Vulture Gold Page 11

  "I'm Cherokee, and I don't reckon I'll be here long. Got a long ride coming up. I'll go get some rest." With that, Havelock left Clayborne's office, voucher in hand.

  But he didn't rest. When the marshal thought Havelock was bedded down in the hay, he was well on his way to Camp Verde, the dun stretching out and loving the run.

  Havelock beelined for Camp Verde's hogtown. A squalid sprawl of tents and shacks, an off-duty trooper could find anything in the way of entertainment, food, or drink. That same trooper could also find gamblers who were faster than the women, bartenders proficient in knockout drops, and whiskey just slightly more venomous than the bite of a diamondback rattler.

  The trail had taken the new out of Havelock's clothes, so his appearance would cause no comment in hogtown. He reined the lineback up in front of the first busy saloon. Sharp, shifty eyes watched him dismount, noting he got off the wrong side of the horse. The same eyes followed him as he strode through the saloon doors. The owner of the eyes stood up and followed Havelock into the gloomy bowels of the hogtown bar.

  Havelock sauntered to the far end of the bar where he stood with his right shoulder against the wall, his right foot up on the rail, his right hand not two inches from the butt of the Colt .44 shoved in his belt, and his Winchester leaning against the wall.

  "Beer," he said to the bartender. The beer came warm and half suds. He paid his nickel. With beer-mug in hand, he surveyed the bar's clientele. Donovan was not there. As he searched, Havelock noticed the sidelong scrutiny of a long, lanky man with faded sandy hair, who had followed him in. The lanky man also ordered a beer, and he held the mug in his left hand. His right was free, hovering above the worn walnut grips of an Army Colt.

  Havelock smelled trouble. He didn't know why this man was gunning for him, so he acted.

  The click of a hammer being eared back brought the lanky man's head snapping around to look down at the unwavering barrel of Havelock's Colt.

  "I don't know why you're gunning for me, mister. But whatever the reason, it ain't worth it." Havelock's steady black eyes punctuated his warning.

  The sandy-haired man said nothing. He stood motionless, eyes on Havelock. Havelock could see he wanted to draw. He really did. But he knew now was not the right time or place.

  "Pull your pistol out with your thumb and forefinger. That's right. Lay it on the bar. No! Turn the barrel the other way...with one finger. Bartender, scoot that iron over here," Havelock ordered.

  He scooped up the pistol and turned to the sandy man. "Now. Let's hear why you're gunning for me."

  "I know you." The man spat the words out. "You're Garet Havelock. No one else in the territory gets off his horse on the wrong side. You killed my best friend. You killed Willy Sydon."

  Havelock searched his memory. He could recall no Willy Sydon.

  "Son, I don't remember killing any Willy Sydon. If I did, he was either running from the law or breaking it. There's no other way I'd shoot a man."

  "I never said shot. Willy Sydon swung from your hanging tree."

  Bile came up in the back of Havelock's throat.

  He remembered Willy Sydon. A young drifter, Sydon had been unlucky enough to draw and kill a popular miner over a game of cards. A mob had hauled him out to the tree for hanging. Havelock, a new town marshal, had threatened the crowd... But he couldn't shoot when the angry men called his bluff. From the bottom of a pile of tough miners, he'd had to watch young Willy hang.

  Havelock picked up the Army Colt and slid it back to the sandy-haired young man.

  "You're right. I good as killed Willy Sydon. I tried, but I couldn't stop his lynching. A half-breed Cherokee like me just wasn't good enough. Now, Willy died because he killed a man he thought was cheating at cards. Turned out the man wasn't. I'm going to walk out of here. If you want to shoot me, you can. But it'll have to be in the back. Then you'll be in the same fix as Willy. Chances are you'd swing, even in hogtown."

  Havelock returned his pistol to his waistband, picked up his rifle, and strode out the front door. Sweat trickled down between his shoulder blades. He could almost feel the muzzle of that Colt lined up on his backbone.

  Click.

  As he reached the door, he heard the hammer being thumbed back. Then the door swung shut behind him.

