Funeral By The Sea (17 page)

‘So let’s get to it.’

Pruett led the stallion by the bridle and Gold walked on the other side of the horse, moving without haste along the moonlit beach a few feet clear of the regularly thudding breakers of the incoming tide. Heading toward the deep moon shadow of the cliff that curved around the
southern side of Oceanville and the cove. The fishing boats and the roof of the big house the only visible signs of the single street town behind the high ridge of sand. The cliff beyond looked ominous.

The muted sounds of hooves and footfalls on the beach were accompanied by the breaking of the waves, and counterpointed by the squelching noises of water in the men’s boots.

Barnaby Gold felt an odd sense of well-being that acted to negate the cold and dull aches that should have been causing him discomfort. Pruett was right. Had it not been for the intervention of the bounty hunter, he would have left Oceanville with nothing except bad memories. Plus, perhaps, a valuable lesson which could prove useful in the future - that his arrogant, self-confidence which had caused so many people to dislike him in New York City and the peaceful towns of Fairfax and Standing, Territory of Arizona, could well get him killed on the dangerous trail he rode since blasting Floyd Channon to death.

But this did not concern him right now. Circumstances in the shape of Warren Pruett had brought him back to Oceanville and it felt good to be here on the verge of tying up loose ends which otherwise would have concerned him. And compounding his easiness of mind was the fact that the bounty hunter had merely steered him along the route back here. There had been ample opportunities to get rid of Pruett and go his own way. So it was by choice that his way matched that of the other man.

It felt colder in the shadow of the cliff - as if the moon radiated an illusion of warmth along with its light. Gold was conscious of this but gave no physical reaction to it. While Pruett shivered several times as he unsaddled his horse and hobbled the animal’s forelegs.

The younger man waited patiently off to the side, dead cheroot angled from a corner of his mouth and shotgun canted to his shoulder. Content that, for as long as it suited him, the again totally self-assured bounty hunter should consider himself in command.

‘Undertaker,’ Pruett said, grim-faced and rasping the word in a harsh whisper as he rose and turned from hobbling the stallion.

And Gold notched up another point toward the need to kill the man. As he recalled the occasions when the hired guns of the Channons of Texas had prefaced their attempts to kill him by using this term instead of his name.

‘What is it, bounty hunter?’

But there was no aggression on the rugged, sun-burnished face of the other man. Just a trace of anxiety in the incredibly blue eyes.

‘If that’s what you was, you ain’t old enough to have done much else, kid. I just thought of somethin’. Anyone can do damage with a shotgun close up. How good are you with them two Peacemakers you wear like you was a topnotch gunfighter?’

Barnaby Gold bared his teeth with the dead cheroot clenched between them. ‘Good enough so that I don’t have to practice all the time anymore, sir.’

Was this a point in favor of Warren Pruett? Or did he simply not know about the other gunslingers who had come after the black-clad young man - and been buried by him?

The bounty hunter nodded. ‘Well, kid. We’re about to find out if you’re as good as you figure you are. Or just a tall pile of bullshit.’ He spat into the sand. ‘That talks big.’

Gold clicked his tongue. ‘You asked me and I told you, Mr. Pruett. Apart from that, as I recall, you’ve done most of the talking.’

The bounty hunter showed one of his spartan smiles.

‘Which got us both out of our depth, uh, kid?’

‘Just for a while, sir.’

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THERE was not a single light showing anywhere along the row of buildings that comprised Oceanville. But the white adobe of the Mexicans’ houses and the cantina were clearly illuminated by the moon. While the timber-built big house and its outbuildings were shadowed by the towering cliffs behind them.

It had been Warren Pruett’s guess that this was how they would find the community in the dark hours of night. Quietly, if uneasily sleeping. With sentries posted in the accustomed positions along the ravine through which no stranger had ever come unless invited.

Throughout the previous afternoon, while Pruett maintained his vigil from the cave above the pool after claiming four more victims, no other man from Oceanville had followed the same easy trail as Grogan, Clay, Ivers and Bowyer. Which made it a good bet that the rest of the American fugitives were waiting for the word that this quartet had succeeded - or failed to hear from them and had to assume they had not.

Beyond this, it was futile to guess at a course of action. But reasonable to assume that Hal Delroy and his men would bed down behind the sentries rather than have time drag heavy while they kicked their heels and nursed their grudges by staying awake.

The two intruders took no unnecessary risks, though. Guarded against light sleepers and insomniacs by keeping to the shadowed area and treading cautiously as they advanced upon their objectives. Were conscious, too, of the danger that they could be entering Oceanville at a time which coincided with a changeover of sentries.

Because Barnaby Gold had been able to confirm Warren Pruett’s cliff top impression of Oceanville and agreed with his suggestion of where they should position themselves in the town, they had no need to communicate with words or even gestures after the final exchange on the beach.

They did not even offer each other a sign of farewell or good luck when they separated to take up the predetermined positions. Where they squatted down to wait and watch and listen. Unafraid, unexcited, unconcerned by the clammy touch of the drying clothes against their flesh minds uncluttered by thoughts of what lay ahead and free from memories of the dangers they had overcome to get here.

For his part, Barnaby Gold’s single source of discontent was that he could not yet risk re-lighting the cheroot angled from a corner of his mouth.

The darkness of night faded into the dull grey of the false dawn.

The men’s outer clothing dried stiff with seawater and the solid black of the younger man’s outfit became marked with uneven lines of white stains.

