Cover from the collection The End of the Trail: Western Stories (2005).
Background Colour: -White- -NavajoWhite- -Wheat- -Beige- -AntiqueWhite- -LightGray- -Silver- -BurlyWood- -Tan- -Black- -Blue-
Text Colour: -Black- -Brown- -Blue- -Green- -Red- -Yellow- -White- -Orange- -Silver-
Published in the collection The Vultures, 1973,
though here taken from the 2005 collection The End of the Trail: Western Stories.
Cover from the collection The End of the Trail: Western Stories (2005).
| Chapter I. “The Left Barrel—” Chapter II. The Face at the Window Chapter III. Fruit of the Desert |
Chapter IV. Hell’s Canyon Chapter V. The Coming of Hansen Chapter VI. “O’Mara Pays His Debts!” |
Somewhere a Mexican was singing to the drowsy accompaniment of a guitar. The sound came clearly to Stan Brannigan as he picked his way along the narrow, unpaved, and unlighted street, and the unfamiliar words reminded him forcibly that he was a long way from home and in a foreign land, where no one either knew or cared that he was alive.
It was late; late even for this wild border village where revelry and debauchery lasted until the stars began to pale, as a general rule. Most of the adobe houses along the one street were dark and silent, and only from one, a more pretentious frame building, lights streamed and voices mingled with the click of roulette wheels. Stan paused a moment in front of the doors, which were closed, hesitated, then started on. As he did so, voices were raised in fierce altercation inside the saloon, there sounded a rush of feet and the sudden crack of a pistol.
Stan whirled as the doors crashed open. Etched in the flood of lamplight from the bar, a figure reeled across the sill and pitched headlong out into the street. Stan sprang forward, knelt and lifted the man’s head, noting that the victim was a white-bearded old man.
“Any way I can help you?”
The old man’s breath was coming in terrible rattling gasps; his withered fingers gripped Stan’s wrists like claws. He opened his mouth and a trickle of blood stained his beard.
“My hut—” he gasped, fighting hard for a moment’s life, “my—gun—the—left—barrel—”
The form went limp in Stan’s arms, then stiffened. The young man eased the corpse to the earth and rose, mechanically cleansing his bloodstained hands. He was then aware that quite a crowd had gathered; they had evidently come out of the saloon, and now they stood back and whispered among themselves.
Standing above the dead man was a huge, powerfully built man, and to him Stan’s gaze was drawn as by a magnet. This man was tall and broad, with stooping shoulders and gnarly arms, but it was his face which drew Stan’s attention. If ever a face was stamped with evil and hate, it was this man’s. His lips writhed in a snarl, and from under heavy black brows, his eyes blazed, gleaming with a sort of magnetic savagery. Stan’s gaze traveled down to the pistol in the fellow’s right hand.
“Dead?” the word was jerked out, more an assertion than a question.
“Yes,” Stan nodded.
“Tried to hold up my joint,” the other said slowly, his eyes glaring into Stan’s as though in challenge. “I plugged him.”
Stan made no reply, but from somewhere among the knot of Mexicans and white men who looked on, there came a short sardonic laugh. The head of the killer came up with a jerk, and his eyes flamed with a new and sinister light as they roved vainly for the laughter. Then those eyes came back to Stan.
“He say anything before he croaked?” the killer asked harshly.
Stan hesitated. He could not have told just what instinct prompted him to lie; but under the burning intensity of those savage eyes, he felt somehow that the truth had better be withheld.
“No,” he answered briefly, “he didn’t say anything.”
The killer scanned his face with an almost painful intensity, then grudgingly holstered his gun, and said a few abrupt words in Spanish. A couple of Mexicans lifted the body of the old man and carried it back into the saloon. Stan hesitated, and then turned away. He had not taken four steps when he was aware that he was being accompanied. His sudden companion was a man of medium height, wiry and incredibly broad-shouldered and long-armed. In the light which streamed from the open saloon door, Stan saw that he was clad in worn cowboy garb, with two guns hung low at his hips. His face was hard and brown as an Indian, his eyes narrow and piercing. Then the doors slammed and the man was only a shadowy figure at his side, indistinct in the pale starlight.
Stan, undecided, said nothing, and the pair strode along for awhile in silence; then—
“That old boy, pard,” said the stranger softly, “shore got a rough deal.”
“Yeah?” Stan’s voice was noncommittal.
“Yeah, he did. He wasn’t tryin’ to hold up no joint. That fellow, Hansen, and him had a row; Hansen started for him, he started for the door, and Hansen shot him in the back.”
Stan gave an involuntary exclamation of horror and anger.
“Easy!” whispered the other. “They may be somebody within hearin’.”
“But how can a thing like that happen, with all those fellows lookin’ on?” asked Stan angrily.
His companion laughed shortly. You ain’t in the U.S.A. now. You’re in Old Mexico, and a particular tough part of Mexico at that. Right here in Sangre Del Diablo anything can happen—and quite often does. The old idee of ‘might’s right’ goes over great here, and that fellow Hansen just now happens to be the might. He owns that saloon and is the real ruler of the whole village. As for the onlookers, the only onlooker while ago in the saloon that wasn’t Hansen’s man, hand and heart, was me. What’s your name and what you doin’ across the border?”
“In the first place,” said Stan, nettled, “it ain’t any of your business.”
“Shore,” the other returned amiably, “that’s always understood. You say it’s none of my business, and I agrees. Now, that being settled, who are you and what you doin’ here?”
Stan laughed, half irritated, half amused.
“I haven’t anything to hide,” he said. “My name’s Stan Brannigan, and I’ve been punchin’ cows across the line in Arizona. I come across the border just to see what I could find—for fun and adventure, like—but so far I’ve found nothin’ but chile con carne, tortillas, and lukewarm beer.”
“You ain’t been goin’ to the right joints—most of these fellows keeps ice for the beer—but as for findin’ nothin’—hell! You’ve busted right into the middle of the wildest and most dangerous adventure you ever heard of. My name is—er, that is, you can call me Spike. I’m Texas born, original, and I’m in Sangre Del Diablo on business. And that business concerns the old codger that just stopped Hansen’s lead.
“Wait!” As they had walked, Spike had casually steered Stan toward the edge of the tiny village, and now they stood on the edge of the desert, dotted darkly in the starlight by cactus and a few straggling mesquites. Behind them loomed the black bulks of the adobe houses.
“Let’s sit down a minute,” suggested Spike. “This is a lot better’n talkin’ in a house where fellers can git behind doors and listen to yore secrets. Now, then, pard, me and you are due for a great break! Luck’s flyin’ our way with all wings spread—but it all rests with you.”
“What rests with me?”
“Whether the good luck keeps flyin’ or settles on our shoulder.”
“I don’t get you at all,” said Stan, bewildered. “What you mean?”
“It hinges,” said Spike mysteriously, “on what old Sour Sanson said before he died, to you.”