  Havelock swung up on the dun. The sandy man was at the door of the saloon, his pistol still in his right hand, forgotten. For an instant, their eyes met, cold black ones holding faded blue. Then Havelock neck-reined the lineback toward Camp Verde. He wanted to check something out.

  At the camp, Havelock stopped in front of a compact frame building that had 'Assay Office' written in bold white letters across the false front. He dismounted and went in.

  The assay clerk came to the counter.

  "Have you seen anything like this lately?" Havelock asked, unrolling the buckskin to show the bar of Vulture gold Nat Blake had given him.

  "Why, yes. There was a big, tall gentleman from the Hashknife Outfit in here yesterday. Ollins. Yes, that was his name. Bartley Ollins. Said he'd got paid with those gold bars for a bunch of critters he and his boys drove to Vulture City. He wanted currency, said it was easier to use. I gave him four thousand dollars for five bars."

  Havelock showed his badge. "That gold was stolen from the Vulture Mine bullion room," he said. "I'd appreciate your holding those bars in your safe until I send you notice. I may need them as evidence. If so, you'll get your money back."

  "Why, certainly." The clerk, taken aback, still promised.

  "One more thing. I'd like a letter saying you have five bars of Vulture gold in your safe, and describe the man you got it from. I don't need his name."

  The clerk complied, his quill making tiny scratching sounds in the silence as Havelock waited.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Hashknife Outfit – Aztec Land and Cattle Company – had driven into northern Arizona behind 60,000 head of cattle a year or so before. Already the name was widely known: partly because of the size of the operation, partly because its Texan cowboys swung wide loops. Headquarters were in Winslow, a railroad town on the banks of the Little Colorado River just north of the Mogollon Rim. But Havelock didn't think the huge ranch had anything to do with the "cottonwoods in the afternoon" of Arch Donovan's riddle.

  Havelock figured to go up Clear Creek and over the Rim. He'd hit Winslow first, but this time he'd not be looking in dives like the hogtown bar. With $4,000 in his pockets, Donovan would be riding high.

  He planned to keep constant pressure on Donovan so he wouldn't have time to dig up the Vulture gold. And he rode out of Camp Verde at a lope, the letter from the clerk in his pocket and nothing in his belly. He didn't even take time to say hello to his friend Al Seiber, the cranky old head of scouts at the camp. He just rode.

  Five miles out of Camp Verde, Havelock realized someone was on his trail. Anyone who wanted to stay alive checked their back trail, which Havelock did well. Rarely did a shadower know Havelock had found him out.

  The dun horse was tired. He had spunk, but was without the spring in his big muscles that Havelock knew so well. If it came to a mad run for cover, the dun might not make it.

  Then Havelock saw an old trail. Just a faint breath of a pathway through the trees. Something most riders would never notice. He reined the dun onto it.

  Fifty yards into the trees, he dismounted and went back to wipe out the traces of his passing. Should confuse the follower for a while.

  The trail wound up, climbing wooded slopes away from the stream, an offshoot of the Verde River, which Havelock had followed. Off to the right, he could see Baker Butte rising above the edge of the Mogollon Rim. Beyond that, he knew, lay Clints Well, the logical stop on the way to Winslow. Following that faint old trail wasn't a logical thing to do, but sometimes the illogical kept a man alive.

  The slopes gave way to rock-strewn cliffs and canyons. Sometimes the trail was no more than an eyebrow across an expanse of red rock. The desert-bred dun took the trail in stride, as
if his daddy was a bighorn ram.

  The sun passed overhead before the old trail topped out 500 feet above the stream. Far below, water sparkled in the sunlight, a ribbon of silver winding through a patchwork carpet of green. In the center of the clearing, a large pool reflected sunlight.

  Havelock found himself on solid rock. Here and there tufts of grass grew in soil-filled cracks in the surface. Otherwise, the sandstone was bare. The growth of brushy junipers and high-country manzanita started some way back from the rim of the cliff. Further on, grama grass waved feathered stalks in the slight breeze.

  The trail turned sharply as it topped out on the cliff, moving back away from the edge, a trail made by careful folk. Havelock walked the dun parallel to the trail, about ten yards further away from the cliff's drop-off.

