Blood Gold (3 page)

For six hours Gideon Law followed Salvador’s and Jack’s trail at a slow trot, ensuring he kept well back from Salvador and his men.

He had no plan in mind.

Rejoining Salvador’s group would lead to
questions
to which he didn’t have answers and staying back gave him no chance of helping Hannah.

But he just had to keep going and hope something might happen and that he’d be in a position where he could help her.

In late afternoon he was riding through a stream when he saw a saddled horse chomping grass on the bank. Within seconds, he recognized it as the docile bay that Patrick had bought.

Gideon winced and peered down the length of the stream, but only saw the trees lining the bank. He dismounted and tethered his horse then, surprising himself with his luck, secured Patrick’s bay at the first attempt.

Then he scouted downstream.

A quarter-mile or so on, he stopped and, judging
that an injured Patrick wouldn’t have strayed that far, he turned and headed back. Only fifty yards upstream from Patrick’s bay, he saw a hunched form, lying in the shade of an old oak.

He dashed to Patrick’s side and rolled him on his back.

Through narrowed eyes, Patrick stared at him, then yawned.

Gideon felt Patrick’s brow. It was cool, but he ripped open his shirt. The bandages beneath still tightly bound his chest and no blood had seeped through.

Patrick opened his eyes wide.

‘Howdy,’ he croaked.

Gideon dashed to his horse, returned with a water canteen, and sprinkled water over Patrick’s lips. Within a few dribbles, Patrick grabbed the canteen and gulped three long mouthfuls.

‘What happened?’ Gideon asked, rolling back on his haunches.

Patrick replaced the stopper in the canteen and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘Some riders were following me. I didn’t stop to find out if they were looking for me and galloped on. I hid by this stream until they’d passed.’ Patrick yawned. ‘But then that damn sun was hot and I just reckoned sleep sounded a mighty fine idea.’

‘It is. After suffering a gunshot wound like you did, you need rest and plenty of it.’

‘I can’t afford the time.’ Patrick pushed himself to a sitting position. ‘I have to keep going.’

Gideon snorted. ‘A man in your state
can
keep going, but when he gets to where he’s going, he won’t be much use to anyone.’

Patrick stretched, suppressing a wince by biting his lip.

‘I can take on anybody.’

‘I doubt that. But that isn’t the worst of your
problems
now. Salvador Milano is after Jack too.’

‘I don’t care about that,’ Patrick snapped. ‘Now quit staring at me as if I’m about to die and help me to my horse.’

Gideon clutched Patrick’s shoulders and dragged him to his feet, then swung him round and marched him to his horse. He stood back while Patrick mounted it, then mounted his own horse. But already Patrick was riding from the stream and back to the trail, gradually straightening with each stride.

Gideon hurried on to draw alongside.

‘You mind if I ride along with you?’ he asked.

‘Trail is free.’ Patrick turned in the saddle. ‘And why are you out here?’

Gideon turned from Patrick to stare straight ahead.

‘Salvador Milano made me show him where Jack ambushed you.’

‘Hangman’s Gulch is miles back. Why ain’t you heading back to Destitution?’

Gideon considered a moment, then shrugged.

‘I’m not sure.’

Patrick snorted. ‘It’d better not be to doctor me.’

‘It isn’t.’

‘Good. Because I’ve paid my bill and I’m plumb out of money to pay for more of your services.’ Patrick uttered a low chuckle.

Gideon chuckled too. ‘But being as you mentioned doctoring, you prepared to take some advice?’

‘Nope.’ Patrick glared at the trail ahead, his slight show of humour gone from his firm-jawed
expression
.

Gideon opened his mouth to offer it anyhow, then shrugged and closed it.

In silence the two men rode west for a mile or so. But pace by pace the silence and Gideon’s
bemusement
as to why he was still heading after Salvador dragged on his nerves, and he turned to Patrick.

‘You mind if we talk?’ he asked.

‘Won’t that sap my strength?’

‘No, of course …’ Gideon chuckled on seeing that Patrick was smiling. ‘No, talking will be just fine.’

‘What you want to talk about?’

Gideon rubbed his chin. ‘You got family?’

‘Everyone has family.’

‘Not everyone.’

‘True. And what about you? You have that nurse to go home to?’

‘Hannah isn’t a nurse,’ Gideon snapped, then
softened
his voice. ‘She works at the Belle Starr.’

‘What difference does that make?’

‘None, I suppose.’ Gideon sighed. ‘But she isn’t in Destitution. Salvador took her with him. He reckons she’ll help him get Jack.’

Patrick nodded and glanced at Gideon from the corner of his eye.

‘At least I now know for sure that you ain’t here to doctor me.’