“Didn’t you hear me tell Hansen he didn’t say nothin’?”
“Be reasonable,” said Spike imperturbably, lighting a cigarette. “You’d naturally lie to Hansen; somethin’ about him what inspires falsehood in anybody. The average bird not only feels inclined to lie to Hansen instinctively, but also to steal from him, slander him—if it could be did—and poke him in the jaw. Hansen’s that kind of a bird. Shootin’ him oughta come under the head of public improvements. But anyway, let’s git down to facts. I don’t know no more’n Hansen does, what old Sour said when he was dyin’, but I do know that a feller like Sour will say somethin’ before he dies, no matter how much lead he’s got in him. With all the mystery that they was hangin’ over him, it ain’t right or decent to suppose that he kicked out without saying nothin’.”
Stan remained silent.
“I’ll give you the lowdown,” said Spike, puffing at his cigarette, “and then it’ll be up to you whether you talk or not.
“Back several years ago when old Pancho Villa was raisin’ Cain in these parts, they was a very wealthy old Mexican which lived in Spain. This Mex had been run outa the country by the Federal government, but had managed to take mosta his private fortune along. He went into business in Spain, so I been told, and the more he thought about the deal he’d got, the worse it burned him up. He musta gone clean cuckoo. Anyway, he finally got together a terrible lot of money and sent it from Spain to Mexico. It was intended for Pancho Villa. ‘Take this gold,’ the old Mex wrote, ‘and fight the Federals till Hades freezes,’ or somethin’ like that.
“But the gold never got to Villa—who coulda sure used it about that time. Some say his own men to whom it was delivered double-crossed him, some say a passel of Yaquis hopped ’em and scuppered the lot; anyway, the gold disappeared and no man’s ever seen or heard of it since, unless—”
“Unless what?”
“Unless it’s old Sour Sanson! Now wait; this old galoot’s a old time prospector. Been roamin’ the deserts of Texas, Arizona, California, and Mexico for gosh knows how long. Never made a real strike yet. But wait! A few weeks ago, old Sour blows into Sangre Del Diablo with gold—plenty of it. He says he’s struck it back in the hills, but won’t say where, not even when he’s drunk. But it don’t sound right, nor look right. The gold’s all in one hunk, and a lot of fellers, who knows gold too, decides that it’s been melted down. See? Right away they remember Villa’s gold, lost or stolen somewhere in these parts. This is what Hansen and several others thinks, includin’ me: that the gold was hid long ago and the hiders was killed and never come back to git it. Then old Sour stumbles onto the hidin’ place, but is afeard to pack it all out at once. So he melts some of the coins down, see, and pretends it’s virgin lode. Heck, he couldn’ta got away with that with anybody—anybody could see the stuff had been melted.
“Hansen and his gang gits after the old boy and after tryin’ kindness and coaxin’ and gittin’ him drunk—all of which fails—they git rough. Tonight, Hansen grabs the old man and tried to make him talk, and you know what happened. Sanson broke away and run, but Hansen, crazy with rage, got him.
“I happened to be there—drifted up from Sonora a few days ago, havin’ had wind of this ‘gold strike.’ Now you know all I know. If you know any more, I’d be glad to hear from you. You know, we’d make a fine pair to go after that gold—you couldn’t hope to git it by yourself.”
“Alright,” said Stan thoughtfully, “I’ll tell you. The old man said: ‘My hut—my gun—the left barrel.’ Maybe you can make somethin’ out of that. I can’t see no reason to it.”
“Me neither,” confessed Spike, “but we’ll investigate. ‘My hut’: that’s old Sour’s hut across on the other side of town. ‘My gun’: he usually packs a queer old muzzle loadin’ pistol, but he wasn’t wearin’ it tonight. ‘The left barrel’: maybe he’s got the gold hid in a barrel of flour! Let’s go.”
“Light that candle,” said Spike. “Maybe Hansen sent spies to foller you, and maybe people might git suspicious if they see a dead man’s hut all lit up. But the village as a whole is asleep and don’t know old Sour’s dead, and anyway we got to have a light to work by.”
Stan complied, glancing curiously about him at the squalid adobe hut that had housed the murdered Sour Sanson. A bunk, a rude chair and table, an open fireplace, a packsaddle, and a few mining tools met his gaze. The candle guttered on the table and dripped hot tallow ceaselessly.
“Understand Hansen had the hut searched before now, while Sour was drunk,” said Spike. “Anyhow, we’ll do a better job. Tear it apart if necessary.”
“What are you expectin’ to find?”
“I dunno. But I bet my hand that Sour’s last words referred to the gold, somehow.”
Stan looked intently at his companion, taking in again the low hung gun, the quick nervous motions of the hands, and, above all, the cold steel intensity of the narrow eyes.
“Say, who are you anyhow?” Stan asked bluntly. “And what are you?”
“As for who I am,” said Spike stolidly, bending down to examine the bunk, “one name’s as good as another, south of the border. As for what I am, I’m just only merely nothin’ but a wanderin’ cowpuncher, mild and peaceful, with the hankerin’s and instincks of a prospector.”
Stan stood idly in the center of the room while Spike prowled about, gouging into holes and breaking furniture. His eyes, roaming about, centered on a belt hanging from a nail driven into the wall. From this belt hung a long black holster holding a pistol of antique and curious design. The old prospector’s last words in his mind, Stan crossed the room and lifted the gun from its scabbard. It was an old muzzleloader of European manufacture, ornately carved and scrolled on stock, lock and barrel—Stan started, remembering. The gun was double-barreled, and the percussion cap was missing on the nipple of the left barrel.
He drew forth the tiny ramrod from its groove beneath the twin barrels and, turning the screw on the end, inserted it into the muzzle. He felt something that might or might not be a charge, twisted carefully, felt the screw catch, and withdrew the rod.
Transfixed by the screw was a wadded up piece of very thin leather. He unfolded it; drawn in faint red lines was a map of some sort, with words laboriously scrawled beneath.
“Spike!” he exclaimed, but Spike was already at his side, his eyes blazing.
“A map!” the other exclaimed. “A map where the gold’s hid! I knowed it! And look! The old man writ it out plain—the Cañon Los Infernos in the mountains of—”
Looking over Spike’s shoulder, Stan cried out sharply and suddenly. Framed in the one window was a face, swarthy and evil—a Mexican whose eyes gleamed with hate and avarice as he glared at the map in Spike’s hand. Only for an instant did Stan see the face before it vanished—only the merest fraction of a second, but in that instant Spike whirled, drew, and fired. It seemed he did it all in one motion, with a volcanic quickness which stunned and bewildered his companion.
While Stan still stood in amazement, Spike leaped to the door and slid through. Stan came to himself and leaped after him, but at the threshold he met Spike returning.
“Got away,” snarled the Texan. “Missed him. Not far though.” And he tossed a tall sombrero on the floor. Stan noted the hole in the crown.
