Vulture Gold Read online

  "Well, I reckon they figured an old coot like me couldn't never eat enough for two men. Besides, nobody ever turned up at the undertaker's."

  "Donovan's still here, ain't he?"

  "You ever know Pappy Holmes to lose a prisoner? He's in there. Don't seem worried neither."

  "He'll change his tune when he finds out we got the gold back and one of the Valenzuelas to boot."

  "I'll have to see it." Pappy turned to peer out the window at the Carrion saloon across the plaza.

  Havelock heaved his foot off the battered desk and reached for the ring of keys on the wall.

  "I'll go see the prisoner," he growled.

  Donovan lay stretched out on the bunk, hands behind his head. He whistled, Sweet Betsy from Pike, through his teeth, and didn't look up when the marshal entered.

  "How'd it go, 'breed boy?" The outlaw's voice was soft-toned and pleasant.

  Havelock stiffened at being called 'breed boy. Donovan remembers me.

  "Not bad for us, not good for you," he said, but somehow his words sounded hollow.

  "My, my. We seem very confident of ourselves, don't we?" Donovan peered up at Havelock. "Or are we, 'breed boy?"

  "Innocente Valenzuela is dead. Tom Morgan's on the trail of Francisco. We've got the gold back. Good try, Donovan. You won't get another." Anger tasted bitter in the back of Havelock's throat. He hacked and spat at the spittoon.

  The outlaw's grin grew into a smug smile. "We'll see, breed boy. We'll see."

  "Havelock!" Pappy's bellow came through the thick, oak door between the jail and the marshal's office. "We got trouble."

  "Donovan, people in this town want your hide. But they'll have to come over me to get it. You sit tight."

  "I'm not going anywhere." Donovan's smile broadened. "For now."

  Havelock went through the door with Donovan's laughter in his ears. He hated the sound. A twitch of pain shot through his left knee as he twisted around to slam the door.

  "What's up, Pappy?"

  A fist pounded on the door before Pappy could answer.

  "Havelock. Marshal Havelock. It's Belton Phelps. Open up!" A rumble of angry voices came through the thick door.

  Havelock held out his hand and Pappy gave him the Greener. "Back off a step, Phelps. I'm coming out." He opened the door just wide enough to edge through, shotgun cradled in his right arm with the hammers cocked, and raised his voice. "I don't know what you men figure on doing here, but the first one that even looks cross-eyed gets a gutful of BB shot."

  He turned to the owner of the Vulture Mine. "What do you want, Phelps?"

  The florid face of the mine owner flushed brighter than usual, perhaps from the effort of hauling his three hundred pounds and more across the plaza. "One-hundred-thousand dollars in gold bullion," he said. "And I want Donovan's neck. I mighta known a Cherokee breed didn't have what it took."

  Havelock's voice took on an edge. "You got your gold, Phelps. I saw it myself. Donovan will stand trial. If the judge hangs him, that's fine. But there'll be no more necktie parties as long as I'm marshal of Vulture City."

  "You saw gold, did you? Well, just look at this." The mine owner thrust a golden ingot up under Havelock's nose.

  Havelock took the ingot and turned it over in his hand. There, through paper-thin, gold leaf, a long, deep scratch gleamed silver-gray.

  The ingot was lead.

  Chapter Two

  Jayzus! Donovan figured the dumb Cherokee marshal wouldn't spot the hoax. Shit! Havelock handed the counterfeit ingot back to Phelps.

  "So that's why Donovan was so smug." Havelock's voice turned even harder. "Phelps, you can't hang him without a trial. Donovan didn't kill Chambers and Judd."

  A booming voice came from the crowd. "We got a jury, Havelock. Two good men're dead, Donovan's alive, and we got us a hanging-tree. Now, don't you get in the way, else you get hurt."

  When Havelock first put on the marshal's badge at Vulture City, a mob of miners had lynched a drifter—just a boy—and he couldn't stop them. He'd sworn then there'd never be another lynching as long as he lived.

  Havelock shifted so the Greener pointed straight at the belly of the speaker, a black-bearded miner with shoulders that would do Paul Bunyan proud. "Hunter. Forget all your friends, because there's just the two of us in this. You wiggle so much as your pinky finger, and this Greener will spread your guts all over the plaza."

  The miner stared at Havelock, and then swallowed hard. He didn't move. Minus Hunter's bravado, the crowd quieted down and started to melt away.