  Midway along, the trail dropped into a large crevice in the top of the cliff. Havelock backed the dun into a stand of juniper and tied him there. From a few feet away, the horse was invisible.

  He stripped his saddle gun from its boot and picked a handful of cartridges from the saddlebags before leaving the dun. He stuffed the shells in his pocket as he walked to the deep crevice. Far below, something white caught the sunlight. Havelock bellied down to the lip of the crevice, and saw a ledge about ten feet below. Small but adequate handholds and footholds ran down the red rock of the cliff, beginning at the ledge. The rotten remains of an ancient ladder lay crumbled on the ledge. Possibly, no one had come this way for centuries.

  Havelock returned to the dun for his lariat. A jutting rock served as an anchor, and he lowered himself to the ledge. From there, he could make his way down the face of the crevice with those ancient hand- and footholds. The crevice ended at the top of a large cliff dwelling. The red rock of the cliff soared up and out to a lip at least five hundred feet above the stream. The dwelling was four stories high, five in some places. Hundreds of people must have lived there.

  The sheer size of the place awed Havelock. He found himself walking toward the edge of the dwelling, for the moment completely unaware of his surroundings.

  The crack of a rifle reached him as he fell. If he hadn't gone through the roof, he'd have died. As it was, he found himself flat on his back inside a kiva about twelve feet square, looking up at the hole he'd come through.

  He picked up his Winchester, wiped it off, and started for the waist-high door of the kiva bathhouse. He cat-footed, setting each foot down with care, testing it before putting his weight on it. No shots came. Perhaps the bushwhacker thought he was dead. He bellied up onto the roof, and wormed his way toward the edge. Once he could see, he waited. The sun moved. The shadows came.

  A flicker in the corner of his eye caught his attention.

  Then a horse and rider stepped into the sunny meadow below the cliff dwelling.

  "Now, Havelock, if you'd just let go of that rifle, I'd appreciate it."

  Havelock started at the voice, for he had heard no one come up behind him.

  "Stretch your hands as far out in front of you as you can," the voice ordered.

  Havelock complied. A blindfold was tied over his eyes and a rag stuffed in his mouth. Rough hands turned him over and tied his hands in front of him with piggin strings. That meant they could be cattlemen. Or was there just one? Havelock had heard no more than one man.

  Still, he felt sure there were others.

  Someone slipped a rope over his head and pulled it tight behind his ear.

  "Just walk careful. Wouldn't want you to fall through the roof of Montezuma's Castle. Might be hard on the neck."

  Only one voice so far. Havelock waited for a chance. A spare second would be enough. But his captor was not the least bit careless.

  Havelock walked hesitantly in the direction he was pointed until he ran into the stone wall of the great cavern.

  "That's the end of the trail, Havelock. Even you can't walk through solid rock."

  The person guided him. Subconsciously he counted the steps. Fourteen to the left. He stood quietly, straining every sense to figure out what was going on. Then a rope was tied around him, going under his arms and around his chest – rawhide by its feel.

  "If you fall on the way up," the voice said, "you'll have yourself to blame. We're using your lariat."

  We! There's more than one. Havelock had time only for a fleeting thought before the lariat tightened and began to haul him up the face of the crevice. Every tiny outcropping of rock, every scrap of rock-loving vegetation, every rough spot on the crevice dug into his body.

  Although the journey up the cliff gave Havelock a beating, it also scraped the blindfold down enough for him to see with one eye, and he held the piggin string against the rough stone to wear it through. But when he came over upper edge of the crevice, Havelock found himself staring down the barrel of an old Colt revolving shotgun with a kid on the business end. The boy didn't look a day over fourteen, but he held the scattergun like he'd been born with it in his hands. Black hair hung over the boy's black eyes, and Havelock wondered if he weren't a half-breed, too.

  The boy commanded the blue gelding that was pulling Havelock over the edge. "Back." The horse did as it was told, and dragged Havelock a good ten feet past the edge of the crevice.

  "Josie," came a voice from the crack.

  The boy didn't answer. He just untied the lariat from Havelock and dropped its end down the crevice.

  The mountain of a man who heaved himself out of that crack in the cliff looked like he'd never took "no" for an answer in his whole life. He towered over Havelock, who stared up at him from one uncovered eye. With one hand, the man-mountain picked up Havelock effortlessly and put him on his feet, then removed the hangman's noose.