“For a peaceful cowpuncher,” said Stan slowly, “you sure unleathered your gun in a hurry. I just caught a glance of him as he ducked, yet you managed to draw and shoot at him so quick he didn’t have time to get his hat out of the way.”
“Oh, I been practicin’ with guns a good deal,” said Spike, a slight shadow of seeming annoyance crossing his dark features. “Forgit it; here’s the map. It says plain that the gold’s hid in Hell’s Canyon up in the mountains south of here. The hardest part is before us. That Mex was bound to been one of Hansen’s men. We got to git outa here before the whole gang descends on us. They’s miles and bare desert and a lot of terrible rough mountains between here and the canyon we wants. Right now we’ll beat it out to my camp at the edge of town. It ain’t so long till daylight, and they’s no time to sleep now. We gotta be away out on the desert by sunup. Come on.”
“Still and all,” persisted Stan as they left the hut, “that speed of yours is sure a revelation. Nobody could have done it no quicker, not even that famous border badman, Mike O’Mara.”
“Don’t mention that bloody devil to me,” snarled Spike. “Le’s git goin’.”
The swiftly mounting sun blinded Stan Brannigan as its blazing rays beat back from the alkali sand. He hitched at his belt and cursed softly. He was inured to desert travel, but this beat any desert he had ever seen for heat and drought; besides, he was feeling the effect of last night’s loss of sleep.
He glanced at Spike, slumped in his saddle and swaying easily with the motion of his plodding mount. A slouchy but effective rider. The heat beat down on Stan, and he cursed himself for allowing a stranger to inveigle him into a wild-goose chase. He fumed at the time they were making, though he realized that it would be suicide to attempt any faster pace, considering the distance they must traverse.
They had left the little village of Sangre Del Diablo just before the utter blackness that precedes dawn. Four horses made up their string: their mounts, one pack horse loaded with as much economy as was possible, and a spare mount. They had one pick, one shovel, their weapons, canteens, and a supply of food, which, with proper use, would last them until their return.
Now the sun was high in the heavens, and Stan continually looked back, always expecting to sight the cloud of dust which would announce a band of pursuers.
“I ain’t expectin’ a fight yet,” said Spike, as Stan spoke to him. “Hansen knows we got the map now, and if I’m any judge, he’d rather wait till we get the gold and then try to take it away from us. Anyway, I figure he’ll let us lead him to the gold—if he can—before he looms on the scene. Still, he’s got no idea which way we went. We sneaked out so cautious like, I don’t think no one saw us. Maybe he can track us, and maybe he can’t. This sand shifts pretty fast. Anyhow, I ain’t worryin’ about him till I see him—and maybe not then. Only one of that gang that’s really dangerous. That’s Yaqui Slade; not a Injun but a bad white man. Real gunfighter. Hansen? Bah. Harder to whip than a buffalo in rough-and-tumble, but slow as mud with a gun.”
“Then he ought to be easy for you,” said Stan slowly.
Spike spat in the sand and did not reply. Stan gazed at the great bulk of mountains looming far away in the heat laden sky. Heat waves shimmered between, making them seem vague and illusive. But even at that distance, Stan could tell that those craggy heights were barren and terrible. They seemed fraught with menace, brooding there like prehistoric monsters, evil things of another age.
“One mountain spring I know,” said Spike, following his companion’s gaze. “It’s kind of a freak. You don’t find much water in them hills. Right in the mouth of Cañon Los Infernos, too. Blame lucky and convenient for us.”
A long silence followed, broken only by the creak of sweaty leather and the scruff of the horses’ hooves through the sand. Stan wiped the sweat from his brow. Spike slumped further into his saddle, swaying with such perfect rhythm in accord to his mount’s motions that he seemed part of the animal.
They did not stop for a midday meal. The grip of the gold lust had its talons on Spike, and the spirit had entered Stan’s blood to a certain extent.
“How much money did that old Mex send Villa?” asked Stan.
“A million dollars, they say.”
“Applesauce! In gold? It’d take a train to carry that much gold.”
“I ain’t sayin’ how it was packed,” answered Spike. “But the story has it a million dollars. If we find it, we’ll pack out what we can, and hide the rest in a different place.”
The sun passed the zenith and slanted westward, but with scant abatement of the heat which curled the leather of the saddles.
“We been easy on the horses,” said Spike, as the sun began to set, “but they got to rest and have a little water. We’ll unsaddle ’em and wait till the moon sets. That ain’t so terrible long, but long enough for ’em to rest and us to eat a little. Then we’ll move on and rest again about daylight.”
“Alright,” Stan answered. Again a silence fell as the stars blinked out. The two men rode on through the pallid light of the young moon like phantoms; like the last men alive in a dead world. The sands glinted silver, shading into blackness. The cactus reared up like stunted giants, silent and brooding.
They halted, threw off packs and saddles, watered the horses from the canteens and sat down to eat, rest, and smoke. They said little. Stan was weary and not inclined to conversation. His mind dallied with the thought of the treasure, but he was unable to become enthusiastic. It seemed too much like a dream, too unreal. Real life consisted, to Stan Brannigan, of hard, heartbreaking toil: riding through all kinds of weather, hot and cold; sweating in the dust and fury of the roundup; branding, roping—he sighed. No, a million dollars in gold was too good to be true. He glanced at his companion.
Spike’s eyes gleamed in the glow of his cigarette. He seemed darkly brooding, drawn apart from human fellowship. Something about him set him apart; even though he was friendly and jovial, Stan sensed that there was a barrier of reserve between them. Again the younger man wondered—who was this steely-eyed man who called himself Spike?
Stan yawned and stretched, humming to keep himself awake. An old border ballad came to his lips:
“Mike O’Mara rode up from Sonora,
Packin’ a forty-five gun;
He met a Texas ranger,
And says, ‘Good mornin’, stranger,
Yore work on earth is done.’ ”
Spike made a fierce, passionate gesture, as if stung out of his calm.
“Can’t you lay off that bird?” His tone was vibrant with a strange passion. “What you wanta keep draggin’ up the name of—of O’Mara?”
“Why,” said Stan, puzzled, “anybody’s likely to sing that song; it ain’t been but a few years since O’Mara was raisin’ Cain on the border down around Tiajuana, and further down in Sonora.”
“Let him rest,” said Spike harshly. “Mike O’Mara’s dead and gone; he’ll never come back. Forgit him. Let the world forgit him.”
“What you got against him?” asked Stan curiously.
“That’s neither here nor there. Lay down and git some sleep. I’ll wake you when the moon sets.”
“Ain’t you sleepy?”
“Naw—git to sleep. As for O’Mara, I’ll just say this, and I don’t want to ever hear the swine mentioned again: he killed one man too many—the last man he shot down in cold blood. Git to sleep now.”
Stan spread his blanket and dropped into a dreamless sleep, from which it seemed he was awakened in a few minutes by a hand on his shoulder.
“Le’s git on the move,” Spike was saying. “Moon’s down and it’s time we was travellin’.”
