess that’s between me and the Indians, isn’t it,” Burgade said. “I’ll take my chances.”

“You ain’t got no chances, Captain.” Nye’s voice had gone harsh, angry more with himself than with Burgade. “They’s seven men out there alongside of Provo. Eight men you got to fight alone. You cain’t do that, no way. And don’t you know it’s exactly what Provo wants you to do?”

“Yes, I know that.”

“Then quit pretending lak you just too damn proud to quit. You ain’t a stupid man.”

A knotted muscle rippled in Burgade’s cheek. “Provo needs me the way the ax needs the turkey. If I don’t keep after him he’ll have no more use for Susan—he’ll set his dogs on her.”

“You better stop and study on that awhile. You fixing to make a powerful mistake. Those eight convicts put you under a gun, I don’t know but one way it can come out. You got to die. You dying ain’t going to hep Susan none.”

“Everybody’s got to die,” Burgade breathed, “but nobody’s got to give up.”

“Shit, Captain, that’s a fine sentiment but it don’t cut no ice with me. You got sixteen million acres of Navajo Reservation out yonder. No shade except maybe your own shadow. You fixing to go out into that and bust your lance against them eight men awmed to the teeth. And up against all that, the only thang you got left is knowing you ain’t going to give up? Shit. Zach Provo’ll trample you under and never even look back to see what-all he stepped on.”

Burgade’s toes curled inside his boots. His face was a bitter mask.

Nye looked straight ahead, not at him. “Captain, if I got to say it all, I will. You don’t even ride good no more. You just too cocksucking old to fight.”

In the blinding sunshine every shadow was black and had a sharp edge. The heat sucked sweat from Burgade’s pores. Hal Brickman came out of the police shack and stood under the porch shade within earshot.

Burgade said, “I haven’t got a lot of time to argue with you, Noel. But maybe you’ll understand this. If I turn back now, knowing what they’ll do to Susan, I don’t think I’d last a week without putting a gun in my mouth and pulling the trigger.”

“I know how you feel about that, Captain, but you forgetting one or two thangs. It ain’t going to take but five, six days, maybe a week, before we get enough pressure against the Navajo Council from Washington on down to allow us to bring posses onto the Reservation.”

“By that time Susan will be dead and the gang will be a thousand miles from here. Hell, Noel, getting off this Reservation’s no harder than getting onto it. There’s no fence. They’re free to sneak out of here anywhere along a thousand miles of boundary and we won’t have any idea where to look.”

“Could be. But forget Zach Provo, Captain. I’m only thanking about your daughter. Look, Provo don’t want to kill Susan, he’s only using her for bait. Shit, if he kills her he’s obliged to get every awmed man in the United States after his hide. He knows what’s got to happen to him if he kills her. Even them Agency police will be on his ass. He won’t have no place left to hide out. He cain’t afford that. No, Captain. He fands out you ain’t on his track, and he’ll turn Susan loose. It’s the only thang he can do.”

Hal Brickman stepped out of the shade and came forward, “Maybe the sheriffs right about that, you know. Provo’s smart enough to know what’ll happen to him if Susan comes to any harm.”

“If you knew Provo better you wouldn’t think that way.”

Nye said, “Provo’s a lot of thangs but he ain’t stupid.”

“If he cared about his own skin,” Burgade said, “he wouldn’t have kidnaped Susan in the first place. He had plenty of chances to get clean away, out of the country. He didn’t. He came after me instead. Listen—he’s lived the past twenty-eight years for one thing. Revenge. He doesn’t care whether he lives or dies, so long as he takes me with him and makes me suffer along the way. If I turn back now, he’ll only have one way left to make me suffer.”