Blade 5 Page 6

  ‘What gold?’ asked Roxanne, her eyes like saucers.

  Blade groaned.

  ‘They say you have gold in the false bottom of the wagon.’ Salome said: ‘They’re liars.’

  ‘Prove it,’ said Blade.

  ‘We could prove it,’ said Salome. ‘If we were so minded.’

  ‘But I bet you ain’t so minded,’ said Blade.

  ‘We don’t have to prove anything to you,’ said Roxanne. ‘You’re just the hired help.’

  ‘If I’m just the hired help,’ snapped Blade, ‘do me a favor and don’t try jumping into my arms again.’

  ‘I wouldn’t jump into your arms if you were the last man on earth.’

  ‘Just as well because the next time I’ll open my arms and you’ll fall flat on your fanny. Which has kind of moved me off the subject of the gold.’

  We’ve exhausted that subject,’ Salome announced.

  Well, we’re going to revive it,’ said Blade. ‘If you think Doke and me are going to guard stolen gold for you, you have another think coming.’

  Roxanne stood up with a lot of dignity.

  ‘One thing I can’t abide an’ that is bein’ called a liar by a two-bit cowboy,’ she said. ‘Go ahead, take a look.’

  Blade thought: She’s bluffing me.

  ‘Don’t think I won’t,’ he said and stood up.

  Salome looked alarmed.

  ‘Let’s quit this foolishness,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Roxanne, ‘I was only funnin’ you, Blade. I swear there’s nothing in the wagon.’

  He looked from one mouth that butter wouldn’t melt in to another. They were both lovely mouths. It seemed a waste, standing here arguing with a couple of beautiful women out here under a romantic Colorado moon. Just the same, he headed for the wagon.

  Using his knife he started prizing up the floor boards of the wagon. The girls did not move from the fire. But they both watched him closely when he walked back.

  ‘Well?’ they said in unison.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘You knew damn well there would be nothing. But I still think you have the gold. What’s more Harry Lister and his merry men think you have the gold.’

  Roxanne said: ‘They told you lies because they tried to rape us.’

  ‘Don’t start that again,’ Blade said desperately. ‘Just go to sleep before I take a paddle to the pair of you. This is going to be the hardest earned hundred dollars I ever made in my life.’

  Roxanne came, stood on tiptoe and laid a cool hand on his cheek.

  ‘Poor Blade,’ she said, ‘I do swear his gray hair is turnin’ white.’

  He sat down and put his head in his hands while they went off to their beds with a peel or two of musical laughter.

  What the hell have I got myself into? he demanded of himself. Well, I have a long night ahead of me guarding two lying women and a drunken bum. He should, he told himself, have found some quiet spot where he could raise horses or sheep. Sheep would be more peaceable and would get him to sleep at night while he counted them.

  He killed the fire and wondered if he dared to sleep. He knew he was getting pretty tired through being short on sleep. The one point in his favor was that when he put a bullet in that Indian he had put their tracker out of action. He hoped that nobody else in that bunch was any good at the art.

  Before he settled himself for the night, he pulled off his boots and slipped his feet into a pair of Comanche moccasins he kept in his saddle pockets for such an occasion. They were bliss to his feet after having them in boots for several days and nights. Then, with his Mexican poncho to warm him, he settled himself among some rocks from which he had a good view of the campsite. He tied his horse some thirty paces away.

  Almost as soon as he propped himself against a boulder, he knew there was danger in so much as sitting down. If he wanted to stay awake, he should keep moving. His eyelids were heavy and his body cried out for sleep. Even as he told himself that he would do no more than lightly doze, he knew he was lying to himself. He was on the brink of deep sleep.

  Blade may have failed himself, but his horse didn’t. The animal knew there was a stranger near the camp and he signaled with his rumbling whicker. No matter how deep a sleep Blade was in, his mind was attuned to coming awake at the warning sound.

  He sat up with a feeling of guilt.

  The camp was still and silent under a cold moon. The horse signaled again. Blade heard the animal’s uneasiness. He knew there was a man near the horse. Silently, he slipped out of the rocks and into the moon shadow of the trees, circling to come up on the far side of the intruder. There could, of course, be more than one man. There could be eight, nine. The horse stamped. Blade eased himself through the trees.