‘I’m not sure if she’s the reason why I’m heading after Salvador.’

‘You may not be sure, but I am.’ Patrick licked his lips and grinned. ‘I may have been in the wilderness with just Rusty and my horse for company for the last year, but I recognized the way you looked at her.’

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ Gideon whispered as he rubbed his brow. ‘But you haven’t said if you have anyone to go home to.’

‘Unless you ain’t figured it out yet – I ain’t talking about it.’

Gideon edged his horse in towards Patrick.

‘We might have a few days’ riding ahead of us. We can spend that time quiet, but talking might make the time pass more quickly.’

Patrick snorted. ‘My tale ain’t that savoury.’

‘Patrick, I get my custom from either Belle Starr’s girls or their customers. In my ten years in Destitution, I’ve seen things that you’d never believe. Nothing can shock me.’

Patrick shrugged. ‘It ain’t anything as bad as that. I got fine children and a good wife, but for some reason, I got to drinking. Then I got to drinking even more.’

‘But you don’t drink now?’

‘Nope. I met a man who planned to prospect for gold. Didn’t sound like it stood a chance, but a year
spent miles from whiskey seemed a way to sort myself out. And when I get an idea in my head, nobody can shake me from it.’

‘I’ve seen.’

‘So Rusty and me dug for gold. And we found gold. And I was just figuring that I could return home with money and rejoin my family when Jack ambushed me. Now, I won’t have anything to give them unless I find Jack.’

‘It isn’t my place to say, but if your family lost a drunken man, they’ll be mighty pleased to get back a sober man, even if he has no gold.’

‘You’re right,’ Patrick snapped. ‘It ain’t your place to say that.’

‘What’re we going to do?’ Don Ritter asked.

Jack Wolf glanced down the trail, then into the hills. He smiled.

For the last two days Jack’s bandits had camped out, enjoying their new rich feeling and anticipating just what being rich would bring them.

As always when a big decision loomed, Jack had distanced himself from his men and had sat in contemplative silence on the edge of the site, but now he’d returned.

Jack pulled the pack of cards from his top pocket.

As one, his men smiled and started the chant.

‘Cards, cards, cards.’ They clapped their hands. ‘Cards, cards,
cards
.’

Jack held the cards aloft.

‘A non-face card says we’ll be cautious and hide
out at Fort Clemency for a month. A two-eyed card says we forget caution. We head for Denver and spend the money in a wild spree.’

Cliff Seals whooped with delight, several others joining him.

‘I sure like the sound of that,’ he said.

Jack nodded. ‘A one-eyed card says we scatter the gold dust to the wind.’

Cliff’s whooping died in an instant. He glanced around, receiving a ripple of gulps and shaking heads. Cliff shared a glance with Fernando Kimball. They both edged back and slipped a thumb behind their gunbelts. Even Leland Ashley, Jack’s most loyal follower, mopped his brow.

Jack held the pack of cards at arm’s length, then angled them in to his chest and fanned them out.

With a lunge, he ripped a card from the pack. He glanced at it, then turned on the spot, showing
everyone
the ten of spades. A round of relieved sighs followed everyone’s first sighting of the card. Then he returned it to the pack and slotted the pack into his top pocket.

‘Fort Clemency it is. Saddle up.’ Jack waved a hand above his head, then headed for his horse. ‘We have ourselves a destination.’

‘This is ridiculous,’ Cliff shouted. ‘We can’t decide everything with those damn cards.’

‘Hey,’ Leland shouted. ‘Jack has done all right by us so far. I see no reason to change things.’

‘We have done fine. But now that we got ourselves some gold, I reckon we should decide what we do
next and not just let Jack ask the cards.’

Jack grunted and turned his one-eyed glare on Cliff.

‘You questioning my methods?’

Cliff gulped and backed a pace. ‘I ain’t doing that. I just—’

‘You just, what?’ Jack roared, spit flying from his mouth.

Cliff took a deep breath. ‘I just reckon I’ve had enough of playing the odds. If you’d drawn a
one-eyed
card, we’d have lost everything.’

‘Two days ago, I asked the cards what our next destination should be and the four of clubs said we should head to Hangman’s Gulch. Everything we gained there came from the cards.’

‘It did. But then, we had nothing. Now, we got everything, and we got no reason to gamble any more.’

‘When you have everything, gambling is all you have left.’ Jack advanced a long pace and glared down at Cliff. ‘And nobody follows me who doesn’t support the cards. You’re leaving.’

‘I didn’t say I wanted to go,’ Cliff whined.

‘You didn’t. But I reckoned you might want to live.’ Jack grinned, then slammed a fist into Cliff’s jaw that sent him sprawling. Even before Cliff had slid to a halt, Jack had ripped his gun from its holster and aimed it down at Cliff’s head. ‘And I decided that without asking the cards.’

