To Reap and to Sow (11 page)

Mark and Joey had been to some pretty filthy saloons. They'd been to some that had more blood than sawdust on the floor and enough teeth in the spittoons to fill several mouths.

The Triple Diamond wasn't one of those saloons.

While it might have been dirty by Thickett standards, the place was actually quite nice. All of the tables were cleared off. The beer was poured into clean mugs. Even the dancing girls were easy on the eye. It was the only place in town that served whiskey and also hosted round-the-clock poker games, which is what earned it the reputation it had gotten from the more respectable of Thickett's residents.

Mark and Joey stepped into the place and walked up to a bar that might have been polished within the last month. When he saw the barkeep take notice of him, Mark leaned against the bar and glanced at the rest of the folks within the saloon.

“What can I get for ya?” the bartender asked.

“A beer for me and my friend,” Mark replied.

After nodding once, the barkeep filled the order and placed the drinks in front of them. “Anything else?”

“Yeah. I need to know where I can find someone to do some work for me.”

“What kind of work?”

Although Mark wasn't a notorious bad man, he understood enough of that life to know when he was talking to someone who lived it as well. The bartender wasn't one of those people.

“Never mind,” Mark grunted.

The barkeep gave them a friendly smile and stepped back. “You need anything else, just let me know.”

“I think we could beat the hell out of the men in this place,” Joey grunted. “Where the hell are we supposed to find someone to help us get our hands on that gold you talked about?”

Mark snapped his head around and spoke in a hissing whisper. “I told you not to flap your goddamn lips about that, didn't I?”

“Yeah,” Joey said with a nod. “I don't think anyone heard. That is, anyone else but that man over there.”

Mark looked in the direction Joey had nodded and found a lone figure sitting at a table. He was dressed in plain clothes that seemed just dirty enough to have covered a few miles of trail. The man's face was calm and decorated with a well-kept mustache. Although he didn't make much of a show of it, he was obviously watching Mark and Joey very closely. There was a confidence in his eyes that didn't waver in the slightest once he'd been singled out by the two men. In fact, it was Joey and Mark who started to look away, when they found themselves under the man's gaze too long.

“You think he knows someone we could use?” Joey asked.

Mark's eyes dropped for a second, but that was just long enough to spot the gun at the stranger's side. When he looked up again, Mark found an intense look on the stranger's face that was more than enough to discourage him from looking any longer.

“Yeah,” Mark replied. “I think he might be able to help.”

“Then let's go over there.”

“We probably shouldn't just—”

Before Mark could finish what he was saying, the stranger pushed his chair away from the table and stood up.

“Can I set you up with anything else?” the bartender asked, immediately seizing the opportunity to be of some use.

“No,” the stranger replied curtly. He then headed for the door and flipped a silver dollar through the air. By the time the coin landed on the bar, the man who'd tossed it was halfway outside.

Mark gritted his teeth and choked down the bad feeling that was creeping up into the back of his throat like a wad of bile. “Come on,” he said to Joey. “Let's see where he's headed.”

The bartender chirped something at them as they stepped outside, but Mark didn't pay him any mind. Instead, Mark searched for the stranger as his hands shot out to hold open the door that had been slammed in his face.

Even though the door stopped short of cracking against the frame behind them, a loud bang echoed through the air.

Mark and Joey reflexively twitched at the noise. When they heard the other bangs follow the first, they backed up until their shoulders knocked against the front of the saloon.

The stranger was a few paces to the left of the door and stepping into the street when Mark spotted him. The stranger's arm was also in motion as it bent at the elbow and raised a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson pistol to hip level. The stranger didn't fire, but the pair of men who bolted into the street were doing more than enough firing of their own.

“The bank's been robbed!” someone shouted from nearby.

Mark and Joey looked at each other, but didn't know what to say. Before either of them could make a noise, the stranger and his two partners had met in the middle of the street.