  Once he was on the far side of the horse from the camp, he lowered himself to the ground, searching the night to catch the shadowy figure of a man against the moonlight

  He found nothing.

  Now he began to Indian his way forward, slowly and carefully, knowing that he made no sound loud enough to be heard more than a few feet from him. The horse had quietened now.

  Something seemed to rise from out of the ground almost at Blade’s feet.

  It was a man. His back was to Blade. He went cautiously forward as if totally unaware of Blade’s presence. Blade straightened up, drew the Winchester back and drove the butt at the base of the man’s skull. With some difficulty, he caught the fellow as he fell. Lowering him carefully to the ground, he put the carbine aside and quickly lashed the man’s wrists and ankles with the rawhide pegging strings from his pockets.

  That done, he retrieved the Winchester and crouched motionless for five minutes, listening intently. The horse had settled down now and was munching contentedly at the corn Blade had left with it. Blade now circled the camp with enormous care until he was satisfied that he had only one intruder to deal with. He returned to the prisoner and found him beginning to regain consciousness. He took him by the scruff of his neck and dragged him into camp. Out in the moonlight, he took a closer look at him.

  ‘Well,’ said Blade, ‘it just had to be you.’

  It was the man who looked like a prairie dog. He looked balefully up at Blade.

  Doke came out from under the wagon and he looked pretty sober. He had, he said, heard the horse and what did they have here?

  ‘A visitor,’ said Blade.

  Doke said: ‘I wouldn’t boast about him. He don’t look much.’

  That made Blade laugh. Maybe there was more to Doke than met the eye after all.

  ‘Does he belong to our other visitors?’ Doke asked.

  Salome appeared from the wagon, wearing a man’s nightshirt ten times too large for her and holding a Winchester. She looked enchanting, with her red-gold hair all mussed and her eyes full of sleep. She also looked as innocent as an angel.

  Roxanne came not far behind clad in a man’s day shirt, modestly several sizes too big for her and looking equally enchanting, mainly because the shirt was not long enough for fashionable modesty and she revealed a good deal of a very shapely leg. Doke got his eyes on those legs and did not seem able to remove them.

  The girl said to Blade: ‘Stop your friend staring at my legs. Who is this odious creature?’ She pointed a finger at the unfortunate prisoner.

  ‘You mean,’ said Blade, ‘you don’t recognize one of the vile men who tried to rape you?’

  She pouted: ‘It makes me sick to the stomach to think a horrible man like that would try to ...’ She lowered her eyes modestly.

  The prisoner said: ‘I never tried to rape anybody in my life. I’ll have you know I’m a respectable citizen with a wife and five children.’

  Salome said: ‘He’s a liar. I remember him. He attacked me.’

  ‘Well,’ said Blade, ‘I’ll take bets he didn’t come to attack you tonight girls. He came for your gold.’

  Roxanne said with a kind of wail: ‘I already told you. We don’t have any gold.’

  ‘You mean,’ said Blade, T searc
hed the wagon and I didn’t find any gold.’

  The prisoner said: ‘There was gold under the false floor before they stole the wagon.’

  Salome said: ‘How could we steal the wagon when it belonged to our ma and pa who were murdered by this dreadful man and his friends?’

  The prisoner said: ‘Maybe you’ll listen, Blade, when I tell you that you could swing for throwing in with these girls.’

  Blade stood studying the situation, chin in hand, with the girls and Doke watching him, wondering what he would do next. Finally, he made up his mind.

  ‘I know how to get the truth,’ he said.

  ‘How?’ said four voices in chorus.

  ‘A small simple trick I learned from the Mescaleros. You girls needn’t worry—I’II gag the prisoner so you don’t hear him scream.’

  Salome said: ‘Oh, my God.’

  Roxanne just stood there and looked horrified.

  The prisoner looked terrified.

  Doke leered.

  The prisoner tried to edge away from Blade. This brought him near to Salome who gave a little feminine cry of alarm and took a hasty pace backward.

  ‘Keep the odious creature away from me,’ she declared.

  Blade said: ‘Do you know the Mescalero trick, Doke?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Doke. ‘You mean the splinters under the fingernails trick.’ The prisoner pulled in a shuddering breath and looked as if he were about to faint. ‘But that ain’t anythin’. It’s when you light the splinters they really get goin’.’