A few minutes of fumbling at cinches and bridles and then they moved out across a darkened desert which pulsed blackly beneath the stars. Stan, rubbing the clinging sleep out of his eyes, stared ahead at the vague black bulk of the mountains. They seemed no nearer.
At the first tint of dawn they again halted for awhile, then moved on again. The sun was coming up over the desert like a red shield of flame. The sands throbbed crimson, like a shallow sea of blood, and through those red shadows, Stan saw a figure stumbling.
“Look, Spike!”
“I see him,” rapped the other, quickening his mount’s pace. “Some feller that’s lost his bronc and got lost. Hey!”
Stan added his voice to Spike’s stentorian shout, and at the sound the distant figure wavered about uncertainly, started toward them at a weak stumbling gait.
“A boy,” said Spike, reaching for his canteen. “Just a kid—no, by Judas, it’s a girl!”
Stan cried out; the slim figure had pitched headlong in the sand and lay still. They hastened forward, dismounted beside the still form. Stan lifted her gently in his arms and, tilting his canteen, let a thin stream of water trickle through the parched and blistered lips. Spike fanned the fainted girl with his hat, and presently she opened her eyes, stared wildly about her, then clutched at the canteen with the piteous cry of a famished animal.
“Easy, sister, easy,” cautioned Stan gently. “Don’t drink too fast; it ain’t good for you.”
The girl looked up at him uncertainly, and Stan squirmed uneasily from the glance of her large deep eyes. She was a slim little figure, dressed in a khaki shirt and riding breeches, and the slouch hat had fallen from her head, revealing a mass of unruly golden curls. Her eyes were a soft gray, shaded by long dark lashes, and though her full red lips were blistered and her delicate cheeks burned brown by the sun, Stan realized in a panic that this was the most beautiful girl he had ever met.
“Class here,” he thought dazedly. “Looks and blood, too. High class family, I betcha a nickel. What’s she doin’ wanderin’ around here?”
“Let me have some more water, please,” she begged, and Stan put the canteen to her lips, again cautioning her to drink slowly.
At last she sat up, replaced her hat, and drew her hand dazedly across her brow.
“Where am I?” she asked like a lost child.
“In the desert between Sangre Del Diablo and the Infernos Mountains.”
She shook her head wearily.
“That doesn’t mean anything to me. I rode and rode and rode, till my horse gave out almost. Then when I dismounted to rest him, he got away from me. I’ve been wandering—all night, it seems.”
“Lucky we found you when we did. A few hours of this sun would have about finished you. We’ll take you back to—”
“Stan!” Spike broke in harshly, speaking for the first time. He was standing beside his horse and a black look was on his face—a worried, angry expression.
“Stan, we can’t take her back! We got to go on!”
“But we can’t leave her here, Spike!”
“She can go with us. Anyway, we can’t go back till we’ve done what we started to do. I tell you, this is our only chance.”
“But, Spike—” began Stan uncertainly and somewhat angrily.
“Oh, don’t send me back!” the girl’s cry was as sharp as a wounded bird’s. “No, no!” she caught Stan’s arm and clung desperately to him. “Take me with you or leave me here where you found me—anything—but don’t, please don’t, take me back! I’d rather die here!”
“Alright,” Stan was rather appalled at the desperation in her tone and her face. “We got a long dangerous journey in front of us, but if you won’t go back, it’s a cinch you can’t stay here.”
“Get her on the spare bronc,” Spike said shortly. “Let’s git movin’. We got no time to waste. Hansen’s on our track right now, like as not, and we can’t fight his gang out in the open. We got to git in the mountains before they catch up with us.”
Stan helped the girl on the horse, but his heart smote him as he thought of the perils which faced them, and to which she would necessarily be exposed if she accompanied them. But evidently from her manner a worse peril lay behind her, and letting her go seemed the only way out.
They took up their journey again in silence. Spike’s manner had changed. His air of lazy good nature had dropped from him. Stan heard him curse beneath his breath as he glanced at the girl, and several times he shook his head, either in pity or anger.
As for the girl, she said nothing, neither asked their names nor, when Stan introduced himself and Spike, did she volunteer her own, except to say briefly: “You may call me Joan.” She was evidently at the point of nervous collapse from fatigue and mental strain of some sort, but she bore up bravely and uttered no word of complaint, even when the increasing heat made her sway in her saddle. Stan watched and pitied her suffering from the depths of his heart, but he realized their desperate need for covering miles. There was no time to stop—and in this blazing wilderness, no refuge from the merciless sun if they should stop. Somehow the fearful day wore on, and as the sun rocked down the west, the first cactus-covered slopes of the foothills rose in front of them.
As darkness fell, Spike drew rein.
“Here we camp,” he said harshly. “Horses had a hard day. We all got to be fresh when we tackle them mountains tomorrer. We’ll rest here all night and start out early in the mornin’. I think we’ve got enough start on Hansen for that. Anyway, we’ll keep a lookout all night.”
Stan realized that Spike, with his burning urge for the gold, would have gladly pushed on through the night, and he felt more warmly toward the strange man as he knew that it was because of the girl that Spike had decided to wait until morning.
Joan was so exhausted that she had to be lifted from her saddle, and she crumpled in Stan’s arms in a state of collapse. He made a pillow for her with his blankets and bathed her forehead and face, using as much water for the purpose as he dared. Their canteens were getting low, and they might not find the spring of which Spike had spoken. Joan submitted meekly and silently to his care, and Stan experienced a foolish protective glow in his bosom. He was glad to care for her, and he began to feel a tingling about his heart which, he decided with a sigh, must be the beginnings of this love stuff he had heard and read so much about.
They supped sparingly on water and the cooked food which they had brought along, not daring to light a fire lest the light betray them to possible pursuers. Afterward, the men smoked cigarettes and the girl sat in silence, watching the stars. Suddenly she spoke, and her voice was hard and bitter.
“I suppose you wonder why I ran away from somewhere?”
“Miss, it ain’t any of our business,” answered Stan.
“But I’ll tell you,” she cried with a swift passionate gesture. “I’m a member of a party of tourists who are camped back there across the border. There’s a man there whom I hate—yesterday my father told me that I had to marry this man. My family was going to make me—you don’t know my family. They’ve been making me do things I didn’t want to do all my life. That night I saddled a horse and ran away. I rode straight across the border, and kept riding.
“Oh, I know it was the act of a fool. I didn’t stop to think. I couldn’t think. I was nearly crazy. I knew if I stayed my family would force me into marrying him—and I hate him. I hate him!”
Stan did not doubt this statement. Her eyes blazed and her small hands clinched into tiny fists.
“I guess you think I’m a fool and bad, too,” she said savagely.
“I reckon we don’t,” said Stan, but she gave no heed.
“I’ll never go back and marry a man I hate,” she said slowly. “I don’t know who you men are and I don’t care. I don’t know where you’re going or what you intend to do about me. And I don’t care. I’ve always done what the family wanted me to do—now the family can go to hell!”