The smell of woodsmoke began to permeate the air and the subdued sounds of people moving sluggishly at the start of a new day could be heard.

The first shaft of brilliant light from the rising sun angled down from the rim of the cliff to become diffused far out on the calm surface of the Pacific Ocean.

The salt air, aromatic now with the scent of coffee pots coming to the boil, began to lose its chill feel as the warmth of the sun made inroads into the last remnants of night. And Gold reflected upon a rational reason for the sense of well-being that had gripped him for so long - that it was quite simply good to be alive.

He did not consider even for a moment that this could possibly be a temporary situation.

For awhile, all the early morning sounds came from the adobe houses, and the womenfolk had
roused and fed their men before there were any signs of life within the big house. First smoke from one of the three chimneys, then the opening of windows and some talk that did not carry clearly outside. By which time the sombrero-wearing fishermen had trudged across the beach to the crest of the ridge and hauled their boats down to the water. Two babies were crying but there were no sounds of children at play.

The tall, skinny, gaunt-faced Mexican opened up his cantina and his flabby woman started to sweep the floor while he washed glasses left dirty from last night.

The morning air brightened and the temperature rose.

The six whores who plied their trade in the cantina congregated in the kitchen of the place and fixed their own breakfast. And were joined by Seth Harrow who had slept on the floor of a room shared by two of the women.

What little talk there was outside of the big house was low in tone and terse. For the rest there was a sullen silence of morose expectancy gripping the town.

Then the double doors of the big house were wrenched open and Hal Delroy strode purposefully out on to the stoop. Dressed in the same clothing as yesterday, the outfit looking as if he had slept in it. He was unshaven.

The seven men who came out in a group behind him were in the same disheveled condition, some of them looking hungover.

The bearded Vic and two others were carrying Winchesters and they broke away from the group to align themselves at three-yard intervals, backs to the ocean and heads tilted so that they could peer up at the sharply defined line where the cliff top met the sky.

Two more men went around one side of the house and two more around the other, leaving Hal Delroy standing in isolation at the foot of the steps from the stoop.

Nothing had been said to send the men to their appointed duties and the emergence of the grim-faced group from the house had acted to silence all but the crying of one baby in a house at the far end of the street.

Then the top man in Oceanville abruptly shattered the tense stillness.

‘Move your stinkin’ asses back from there! This is a private burial! The hangin’ comes next!’

The paleness of his complexion above his bristles did nothing to take the power out of the enraged glare he directed at the front of the cantina. And a moment later the faces which had been peering out from the windows and over the tops of the batwings were withdrawn. With gasps and a shuffling of booted feet.

The four men reappeared from the rear of the big house, two carrying a blanket-wrapped corpse between them and the other pair with shovels.

Hal Delroy went back up the steps and lowered himself into the rocker to one side of the open doorway. The corpse in the blanket was reverently laid on the ground and the two men with shovels began to dig a grave at the foot of the steps - at the spot where Eve Delroy had enjoyed so much evil pleasure with her whip.

Barnaby Gold had seen none of this. Could only picture in his mind’s eye certain aspects of what was happening as the sounds and smells of the town reached him - entering his dark hiding place through the crack between the two trapdoors that gave access to the basement.

And he continued to wait and listen to the familiar thud of shovels into ground, the gravediggers’ chore becoming easier once they had broken through the hard-packed top layer.

Sweat beaded his skin now, as salty as seawater, but a great deal warmer.

He knew that Warren Pruett was in a position to see - at risk of being seen himself - the tableau out front of the big house. At long range. For he was concealed among a scattering of
boulders twenty feet beyond the last house at the northern end of the curved street.

Waiting for the relief sentries to head out for the ravine. When the Oceanville men would be divided into two groups and Pruett would commit himself to dealing with those at his end of town, leaving Gold to take care of those that remained in the vicinity of the big house.

This was the plan, but the two intruders had agreed to keep their options open, prepared to make their move if a better opportunity to strike occurred. With the bounty hunter to decide this since he was in a position to see what was happening.

Now, though, Barnaby Gold was ready to launch the attack if Warren Pruett waited too long to take the initiative. His deadline set for the end of this funeral by the sea, if the victim of the hanging Delroy had spoken of was who he thought it was.

The ash-blonde whore named Emily. Who yesterday morning had shrieked an admission that it was she who had freed the prisoner, to keep Delroy from having the innocent Mexicans gunned down.

‘Reckon that’s deep enough, Hal,’ a man said as the sounds of digging were curtailed.

‘Dear God, how I wish we had the expert here to tell us,’ Delroy said bitterly, speaking in cultured tones again, in sharp contrast to the gutter talk he had hurled at the rubbernecks in the cantina. ‘It will serve the purpose. Lower her in gently, please.’

He rose, the rocker creaking, and his footfalls rapped on the stoop boarding.

Feet moving on the hard-packed area around the grave did not make such clear cut sounds.

‘You want to say anythin’ over Miss Eve, Hal?’

‘Just that they’ll pay, Eve. If it costs me every cent I have and takes the rest of my life, they’ll pay for killing you. God rest your soul, my dear.’

Cold anger coated his words as he made the promise to his dead sister. Deep sadness when he spoke the blessing.

All the men removed their hats, the three watching the cliff top not shifting their gazes. Then the brief silence was ended by the shoveling back of displaced sand at a nod from Delroy.

And Vic said, ‘I reckon it’s gonna take time, Hal. They ain’t round here no more. And neither are our boys. Alive, anyways. They’d have been back before now. If they was able. On foot the way they was.’