These two men wore their dusters buttoned up, with the collars flipped, so they were mostly covered from their noses all the way down to their shins. Each of them carried a burlap sack in one hand and a smoking pistol in the other. Turning as they fired, the two men in dusters shot again and again at the small building they left behind.

As the three men met up, a few other men emerged from the bank. Judging by how they fired at the trio in the street, the men coming from the bank weren't friends of the trio.

“Those men robbed the bank!” a man from the bank's doorway shouted. “Someone stop them!”

Mark and Joey stood their ground as more and more hell spilled out around them. More shots were fired. More people were shouting. A few women were screaming. A few more men holding shotguns emerged from even the buildings around the bank and saloon.

“Now's our chance,” Mark said. “Just follow my lead.” With that, Mark drew his own pistol and took aim at one of the men closest to him.

Even though Joey was clearly surprised by the move, he drew his own weapon all the same.

The stranger from the saloon turned on his heels and took aim at Mark and Joey in as much time as it took to blink. When he saw Mark drop a shotgun-wielding local from a nearby general store, the stranger refrained from shooting Mark.

The man Mark had shot was a potbellied fellow answering the frantic call from the bank. He hadn't even gotten a chance to bring his shotgun up to his shoulder before a round from Mark's pistol caught him in the chest. After that, it was a short fall to the boardwalk.

“Much obliged, partner!” one man in a duster said.

Although a good portion of the outlaw's face was covered by the collar of his duster, he could be seen smiling. He kept his smile even as he took advantage of the chaos surrounding the shotgunner's fall by shooting through the head two of the men still in the bank's doorway.

The other outlaw wearing a duster had rounded up three horses and was bringing them around. He fired every so often, but his shots were randomly placed to just do a good job of keeping the locals away.

“We're coming along with you!” Mark shouted.

The stranger from the saloon shifted a pair of cold eyes to them and asked, “What?”

Mark stood his ground as Joey fired at a pair of men who'd been trying to creep up on the outlaws' flank. Joey didn't drop anyone, but he did manage to clip one in the shoulder.

Climbing into his saddle, one outlaw holstered his pistol and drew another from under his coat. “You keep covering our backs like this and you're more than welcome to tag along. Just be sure you can keep up!”

When he snapped his reins, his two partners followed suit. As soon as their horses got moving, all three men dug their spurs into the animals' sides until they were bolting out of town.

“What do we do now?” Joey asked as he frantically shoved fresh rounds into his pistol.

Mark sent the last of his own bullets flying over the head of the closest local he could find, who just so happened to be the bartender from the saloon he'd just left. “You heard the man,” Mark replied as he ran to the post where his and Joey's horses were tied. “Let's tag along!”

As he raced down the street, Mark could see the men that Joey had fired at crawling for cover. The man he'd shot as well as a few lying in front of the bank were obviously never going to move again. All Mark had to do from there was fire a few more shots into the air and watch the other locals scatter as he raced after the bank robbers.

The first thing Clint wanted to do was move the gold. Considering how big the chunk was that was hidden beneath all those rags, it wasn't exactly an easy job.

Clint tried moving it on his own with no luck.

Next, he and Wes tried to move it. All that got them was a matching set of strained backs and sweaty foreheads.

“Jesus,” Clint muttered as he straightened up and pressed his hand against the small of his back. “How'd you get this here in the first place?”

The farmer was holding up well for a man his age, but was still doing his fair share of sweating. “I was so worked up when I found it, I damn near pulled my back out of joint trying to lift it onto a wagon. After that, I just tied it to the back and drug it here.”

“I suppose it's easier to cover up those tracks than to carry it.”

“You're damn right. Why do you think I left it here with nothin' but a bunch of rags to cover it up?”

“I was wondering about that awhile ago. Not anymore.”

Wes let out a breath and rubbed his hands together. “Why should we move this thing anyways?”

“Because if Mark saw it, then he knows where it is if he comes back.”

“And you think that boy can lift it better than us two combined?”

“No,” Clint replied. “But it'd be better all around if he thought it was gone.”