“You’re workin’ yourself into a unnecessary passion,” said Stan calmly. “We’re just a couple of hard-workin’ decent cowpunchers, and you’re as safe with us as you’d be anywhere, as far as we’re concerned. After we finish our job, we got to take you back to your family. But if I’m any judge of parents, they’ll be so blame glad to get you back, they won’t want you to do nothin’ you don’t want to do. Now you better git some sleep so as to be fresh in the mornin’.”
Sunrise found the wanderers toiling up the cactus-grown slopes that marked the lower reaches of the Infernos Mountains. As they mounted, the way grew rougher and more barren. The soil grew thinner, less sandy, even more arid, and the cactus thinned out. The sun beat back insufferably from the bare rocks which pulsed in the heat. Stan wondered if this illusive treasure were worth all this trouble, but the light in Spike’s cold eyes grew in ferocious intensity. The horses suffered, and the humans suffered more. No word of complaint came from any of them, but even Spike snarled beneath his breath as the mounting sun hurled all its power upon their unprotected heads.
The higher they climbed, the wilder and more rugged grew the hills.
“The hills of Hell!” thought Stan dizzily—an appropriate name. Not men but demons surely flung up this waste of waterless Purgatory, this range of burning soil and baked rock where even cactus would not grow. The Hills of Hell—again and again this phrase beat on Stan’s brain, keeping time with the stumbling clink of the horses’ hoofs.
Mid-afternoon found them riding through a terrific maze of plateaus and gorges, overshadowed by great black crags and overhanging ledges. Here there was no breath of air and even in the shadow of the crags the heat was terrible.
“Spike,” said Stan, “they better be a million in gold—after all we’ve went through.”
Spike nodded shortly. He had scarcely spoken since the girl joined them, and Stan sensed that he bitterly resented her presence, though his attitude toward her was impersonally polite. If Joan felt this, she gave no sign of it.
At nightfall they pushed on through a nightmarish chaos of ghostly crags and distorted cliffs, which, silvered by the moon, took on goblin shapes and fantastic designs.
The moon had not yet set, but it hovered on the western rim when Spike drew rein at the broad mouth of a canyon, and pointed.
“Here’s Cañon Los Infernos—and there’s the spring.”
“You’re all wet,” Stan was weary and skeptical. “There’s no water in these hills.”
“Yes, they is. I told you it was a freak. Right over yonder under them overhangin’ rocks. It bubbles outa the earth right by the side of a boulder that you could build a hotel on. Just a small spring. But now we can drink all we want to.”
They could and did. Even Spike, burning with impatience, realized the futility of a treasure hunt by starlight, and they ate, fed and watered the horses, and sank down beside the spring, thankful for the opportunity to rest and drink.
Stan lighted a cigarette and puffed with deep satisfaction.
“Nothin’ to it,” said he. "Takes a heap of discomfort to make a man appreciate a few hours of ease. And believe me, this country’s plumb full of discomforts.”
“I’ve seen worse,” muttered Spike.
“Maybe I have too, but I don’t remember where. How do you like the border, Miss Joan?”
“I hate it,” her eyes flashed in the gloom. “My only brother—the only one of my family who ever showed any consideration for me—died in one of these vile border towns, years ago when I was just a child. Killed in a gambling hall in Tiajuana.”
“What was his name?” Spike’s voice rasped the stillness.
“Tom Kirby; he was murdered by a desperado named Mike O’Mara.”
Stan shot a swift glance at Spike. The man sat as if frozen; the cigarette had fallen from his lips, the color had drained from his face, and his hands clinched until the nails sank into the palms. Then, muttering something about seeing to the horses, he rose and lurched away into the gloom, moving like a drunken man. Stan shook his head in puzzlement. What connection was there between his strange friend and the desperado who some years since had blazed meteor-like along the wild border, leaving a name that had become almost a myth, surrounded by bloody legends?
Suddenly Spike appeared again, looming up like a carven image, indistinct in the shadows.
“You all better git to sleep,” he said. “I’ll watch a while, then wake you up, Stan, and we’ll take time about. Miss Joan—I—uh—you—yore brother was the last man Mike O’Mara killed, and he regretted it all of his life. It was right after that that O’Mara died, and he suffered plenty, if it’ll help you to know that.”
Then before the girl could speak, he had faded into the shadows again.
The night passed uneventfully. At dawn, Spike and Stan were poring over the map.
Stan read aloud the scrawling characters of old Sour Sanson: “This here is the map of the gold I found. Twenty paces from the boulder marked on the map, in the face of the cliff.”
Spike bent over the faint tracery on the leather. “Here’s the boulder he marked. Must be away up the canyon. Let’s fill the canteens, saddle up and be gittin’ along. When—or if—we find the mazuma we’ll leave the canyon by another route; longer way but more apt to dodge Hansen and his men. By golly, I can’t understand why they ain’t hove in sight. We musta slipped clean away from ’em. I hope so.”
“I thought you was kinda honin’ for a tussle with ’em.”
“I was, till the girl joined us. That makes things different.”
Steve nodded. Spike’s attitude had changed strangely toward Joan. There was a gentle, almost tender note in his voice when he spoke to her, and he was careful to see that she got various small considerations, which before he had neglected.
The sun was high in the heavens when they reached the place marked on the dead prospector’s map. It was a wild rugged region, boulder-strewn and overhung by threatening crags.
“This here must be the boulder,” said Spike, indicating a huge rock which rose not far from the face of the cliff that towered above the floor of the canyon. Stan felt his pulse quicken. Maybe there was something to the tale of the gold! Spike, on the other hand, seemed to have lost much of his fire. He was cold and calculating, and Stan felt that this change was largely a result of the girl—why, he could not say.
“Before we start huntin’,” said Spike, “we’ll let Miss Joan sit in the shadow of this rock where it’s not so hot, while we climb that bluff there and take a look around. We can see a long way from there.”
Joan sat patiently watching, while her two protectors struggled up the steep slope in the glare of the pitiless sun. Stan was sweat-soaked and sun-blinded long before they reached the top; his chest heaved with the exertion and his knees trembled, but Spike showed no particular distress.
“You must be made outa iron,” said Stan, half in envy, half in irritation.
“I been livin’ in this country a long time,” Spike answered absently, drawing a pair of binoculars from a case.
“Look here; we’re a long ways above the canyon wall proper, and most of the crags; we can see clean back to the mouth of it where the spring is, and a lot further—say!” his body stiffened as he glared through the lens, then he handed them to Stan.
“Focus back beyond the canyon mouth some ways.”
Stan gazed and presently he saw six tiny figures swim into view. He caught only a glimpse, then they vanished into a deep defile.
“Six men on horseback!”
“Yeah!” Spike rapped. “We gotta work fast. Hansen and his bullies, of course. Blame good thing we clumb up here. They’re away back there where the goin’s terrible hard. I reckon they’re trailin’ us, but I believe we got time to git the gold—if it’s there—and git out before they arrive. Take ’em hours to git here at the rate they’re goin’.”