  "You win this one, Havelock," Hunter growled. "But even Injuns got to sleep sometime. We'll git that bastard. You count on it." Hunter stalked back to the saloon and banged his way through the batwing doors. Above the doors, the sunbaked sign read CARRION.

  "Don't go stirring up trouble, Phelps," Havelock said. "I'd hate to have to stop any of your men permanent. But let me tell you, if they come after Donovan, you'll find yourself short-handed."

  "I don't give a whit about Donovan, though Chambers and Judd were good men and loyal. I want that bullion."

  The mine owner's priorities were exactly where Havelock figured they'd be—gold, first, second, and last.

  "Tom Morgan's trailing Francisco Valenzuela. If there's a way to make the Mexican talk, Morgan will know it. He didn't spend ten years with the Apaches for nothing."

  "If the Mex doesn't know, he can't tell. Or, he'll make up some story—Mexicans tell lies from habit."

  Havelock nodded toward the Carrion, where miners' voices rumbled. "Then don't let Donovan get hung. Dead, he can't say word one about where the bullion is. You'd better have a talk with your boys, calm 'em down a bit." The rumble turned to angry shouts.

  "On second thought, Phelps, get out of the way. Those boys in the Carrion are coming and you might get hurt."

  The portly mine-owner scurried across the plaza and managed to squeeze through the door of Vulture Mine headquarters just as the mob surged through the batwings of the Carrion.

  "They're coming, Pappy," Havelock called.

  "I'm ready."

  The mob came at a run. Havelock heard Reb Carson's Confederate cavalry yip-yip and Hunter's throaty roar. He let them get halfway across the plaza and then triggered the Greener. BB shot howled into the hard ground a yard in front of the mob. Two men went down, clutching their shins from ricochet hits.

  The leaders stopped short, but were pushed forward by those behind them. Havelock shoved home two new shells and snapped the Greener closed. The twin clicks of cocking hammers sounded loud, and the mob turned into a group of quiet, confused men who didn't want to look down the barrels of Havelock's shotgun.

  This is too easy. Havelock glanced at the roof lines across the plaza. No one outlined against the sky, but three second-story windows were open: one in Garth's store, one in the Vulture Mining Company headquarters, and one in the hotel. Lace curtains in the store window undulated.

  The window was too far for the shotgun and a chancy shot with a revolver. The sharp planes of Havelock's face tightened. He shifted his weight to his good right leg.

  "Marshal," Hunter spoke. "We'd rather not hurt you. But we're gonna get that crazy Donovan. Chambers and Judd won't rest easy until his carcass swings on the tree, rotted and black. So stand back. There's just too many of us."

  "No there's not, Hunter. We narrowed it down before, remember? It's just you and me. You all may have figured out a way to get me, but whatever anyone else does, Hunter, you're a dead man."

  Hunter's face said he didn't like the idea, but his pride wouldn't let him back down.

  Someone in the crowd hollered: "Go! Do it now. Take him!" The yell triggered the mob.

  Havelock took a big step to his right, dropped to his knee, and shoved his back up against the jailhouse wall. A slug plowed into the sun-baked ground on a line with Garth's second-story window. Havelock held the Greener low and triggered both barrels.

  Blue smoke, BB shot, and the acrid smell of burnt gunpowd
er spread from the sawed-off barrels. Several men went down in the street. Havelock drew his Frontier Colt and snapped a shot at the upstairs store window. The bullet ricocheted away with a whine.

  From the jailhouse came the roar of the trap-door Springfield. A man crashed through the second-story curtains and fell to the plaza like a sack of grain. His rifle clattered to the rock-hard clay.

  Damn. Too many people dying. Havelock levered himself to his feet, holstered his pistol, and broke open the Greener. The crowd rumbled.

  "I wouldn't do it, Reb." Pappy's voice stopped the lanky Southerner in mid-draw.

  Havelock fingered shells into the chambers, snapped the Greener shut, and thumbed back the hammers.

  "You all are mighty lucky," he said. "No one 'cept the shooter in the hotel's dead, so far. Now, throw out your weapons and we'll get Doc Withers to fish the BB shot outta your butts, or wherever else they hit you."

  The men piled their weapons in the middle of the plaza, and Havelock sent a miner for the doctor.