Cliff rubbed his jaw as he glared up at Jack, but then his shoulders slumped and he glanced around
the semicircle of men.

‘All right,’ he murmured. ‘Who’s with me?’

Fernando strode three paces to stand alongside him.

Tort Rhine edged towards him a pace, then
shuffled
back.

‘Anybody else?’ Jack muttered. He roved his gun back and forth, receiving a wave of headshaking, then ripped a card from his top pocket and glanced at it. His one eye twitched as he slipped the card back into his pocket then holstered his gun. ‘Seems as there ain’t. Now go.’

With his gaze on Cliff, Jack stalked to the bags of gold and rummaged inside. He extracted four small bags and hurled them to Cliff’s side.

Cliff sighed in relief and grabbed the bags, then rolled to his feet and tossed two to Fernando. Then they backed to their horses. One by one they mounted them and backed away from Jack. When they were fifty yards away, with a last holler, they charged down the hillside.

The remainder of the gang also mounted their horses, but Jack stayed back and glared at Leland until he joined him.

‘You happy with Cliff and Fernando leaving?’ he asked.

Leland rocked his head from side to side.

‘Suppose I ain’t.’ He shrugged. ‘But if they want to go, we don’t need men who don’t accept your
methods
.’

Jack raised his eyebrows and lowered his voice.

‘But I ain’t happy with that gold getting away. Get it back.’

‘I ain’t doing that. I liked Cliff and Fernando.’

Jack grabbed Leland’s arm. For long moments he glared at Leland with his one good eye, but as Leland returned his own firm gaze, he nodded. With his other hand, he slipped the cards from his top pocket.

‘The cards can decide. A low card says you get the gold. A—’

‘No,’ Leland snapped, ripping his arm from Jack’s hand. ‘This time I ain’t accepting those odds.’

‘Surely
you
ain’t questioning my methods?’

‘Not the methods, just the odds. You always give what you want to do the greatest chance. Well, this time,
I
want the odds for what I want to do to be the greatest.’

Jack shrugged. ‘All right. A low card says Cliff and Fernando can leave. A two-eyed card says you’ll get the gold back.’ Jack rubbed his chin. ‘A one-eyed card says I’ll kill you for your impudence.’

As Leland gulped and backed a pace, Jack rolled his shoulders then, with a lunge, ripped a card from the pack. With a snap of his wrist, he turned it over. It was the king of hearts.

Leland sighed. ‘Seems like I’ll be getting back the gold.’

Patrick Grady hunkered down beside his horse and examined the sprawl of hoof-prints that coated the trail, then stalked around the remnants of Jack’s camp-fire. He fingered the ashes before rolling back on his haunches to peer into the hills.

‘What you reckon?’ Gideon asked from his horse.

Patrick stood, but then rubbed his ribs as he rose too quickly.

‘Jack’s group stayed here for a day or so, but they broke camp today and split. Two men headed east. The others went west.’ Patrick pointed to a deeper set of tracks. ‘Salvador’s group have followed the main group.’

‘Then we follow the main group.’

Patrick snorted. ‘I got no interest in what
we
do.
I
’m heading east.’

‘You’re planning to pick them off a few at a time?’

‘Nope.’ Patrick turned to his horse. ‘Rusty has headed after those two. And I sure intend to pick him off.’

Gideon trotted his horse round to block Patrick’s route.

‘I can’t let you do that.’

With one hand on the saddle, Patrick glared at Gideon.

‘As you ain’t packing a gun, you can’t stop me.’

Gideon held his hands wide. ‘I’m a doctor. I do no harm. And I have to do something to stop you getting yourself killed.’

‘You can try. But the way I see it, you can’t follow both groups.’ Patrick rolled into the saddle. He sat hunched a moment, wincing, then sat tall. ‘So are stopping me killing Rusty, or following that whore?’

‘Her name’s Hannah,’ Gideon murmured. ‘And as I can’t help you
and
Hannah, I have to choose which person to help, and this may not be professional, but I’ll help the most decent person.’ Gideon raised his eyebrows. ‘And that isn’t you.’

Gideon pulled on the reins and turned his horse away from Patrick. Without looking back, he headed on to the main trail and headed west, following Salvador’s group.

On a flat width of rock, half-way up a canyon, Rusty lay on his belly and peered over the side at the river below. He bit his bottom lip as he aligned his sights on the two men, Fernando and Cliff, who were bustling about as they prepared to mount their horses.

For the last two hours he’d tracked these men, but when they’d stopped to water their horses at a river,
he’d edged into the hills and found a good
hiding-place
another mile further along their route.