They hastened down the slopes recklessly, tearing clothing and risking broken bones. Saying nothing to Joan about what they had seen, they went to work.
“Twenty paces to the face of the cliff.” Spike stepped them off and attacked the cliff with a kind of fierce savagery. A few blows of his pick and a crumbling of loose rocks revealed one large rock, apparently blocking some sort of an aperture. Stan stepped forward, but Spike shoved him away and, digging his fingers into the dirt beside the rock, gripped the edge and exerted all his strength. The sweat flowed from his bronzed features, blood trickled from under his fingernails, but he still jerked and heaved. Then suddenly the stone gave way, precipitating him to the earth in a tiny avalanche of dirt and pebbles. Stan gave an exclamation. A small cave was revealed, and in this cave stood a rotting sack through whose crumbling sides bulged a stream of glinting gold!
Stan gaped in bewilderment. His brain reeled. After all, he had never really expected to find the treasure.
“Holy jumpin’ Jerusalem!” he gasped, finding his voice. “It’s true! Great Moses, Spike, it’s true!”
Spike scrambled up, his eyes blazing.
“True!” he snorted. “You ack like you didn’t believe! Git the slack outa yore jaw and bring me them saddlebags. We got no time to waste.”
Joan had left her shade and was standing there, her eyes wide as she gazed upon the crumbling sack with its shimmering treasure.
“Spanish coins!” she exclaimed. “There must be thousands of dollars! Now I understand why you men came here.”
“Hustle with them bags,” snarled Spike. “Yeah, this is why, Miss, and what’s more, you’re goin’ to share in it. Now, shut up; we ain’t got time to talk.”
“No million here by a long shot,” said Stan as they scooped the coins into the bag.
“Lucky for us,” rapped Spike. “We couldn’t carry out a million in gold and we likely wouldn’t want to leave it. No time to count it—but they’s thousands of dollars here. We can pack it all by throwin’ away everything but just what we need. I can walk, if necessary.”
“Wonder how old Sour found it?” Stan was working fast and talking faster.
“No tellin’. Them old prospectors is always slammin’ a pick into the cliff or somewhere. It’s a cinch he took some of the gold, and fixed the place back like it was. Come on, the bags is full. Throw away everything but the water and enough food for one meal. We gotta starve if necessary, but we gotta git out! By golly, with the gold and the girl too, we’ll be lucky if we ever see the border!”
Loose shale shifted and clinked beneath the hoofs of the horses. Stan gazed up at the narrow walls of the defile down which they were riding and strove to correlate his thoughts. Within the last two hours things had happened with such amazing quickness that he was almost dizzy. The sight of their pursuers, the finding of the gold, the flight. Above all, the gold! The sudden transition from poverty to wealth is enough to stun any man. Stan could scarcely believe, but the bulging saddlebags which swung on each side of the pack horse and at his own saddle were proof indisputable.
They were traversing a narrow gorge which led away from Hell’s Canyon at right angles.
“Got only about a half hour start of Hansen now,” Spike had said. “Chances are that our horses are fresher though, and our only chance is to dodge in and out among all these canyons and gorges, and try to lose ’em. They don’t know the country like I do.”
So they rode, and when Stan glanced at the trim little figure ahead of him, riding between himself and Spike, he felt a gnawing apprehension that drowned all thought of the gold. Hansen would stop at nothing, he knew. Still, Hansen had yet to catch them, and even if he did, the matter was not decided—though Stan realized that six to two was terrific odds.
They rode and the sun slanted westward. They had made so many turns and twists that Stan was already lost. He could not have retraced his steps to the canyon where they found the gold, without Spike’s guidance, though he felt that he could, if necessary, find a way through the mountains to the desert.
“We gotta make all the time we can,” said Spike, “so we’ll have a good start when we hit the desert. On the straightaway run, that’s when we’ll catch hell. Once Hansen sees us, he’ll kill every horse they got to catch us. We can’t kill our horses and we can’t let him git in sight of us. So you see what we’re up against. And, Stan,” his voice dropped low and became a trifle diffident, “if I don’t make it through, see that the kid gits my share, will yuh?”
“You mean Joan?”
“Yeah.”
“Sure. But we’ll make it alright.”
“I dunno,” muttered the Texan. “Somehow I feel like I’ll never see the line; last night I dreamed about Tom Kirby.”
“Joan’s brother that got killed? Was he a friend of yours?”
“He musta been,” Spike said with a bitterness that startled Stan, and the subject was dropped.
The sun sank westward, but still the heat waves shimmered and danced with mocking life.
“I been thinkin’,” began Stan suddenly. “This money now: have we got any real right to it, Spike?”
“Why not?” Spike exclaimed passionately. “Ain’t we gone through hell to get it? It’s ours by right of discovery. The old Mex sent it to Villa; old Sour found it—Sour’s dead and so is Villa, and none of ’em left any heirs, so far as I know. Likely the old Mex is dead, too. No, sir! This here money is ours!”
Stan subsided. The sun was beginning to set and they were riding through a broad, low-walled defile. Spike drew rein.
“We got to stop awhile. Another hour’s ride will git us out onto the desert where we can’t stop. This is risky, but the best chance we got. We ain’t heard or seen a thing of Hansen. We got to rest and water the horses for the long pull tonight. We’ll rest here awhile.”
They unsaddled and placed the packs, saddlebags, and saddles close to the canyon wall.
“I’ll go back a ways and watch,” said Spike. “I’ll go back past that bend in the canyon; from there I can see ’em comin’ a long way. If you hear shots, mount and ride!”
Stan cried out in protest. “And leave you there to fight Hansen by yourself ? A great chance! If they heave in sight, you flag it back to camp, and we’ll all take it on the run.”
Spike merely nodded and strode away up the canyon.
“Who is he?” asked Joan curiously, as she stretched out on the blanket Stan spread for her, grateful for the chance to rest.
“You know as much as I do,” answered Stan. “He’s a fine fellow, but I don’t know what his real name is.”
Joan sighed in pure weariness. Stan’s heart smote him as he looked at her, as if he were responsible for her exhaustion. Her pretty face was drawn and haggard, her skin dark and sunburned, her eyes burned darkly as if they had sunk into their sockets.
“This has been a terrible trip for you, kid,” he said gently. “And I’m afraid the worst ain’t over yet.”
“I’m not worrying,” she answered. “It’s not the suffering of the journey—I can stand that. It’s what is waiting for me back north of the border.”
“Don’t let that worry you,” Stan said. “I dunno how old you are; you’re mighty young but I know you’re past eighteen. Nobody can make you marry somebody when you’re of age, that way. An’ now you ain’t dependent on nobody because you’re wealthy, same as us.”
“You don’t mean you’re going to share your gold with me?” she cried.