  "Get these men in outta the sun." He waved toward the Carrion. The miners carried their wounded back through the batwings they'd burst from a few minutes before.

  When Havelock arrived with Doc Withers, the three men needing doctoring were in the dim saloon. Hunter, with a tourniquet on his right leg, lay on the gaming-table in the rear. Saxbe, a gaunt hanger-on, stretched out on the bar. A third man, a German who spoke almost no English, groaned on a pallet thrown across three chairs. Six other hastily bandaged miners sat waiting. The doctor went straight to Hunter's side, but the marshal stopped just inside the batwing doors. He held the sawed-off shotgun in the crook of his arm, and his face said he'd use the Greener if necessary.

  "Hunter, you're a fool," Doc Withers said. "You should know better than to rush Marshal Havelock. You could be dead."

  "I know that, Doc. What say you put me back together? I'll repent later." The big man sounded jovial, but his face was pasty gray. Large drops of sweat beaded his brow. The smell of raw flesh reminded Havelock of fighting bluebellies at Caulder Mountain.

  Doc Withers' eyes narrowed as he cut away Hunter's trouser leg. From two inches above the knee to more than half-way up the thigh, it looked like fresh ground beef. But no major artery had been damaged, so the doctor removed the tourniquet. He took a bottle of milky liquid from his satchel.

  "Here."

  "What's that?"

  "Laudanum. And you'll wish you had more before I get through."

  Hunter clutched the bottle, pulled the cork, and took a big swallow.

  "That's enough." The doctor took back the bottle of narcotic.

  The big miner squeezed his eyes shut. His huge frame shuddered. But after a moment, a contented smile came over his face. Then he giggled. Doc Withers went into his leg with a pair of long tweezers. The leg twitched, and the smile left Hunter's face, but he didn't make a sound.

  Havelock watched twenty-three BBs come out of the mangled leg before the doctor bandaged it. Hunter went to sleep.

  "Pretty well chewed up," Doc said. 'Still, the tendon's not severed and the bone is OK. He'll limp and it'll be stiff, but I think if he'll work at it he should recover completely." He went to the other wounded men. Havelock turned to the bartender.

  "Send me word when Hunter's awake and can talk."

  "Sure thing, Marshal." There was a time when the bartender would have said: No dirty Injuns in the Carrion. Now, he brimmed with good will.

  Outside, the plaza baked in the afternoon sun. Havelock wiped sweat from his face with the red bandanna he wore around his neck. He gazed west toward the Big Horn Mountains. Somewhere out there's a hundred thousand in gold, he thought. And on the head of my Cherokee fathers, I swear, I'll get it back.

  * * * * *

  Inside the jailhouse, the heat hung thick enough to slice. Pappy swiped at his brow with a handkerchief that was more holes than cloth. "It's about time you showed up, Garet Havelock. A man would think the marshal never comes to his own office."

  Havelock grinned. "I'm gonna get some sleep, Pappy. You wake me if anything comes up."

  He slept in a little room off the office, and he ate at the Gold Skillet, the town's only restaurant. Havelock got the same fare as the prisoners, if there were any in jail.

  The marshal pulled his boots off on the bootjack and lay back on the cot. The air was close and stifling, but he fell asleep in an instant, for the first time in nearly two days. In his dreams, he once again faced Barnabas Donovan.

  "Red Legs is coming! Red Legs is coming!" Johnny Havelock, Garet's younger brother, spread the alarm, and the thunder of hooves on hardpan soon drowned his voice.

  CSA Major Rothwell Havelock, Garet's father, had fallen with Johnston at Shiloh and lay with his men in a mass grave below Bloody Pond.

  Marybelle Havelock died of the bloody flux not long after Rothwell. She rested beneath the cottonwood tree with the three baby girls she'd lost.

  Johnny, Garet, and an old black woman named Mixie occupied the Havelock home with Garet nursing half-healed wounds suffered fighting Sherman's army. For defense they had an old Hawken rifle, a Dance Bros revolver, and a Walker Colt left from Rothwell's Texas Ranger days, before he married his Cherokee sweetheart and moved to the Indian Nations.

  "Mixie, you'll want to get out of the house and stay out of sight. These here Yankees may be lookin' for blood."

  Garet checked the load in the Hawken, put priming powder in the pan, and pulled back the flintlock hammer.

  "Johnny, take the Dance Bros and the extra cylinders. Make yourself scarce. I'll meet the Yankees. Don't you come back 'til they leave, y'hear."