There, he’d waited to ambush them. But as Rusty had no experience of ambushing, other than being on the receiving end, the waiting had preyed on his nerves. So he’d doubled back and found a hidden position on the canyon side where he could look down on the river.

Now, he roved his gun towards one man, then back to the other, picking his moment. He waited until the men were mounting their horses and off balance, then fired at the rider furthest from him, Fernando.

Fernando clutched his chest and tumbled
backwards
from his horse.

Cliff swung into the saddle and flinched right and left as the gunshot echoed back and forth across the canyon.

Rusty blasted another shot at Cliff, but with a lithe action Cliff leapt to the side and rolled behind a boulder to disappear from sight.

Rusty kept his gun aimed at the boulder, waiting for Cliff to swing out and return fire. But long minutes passed without Cliff emerging and, with the hot sun pounding on his back, sweat erupted from Rusty’s brow and the small of his back itched.

Rusty gulped and rolled to his feet. Pace by pace he edged away from the safety of his cover to gain a different angle on the canyon below.

Bent double, he glanced around. As he only saw the river, the dead man, the two horses, the fear that
Cliff had doubled back up the canyon assailed Rusty and made the back of his neck itch too.

Behind him, a stone crunched against another stone.

Acting on impulse, Rusty dropped to the ground. A gunshot blasted over his tumbling form as Rusty let himself slip over the side of the canyon. He rolled twice and scrambled round to lie on his belly, facing up the slope.

He glared up at the edge of the slope, waiting for Cliff to venture an inevitable glance over the side. But again Cliff bided his time.

Rusty rolled to his feet and scrambled to his side, then up the loose scree. He rolled on to a flat length of rock and lay prone, searching for Cliff, but he saw only rocks around him and above him. For long moments he lay, then edged to his feet and paced forward.

‘Who are you?’ Cliff demanded.

Rusty swirled on his heel and peered in all
directions
, searching for Cliff’s location, but saw only numerous hiding-places for his assailant.

‘I’m Rusty,’ he shouted, ‘Rusty Anderton.’

‘So,’ Cliff shouted back, ‘you’re that man we took the gold from?’

Rusty slammed his fist against his thigh, again
failing
to work out from which direction Cliff’s voice had come.

‘Yeah. That’s me.’

Cliff chuckled. ‘Didn’t think you’d have the guts to come after us.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘A yellow-belly like you should have just curled up and died.’

‘I ain’t no yellow-belly,’ Rusty roared.

‘That ain’t what it looked like to me.’

Rusty hung his head a moment, gritting his teeth as he regained his composure. Then he stood tall and glanced left and right. He decided Cliff must be behind a large boulder that was standing forty yards to his right, so he raised his gun hand to the side, pointing the barrel high.

‘Quit gloating and kill me, or come out where I can see you and we can decide just who is the
yellow-belly
here.’

‘I ain’t doing that. Where’s the man you shot?’

‘Patrick’s dead.’

‘Obliged for the information. I just wanted to know why you’re here before I killed you. Now you get to die.’

Cliff bobbed up from behind the nearest boulder to Rusty’s left and blasted at Rusty.

Rusty threw himself to the ground, the shot cannoning feet wide. He landed flat and scrambled round to slam his elbows wide and thrust his arms into a firm triangle. He aimed his gun at arm’s length and fired one shot, but already Cliff had gone to ground.

Dust flurried behind a tangle of boulders as Cliff scurried to a higher position. On his belly, Rusty kept his gun on the boulders waiting for the moment when Cliff showed himself.

A shot blasted, ploughing a dusty furrow only a foot to Rusty’s side.

Rusty narrowed his eyes as he stared up at the rocks searching for Cliff who just had to be hiding there. But he saw only rocks.

In irritation, he fired a speculative shot. Then a high shot blasted over his head. Rusty heard the lead ricochet off the rocks ahead and he winced as he realized the shooter was behind him. He rolled on to his back and searched for this new assailant, but another high shot blasted into the rocks thirty yards above him and he realized this man wasn’t aiming at him.

Another shot ripped out and this time Rusty saw a flash of colour as Cliff staggered out from his cover and tumbled over a rock.

Seconds later a loud thud of a body falling on hard ground forced Rusty to hang his head for a moment.

Then Rusty jumped to his feet and dashed to the rocks to see the body roll to a halt twenty yards from him and sprawl on to his back.

‘Who did that?’ Rusty shouted, swirling round on the spot.

Rusty’s cry echoed down the canyon. He turned and repeated his demand, but then fifty yards away, Patrick Grady stepped out from behind a boulder.

‘You did well in getting one of them,’ Patrick shouted. He levelled his gun at Rusty’s head. ‘But that’s your last success.’