“Sure I do; ain’t you gone through as much as we have? And didn’t you hear Spike say you was to share equal? Sure.”
To his utter horror, tears gathered in the deep gray eyes, and her lip trembled.
“Oh, forgoshsakes!” he wailed contritely. “What I done now?”
“N-nothing,” she gulped. “You’re so good to me I can’t help crying. Since my brother Tom was killed, I haven’t been used to much kindness. You two men have treated me just as if I were a queen; you’ve been so courteous and kind to me—I can’t help crying because I’m happy.”
Stan sighed in relief, though his bewilderment was not abated.
“Dames is sure queer critters,” he thought. “They squall when they’re sad and squall when they’re glad. But this girl is a mighty nice little kid.”
The sun was setting in a wallow of red behind the canyon wall. The last rays emblazoned the red clay bluffs and the barren rocks, lending illusion and enchantment. The cliffs seemed banded with bloody fire, and the deepening sky above was a great copper bowl.
“You know,” said Stan, “I was just thinking: what a lucky chance it was we come on to you. If Spike and me hadn’t been gold huntin’, and if we hadn’t found you right early in the mornin’—”
His full attention was fastened on his listener; simultaneously he heard a foot crunch in the shale, and the girl’s eyes flared wide with terror. Stan whirled and came up with a bound, cursing himself for his negligence. As in a dream he saw, with one fleeting glance, the heavy features of Hansen, the dark sombre face of Slade—even as he turned, he drew and fired full at Hansen. But the man was slightly behind the others. A stocky fellow between them reeled and fell, and before Stan could pull the trigger again, Slade’s pistol spat. Stan felt a terrible blow on the side of his head; there was a blinding blaze of fire, then the light went out and he knew no more.
Slowly Stan drifted back to life. His head throbbed unbearably and when he sought to lift his hands to his wound, he was unable to do so. He realized then that he was bound hand and foot, so closely that the circulation of his blood was almost cut off, and his limbs were numb. There was a great deal of dried blood on his head and face, but the wound seemed to have ceased bleeding.
A strange radiance leaped and flickered in front of him, and he saw that this was a camp fire. About this fire sat several figures. He saw the huge bulk of Hansen, the lean, Indian-like figure of Yaqui Slade, La Costa, the Frenchman—all bad men whom he recognized from Spike’s descriptions. Also, there was a Mexican and a tall man in riding clothes. This man was a stranger to Stan and evidently to the rest. There was an air of wealth about him; the manner of one to whom life has been good. He was handsome in an arrogant sort of way and, gazing at him, Stan hated him more than Hansen, for some reason. Across from this man, white under her tan, and staring-eyed, sat Joan Kirby.
She cried out when she saw Stan’s eyes were open, and tried to rise to come to him, but Hansen reached out a restraining hand.
“No you don’t, sister; you stay where you’re at.”
“But he needs attention,” she begged. “He needs water—and you wouldn’t let me bandage his wound, you beast!”
“You’ll git nowhere callin’ me names,” said Hansen stolidly. “As for attention, he’ll git that quicker’n he wants it, I reckon.”
“Say listen,” broke in Slade, “here’s us sittin’ around this fire like a passel of fools with this bird’s pard runnin’ loose. What’s to prevent him pickin’ us off at a distance?”
“He ain’t got no rifle. We’re here in the angle of the canyon wall, and the only way he can git to us is to show hisself right in front of us. I hope he does do that. But he won’t. I betcha that bird’s on his way to the border right now.”
“I dunno,” muttered Slade. “He looks like a bad hombre to me. Some place I’ve seen him, but I can’t remember where.”
“Keep an eye out for him, anyhow. And now,” turning toward Stan, “maybe our little friend here would like to know how come us to git the drop on him—before he kicks out.
“I’ll tell you, feller, and when I git through tellin’, you’ll see Bad Hansen ain’t to be fooled with. My Mex come back on the run after your pard had shot at him and missed, and told me you birds had found a map in old Sour’s hut.
“You stole a march on me, I admit. When I finally found where Spike had been camped, you was already a long time gone. But some Mexes had seen you leave, and they said you’d headed for the mountains. Knowin’ old Sour had been up in the Hell Mountains before he come back with that gold, I put two and two together and we sot out after you.
“Alright. After coverin’ considerable many miles, we run onto this feller,” indicating the stranger, “Mr. Harmer. Lookin’ for a runaway girl, he was.”
Stan saw Joan shudder, and he cursed.
“You’re the swine they was goin’ to make her marry, huh? If I could get my hands free, I’d teach you to persecute a helpless girl, you—”
“No use ravin’, Brannigan,” said Hansen, with a grin. “I’d be glad to untie you just to see the fight, if I could afford to. But they’s too much at stake. We got the gold now, and I ain’t goin’ to risk it.
“Alright. Mr. Harmer’s Mexican guide had found by the tracks that a girl had joined the party we was trackin’. So I give Mr. Harmer the lay of the land, and he agreed to throw in with us. We pushed our horses hard and made for Hell’s Canyon. The Mex figured that you birds would head there first, no matter where else you was goin’, because the only spring in these mountains is there.
“Maybe you thought we didn’t know about the spring. We didn’t, but the Mex did. We wasn’t many hours behind you when you found the gold, and you hadn’t more’n got outa sight when we rode up to where you found it. We didn’t waste no time there. The Mex, he knows these hills better’n your pard knows ’em, and we ain’t had no trouble at all in follerin’ you. We been keepin’ just behind you all the way, stayin’ outa sight and lettin’ you wear your broncs down. We figured it’d be better to let you pack the gold as far as possible ’cause the load is so hard on the horses.
“The Mex knew just about which way you’d take leavin’ Hell’s Canyon and gittin’ outa the mountains, so we didn’t have to stay in sight of you to keep track of you. Then we was watchin’ when you stopped, with high power glasses from back yonder. We saw your pard go up to the bend of the canyon to watch, and so we took a pasear around and come in from another side. Right down yonder a ways is a gorge comin’ into this canyon that I bet even your pard don’t know about. And you was so interested in the girl, you didn’t hear us comin’.
“Oh, we’ve took you good and plenty all the way,” Hansen concluded, with a hard, satisfied laugh.
“Anyway,” Stan snarled, “I settled one of you.”
“Yep,” agreed Hansen, “you shore wound Shorty’s clock. But it saved my life, so I ain’t kickin’. Somebody’s always got to die in the gettin’ of a treasure like this, and I’d rather it’d been Shorty than me.
“And a treasure that don’t cost some lives ain’t no good,” he continued, more to himself than to his listeners. “This ’un’s shore been baptized in blood. I don’t know how many men got killed in the gettin’ and hidin’ of it, but old Sour Sanson died for it, Shorty died for it, you’re goin’ to die for it, and yore pard, too, if he’s got the guts to come and fight for it.