  "Sorry to be a bit rough with you, Havelock, but I figured it was the only way a man could get you to come along peaceful."

  At a motion from the giant, the boy untied Havelock's hands and removed the rag from his mouth.

  "Now just you wait a minute," the huge man said. "Lay off the gun. Let's powwow."

  Havelock gave the giant a slow, appraising look. "All right," he said. "But let's get out of the open first."

  "Right here is fine. It ain't gonna take long. I'll talk, you listen."

  The boy with the shotgun moved off out of earshot.

  "Ebson is my name," the man said. "Most people just call me Mountain. That there's my boy, Josiah. His ma was Arapaho, but she died of fever."

  "What do you want with me?"

  Mountain drew a folded piece of paper from the bib of his overalls. Havelock had seen enough wanted dodgers to know that this was another. Mountain thrust it out, still folded. Havelock held the poster a moment before unfolding it and spreading it out. The paper smelled of wet ink.

  WANTED FOR MURDER

  GARET HAVELOCK

  $4000 REWARD

  DEAD OR ALIVE

  Havelock handed the poster back without reading the small print. Donovan must have had it made up in Prescott. Wouldn't take long to set the type.

  "It's a fake."

  "No. It's real enough. Signed by the mayor and all. Why it says right here that the mayor of Dead End, the town where you did that feller in, is a Right Honorable Barnabas Donovan, Esq. Description fits. Says you are an ex-US Marshal and might still be carrying the badge."

  "I am. But I carry the badge because I am a Deputy US Marshal. You can check with Marshal Meade, he's in Wickenburg."

  "Wickenburg's a long ways off."

  "You can cable from Camp Verde."

  Mountain thought it over.

  "We'll ride to Camp Verde. You'll have to give me your weapons, though, and promise not to try to run off. I'd hate to have to kill you and then find out you were telling the truth."

  Havelock promised nothing, but he handed over the Colt.

  Mountain searched him and relieved him of his other weapons, but didn't find the bullets in Havelock's hat.

  The three riders didn't get far toward Camp Verde before nightfall. Mountain Ebson picked the campsite carefu
lly. The food he cooked was better than most. He also snored. The boy stood first watch.

  About the time the boy was to wake Mountain for the second watch, Havelock felt a knife cut the bindings on his arms. He was free. But he didn't even twitch. He lay as if nothing had happened, as if unaware his bonds had been severed. He strained his ears, and heard a sigh of leaves against woven cloth. Whoever had cut him loose wore white man's clothes.

  Moments later, the boy came into the firelight to wake Mountain Ebson. The huge man was instantly awake at the boy's touch. The giant sat on his blanket and shook out his boots, just in case something had crawled in. Once dressed, the big man said something to the boy in a voice so low that Havelock heard only a murmur. He picked up the shotgun and moved without a sound into the darkness.

  Josie came to peer at Havelock. Apparently satisfied the marshal was asleep, he went to his own soogans. Soon he was snoring, unusual for a youngster.

  Havelock moved in fractions of inches, keeping his eyes on Josie's still form. The rhythm of the boy's light snores never faltered. Havelock had his moccasins on, as he'd not been allowed to take them off to sleep. He worked himself to his knees and found his own knife sticking upright in a log not two feet away. The marshal grinned. When the shouting was over, that kid might amount to something.

  The cuts and bruises he'd suffered when dragged up the face of the crevice protested at Havelock's movements, but didn't make him careless. He knew where Mountain Ebson would be sitting to keep watch. So he stood silently and cat-footed noiselessly in the opposite direction.

  A copse of trees stood fifteen steps away; the longest fifteen steps of Havelock's life. At the edge of the trees, he stepped in a badger hole that caved in softly. He went to one knee and froze. No movement in camp, and he could hear no movement from where Mountain kept watch. By sun-up, Havelock was fifteen miles away and still moving.

  His limp was more pronounced now, and although he stepped carefully, he didn't try to hide his trail. Anyone who could sneak up on a man like Mountain Ebson did could probably follow a trail by its scent alone.