  Johnny pocketed the cylinders, picked up the heavy pistol, and ran through the back door toward the wooded hills beyond.

  Garet stepped out the front door to meet the Kansas Red Legs. They rode up in high spirits, like they'd found Rufe Wilkinson's still on the way.

  "Howdy, boy." The captain was big and red-headed, with a reckless gleam in his blue eyes.

  "Howdy." The Hawken was ready.

  "And why are you not out with the other Rebel rabble?" The captain seemed to enjoy the sound of his voice.

  "Gen'l Watie sent me home. Sherman's boys put me out of the war."

  The captain chuckled. Then he laughed. "Good."

  The Red Leg leader's face went hard. "We have intelligence that Quantrill's raiders are in these parts. Would you have any further information?"

  "No, sir."

  "I suspected as much. Still, you would say that regardless of the facts, would you not? Now, speak the truth." The captain's hard, blue eyes stared into Garet's black ones.

  "Put down the flintlock, boy."

  "No, sir. Long as I got my gun, you die before me."

  Garet felt the cold steel of a Bowie under his jaw. "Drop it," a voice growled in his ear. He reluctantly lowered the old rifle.

  "Rasmussen, Hardy." The captain swung off his big horse. "Bring that boy down here." The Yankee walked over to the big cottonwood that stood near the house.

  Two blue-clad troopers grabbed Garet by the elbows and turkey-trotted him over to the captain, who pulled on a pair of light-colored doeskin gauntlets. "I queried you concerning Quantrill," he said in a pleasant tone of voice. "Have you anything to add?"

  "No, sir. I haven't heard and I don't know."

  Still smiling, the captain drove his right fist into Garet's gut. The breath exploded from his lungs. The captain's left fist smashed into his nose and blood splattered the doeskin. The captain drew back his left fist again.

  Garet saw the punch coming and dropped like he'd been shot. The captain's fist went over his head to smash into the trooper holding his left arm. The trooper's grip loosened, and Garet tore his arm free. He spun back around to the left until he was behind the other man, his right arm still held in the trooper's big hands. When the soldier followed Garet around, he found a hip in his belly. He flew over Garet's back to land on his shoulder, hard.

  The captain pulled hi
s Dragoon Colt and cracked Garet above the ear with the long barrel.

  Garet regained consciousness to find himself bound to the cottonwood. The house burned and the Red Legs looked ready to leave. Wind blew smoke from the flaming house across the yard and into Garet's nose and eyes. It carried the odor of burning wood, and a smell that signaled the end of a way of life.

  The captain noticed Garet's open eyes, and reined his bay over to the tree. He gazed at Garet for a long moment. "You have intestinal fortitude, boy. But we can't have youngsters such as yourself stirring up trouble."

  The captain once again drew his Dragoon Colt and cocked the heavy weapon.

  "May I ask your name, Captain?" Garet asked. "I'd like to know who killed me."

  "As the frontiersmen say, you have sand, boy." The captain's smile failed to reach his eyes. He lifted the muzzle of the Dragoon to the brim of his campaign hat in a mocking salute. "My name is Donovan. Barnabas Donovan. Friends refer to me as Buzz."

  Donovan lowered the Dragoon and shot Garet in the left knee.

  Pain woke Havelock. His ruined left knee throbbed as it always did when he failed to get enough rest. The clanking of the old piano at the Carrion saloon slowly penetrated Havelock's murky mind. The inside of his mouth tasted of old brass. The backs of his eyeballs burned. The sockets felt full of grit. And the odor of dust and sweat reminded him he'd not washed before going to sleep.

  Havelock straightened his leg. The brace squeaked. Have to tallow that, he thought. He swung his legs over the edge of the cot, and slipped on a pair of soft, elk-hide moccasins. He put one hand on the wall to steady himself, and lunged to his feet. He scratched a lucifer afire to light the coal-oil lamp, and poured water into the basin from the porcelain pitcher on the commode. The lukewarm water he splashed on his face and neck cut the dust he'd gathered in the desert. The steel razor, stropped on a leather hanging by the cracked mirror, made short work of the sparse whiskers on his dark face. His hair was black with a hint of curl and a touch of gray. The desert sun left crow's feet in the corners of his eyes and scored deep furrows from his nose to the corners of his wide, firmly set mouth.