“A kind of a pity Slade’s lead didn’t kill you right off the bat. But he had to shoot over La Costa’s shoulder, and shoot quick, so the bullet just grazed yore skull and knocked you out for a while. I ain’t decided just how we’ll finish you.”
“Shoot and be damned,” Stan snarled, though his flesh crawled. “You ain’t got the guts to kill a man les’n you shoot him in the back.”
“Hard words, Brannigan,” said Hansen imperturbably. “But I understand how you feel. I’d like to feel the same way if I was in yore place. But I don’t hold no grudge. We got the gold and the girl—”
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Hansen,” broke in Harmer, with the crisp accent of the Easterner. “I have the girl.”
“My mistake, Mr. Harmer,” Hansen bowed politely, but Stan sensed a ponderous mockery in the man’s courtesy.
“Enough of this talk,” broke in La Costa. “Let us divide the gold like you said, Hansen.”
“No hurry,” said Hansen. “I’m kind of hopin’ Spike will show up and git bumped off. And I’m inclined to rest. Ain’t we done agreed to wait till mornin’ to start back to Sangre Del Diablo? Then what’s the hurry? We can divide the gold any time.”
A silence fell. Hansen gazed into the fire, his huge hairy hands on his knees. The keen eyes of Slade roved the shadows outside the circle of firelight. The Mexican shifted and muttered, uneasily. The glance of the Easterner, Harmer, roved between Hansen and the girl. As for Joan, she sat with her hands clasped, and never lifted her eyes except to look at Stan. Beneath her tan, her face was white, and her eyes were filled with a horror that made Stan writhe. A wave of insane fury and desperation rose redly in his brain, and he strove vainly against his bonds. Where in God’s name was Spike?
As if divining his thoughts, Hansen spoke:
“Guess yore pard feels plenty like a fool, Brannigan. While he was settin’ there by the bend, we come down on you from the other way. We’d a gone after him, too, only we figured when he heered the shots, he’d come runnin’. But he didn’t; too slick, I guess.”
Another silence fell. The moon was obscured by clouds, a rare thing. The firelight made the further gloom seem deeper. Somewhere out there Spike was lurking; what did he mean to do? Had he deserted his friends—Stan dismissed the thought.
A tension was in the air. Stan knew that some sort of a climax was approaching; he read it in the fright of the girl, in the dark somberness of Slade’s face, in the meaning glances Hansen stole at Joan.
Harmer evidently sensed this also, for suddenly he rose abruptly.
“I think that Joan and I will move on,” he said, and spoke to the Mexican.
Hansen shot a few terse words to the guide, and he sank back again.
“No hurry,” said Hansen, his gleaming eyes belying his lazy tone. “The girl’s worn out; you’d be a fool to start this time of night.”
“I’m beginning to think I’d be a fool to stay here,” said Harmer bluntly. “There’s no reason why we should continue in each other’s company. We each have what we were looking for. I have the girl who is engaged to marry me; you have the gold. That’s fair enough.”
“Maybe, maybe,” said Hansen. “I know yore a wealthy man, Harmer, and the money’s nothin’ to you. Alright,” the giant seemed to tense, and his air of good nature fell from him, “you want the girl—have you thought that maybe I want her too?”
Harmer stood stock still for a moment as these words penetrated his consciousness; then, with an oath, he jerked open his coat and tore out a revolver.
And even as he did so, Hansen shot him—once through the head and twice through the body as he fell. The Easterner crumpled, spinning clear around as he toppled in a sort of staggering arc that carried him outside the circle of firelight. He never moved after he struck the earth. The thundering reverberations of the shots roared through the canyon, echoing and re-echoing. Joan cried out in horror and covered her eyes.
“ ’Nother one marked up agin the gold,” said Hansen, with a brutal laugh. “Though you might say as how this bird died for a dame instead of money. Mighty cheap thing to die for, says I. I’ve killed men before over women, but I’d a sight rather git killed over gold than over a girl. There, there, kid, don’t look so frightened; I know from the things you said to Harmer when we first caught you that you hadn’t no love for him. I’ve saved you from marryin’ him, and, after all, I’m the better man—you’ll git used to me—or maybe it’s Brannigan you love.”
“It is!” she retorted, lifting her head defiantly.
“Say, listen,” broke in Slade harshly. “Enough of this stuff. We got to do somethin’ about this feller Spike—”
Even as he spoke—as if his words had materialized the man—Spike stood before them. There had been no sound, or else no one had heard his stealthy approach. One moment there was no one there, the next instant Spike was crouching in the firelit shadows, both guns roaring death at the three men about the fire.
At the first crackle of the volley, Hansen went to his knees, spurting blood, but clawing for his gun; La Costa toppled over and lay without moving; Slade, hard hit, staggered, but even in that split second, drew and began firing pointblank, his shots mingling with the booming of Spike’s guns. At that range, neither of them could miss; Stan plainly heard the smack of the bullets. Spike’s knees were buckling, his shirt front was a crimson stain. The gun slid from Slade’s nerveless hand and he crumpled, dying on his feet.
Spike dropped an empty, smoking gun and groped blindly for the angle of the canyon wall, for support. Hansen, on his knees, had found his gun at last and now, gripping it with both hands, he shot Spike through the chest as Slade fell. Spike reeled; then, leaning against the wall at his back, steadied himself and sent his last bullet through Hansen’s brain.
A deathly silence followed the inferno of battle; a silence that stunned. Joan had fainted. Spike, dripping blood at every step, lurched over to where Stan lay bound; he moved slowly, uncertainly, like a man in a dream, and his breath came in rattling gasps.
He dropped to his knees beside Stan and cut him loose; then, as Stan worked his numb arms, Spike slipped to the earth and lay prostrate. Stan lifted his head.
“Spike, old boy,” he almost sobbed, “are yuh hurt bad?”
“Shot all to pieces, Stan,” the voice came almost in a whisper. “That Slade, I knowed he was bad; the others woulda been easy. I’d a come—before—but—I—wanted—to take—’em off guard. Slipped up—while—Hansen—was—killin’—Harmer.
“Joan—see—she—gits—my share. I’m glad—in a way—that this happened. I feel better—dyin’—now. I partly paid my debt—to her. Years ago—I killed her brother—Tom Kirby. I’m Mike O’Mara—the killer. Found after—Tom Kirby—died—I’d killed—an innocent man. Broke me—up. They thought—O’Mara wandered away—and died—in the desert. I didn’t. I—changed—my name—left—that part of—the country. Kirby’s face—haunted me. Couldn’t stand—the thought—or the name—of Mike O’Mara. Glad I can—die—in some peace, now. Tell ’em—O’Mara—always—paid—his—debts!”
His laboring voice trailed away into silence. Stan felt the body go limp in his arms. He lifted his face to the stars which were blinking through the clouds.
“Gunman or not, Mike O’Mara,” he said huskily, “you were a man! If your heart was black, your soul was white, and if you can hear me, up among them stars where you’ve gone, know, Mike O’Mara, that you’ve more’n made up for your sins.”