Eventually, Wes started to nod. “I suppose so.”

“You said there was more gold. Where is it?”

Pausing for a moment, Wes eyed Clint suspiciously. The farmer let out the breath he'd been holding and looked down as if he was ashamed of something that had gone through his mind.

“If you don't want to tell me,” Clint said, figuring out what was bothering Wes, “you don't have to. In fact, it could be safer if nobody else knew about—”

“I didn't take it from where I found it,” Wes said quickly. Now that the words were out, Wes looked as if a rotten tooth had finally been pulled from its socket. “I've been fighting so hard to keep from telling anyone about it, it gets hard to let go.”

“Like I said, you don't have to say anything you don't want to.”

“And the fact that you tell me that makes me trust you. Actually,” Wes added, “the fact that you mean it carries a lot of weight with me. The biggest chunk is in the pumpkin patch. I was trying to get it out of there when you first rode in.”

Clint smiled as he remembered seeing the farmer in the pumpkin patch. “And I thought you were just giving me a sour look because I was a stranger riding along with Lynn.”

“Well,” Wes added with a snarl, “that's not altogether appreciated either. But Lynn's a big girl now and I'd say she's got a fairly good head on her shoulders. Now are we gonna stand here jawing or are gonna get this thing moved?”

“You say there's a root cellar under the stable?” Clint asked.

Wes nodded. “Not much of one, but it's big enough for this thing. Actually, I dug it there to sock away valuables and such. The way the bank in town is guarded, you'd think they were holding nothing but candy in their damned safe.”

Clint let out a tired breath and squatted down on his side of the gold. “All right, then. Let's see if we can't get this moving.”

Both of them dug their fingers in as far under the gold as they could. From there, they dug in their heels and looked at each other to make certain they were ready for another try. They nodded, tightened their grip and pushed up with their legs.

Sweat trickled from Clint's forehead as a breath slowly seeped from between his lips. It took a few tries, but they finally managed to get the lump of gold moving from the spot where it seemed to have been embedded into the ground. For every fraction of an inch the gold budged, Clint and Wes had to work until every muscle was on fire.

It felt as if Clint was about to break his back, but he eventually moved the gold enough to shift his fingers a bit lower under the muddy surface. They took advantage of each small movement by pushing harder to get the gold rolling.

After all their work, Clint and Wes got the gold moved six feet onto boards that made up a sled attached to the hitch of two plow horses. It wasn't the prettiest contraption, but the simple sled was strong enough to hold the gold's weight. The horses hitched to the sled shifted uncomfortably as they felt the new weight added.

“Easy, now,” Wes said as he walked forward and patted each horse's neck. “If we can lift the damn thing, you two can drag it to the stable.”

Clint meant to stop for a few seconds to catch his breath, but wound up taking several breaths and wiping his brow. This time, when he looked out the barn door, it seemed an awfully long way from there to the neighboring building.

“So we hide this one and the rest of it,” Wes said. “What then?”

“I'll need to work out a few things with you as far as protecting this farm in case those gunmen come back.”

“I been protecting this spread for years,” Wes said defensively, “and I know plenty about how to do it.”

“How many gunfights have you been through?” Clint asked.

The farmer clenched his jaw and furrowed his brow, but remained quiet for a few seconds. “What do you suggest?”

“I'll make my suggestions after we get the gold moved. After we work out a couple plans, I'll see about tracking down those two gunmen and discouraging them from coming back.”

“Seems like one of 'em's just after Lynn, but I suppose that ain't much of a comfort. If he knows about the gold, he'll be back for sure. Maybe we should just get her away from here. It'd be a hell of a lot easier than moving this gold.”

“Sure,” Clint said with a chuckle. “If she wants to go. Making a woman change her mind when she doesn't want to could make moving this hunk of gold seem like tossing a pebble. Besides, it's going to be a whole lot easier to protect one spot rather than two. Those ladies should just stay put until something changes.”

“What ladies might those be?” Tina asked as she walked toward the barn.