  The prisoner said: ‘I can’t believe that decent white men would—would.’

  Doke said sorrowfully: ‘That’s what comes of livin’ too long with the Indians, ain’t it, Joe? I mean you get what you might call indifferent to human sufferin’.’

  ‘That’s it in a nutshell,’ said Blade.

  The eyes of the prisoner were on their faces, each of them in turn, beseeching the girls to save him, trying to convince himself that the two men were bluffing.

  ‘You don’t mean it,’ he said. ‘You can’t mean it.’

  ‘Show him, Doke,’ said Blade.

  Doke started to build a fire.

  The prisoner said: ‘I can’t stand pain.’

  ‘Who can?’ said Blade. ‘Believe me, I hate to do this. But I have the interest of these two ladies at heart. I have to do it for their sake. I have to get at the truth.’

  Salome said: ‘There’s no call for anything like this, Blade. We already told you the truth.’

  Blade smiled.

  ‘Let’s say I’d like to hear another version of it,’ he said.

  Chapter Seven

  Harry Lister woke and raised himself on one elbow. He looked across at Halliday’s sleeping place. The blanket looked as if the man were under it. But Lister had sharp eyes. He threw off his covering and rose to his feet. When he pulled back Halliday’s blanket, he saw the rocks underneath. Lister took the discovery calmly because he was a calm man. He had not trusted the man from the start. He lit a stogie and thought a while, smiling when he thought of Halliday trying to out-think Blade. He wondered if Joe Blade had caught him yet. Halliday must be the biggest fool born.

  But, he told himself, there were other possibilities—for one, Halliday might have got to the girls without Blade’s knowledge. He might have spilled the truth to Blade. He might have thrown in with the girls.

  Lister wondered if Blade knew anything about what was going on. The man had always been quixotic. He could have joined the girls out of sheer chivalry.

  The more he thought about the situation, the less he liked it. He strolled over to the Indian and took a look at him. The man was awake.

  ‘How you feelin’, Sam?’ Lister asked.

  ‘Not bad, not good,’ said the Indian.

  ‘Did you know Halliday had left camp?’

  ‘I saw him go.’

  ‘Goddamit,’ said Lister, ‘you could have woken me.’ The Indian said nothing. Then Lister asked: ‘When you goin’ to be fit to sit on a horse?’

  ‘I’m okay here,’ said the Indian. ‘You go ahead.’

  Lister glanced up at the sky. Dawn was not far off. He built up the fire and started the coffee. At the sound of his preparations, men started to wake. One or two rolled smokes and started their morning coughs. One or two of them walked over to the Indian to see how he was making out. His name was Sam Buckman and his father had borne the name before him. Like his father he had spent most of his life in the service of the soldiers. There was hardly any part of the West that he did not know. He had guided wagon trains, he could hunt, trap and ride herd. He was a total man of the wild places. His knowledge and his experience were beyond price. He was a hard, proud and modest man. His people were Delaware and he had been baptized a Christian. The West was slowly pushing such men away from its sight. Before too long there would be no call for them.

  As they all drank their coffee, Lister told them of Halliday’s departure. One or two voiced the opinion that they were best off without him. Lister said that wasn’t the point. The point was—what was the man doing? He told them of the various possibilities as he saw them. Now they began to think and to grow not only uneasy but angry as well.

  ‘I ain’t as good as the Indian,’ Lister said, ‘but I guess I can get by following Halliday’s sign. I could go on ahead and save the horses a good many miles. That’s important now. We’ve been over-workin’ ’em a good few days now. We can’t afford to have ’em go lame on us. I’ll go ahead and leave a plain trail for the rest of you to follow.’

  They thought that made sense. They respected Lister and his judgment. Ten minutes later, with some food stuffed in his pockets, he was ready to ride. Before he mounted his horse, he went to the Indian.

  ‘We’ll come back for you, Sam,’ he said.

  The Indian said: ‘Sure,’ He both believed it and disbelieved it. He knew men. If the gold called louder than their loyalty, they would forget him and go after the gold.

  A minute later, Lister rode out.

  As he thought, Halliday’s trial was easy to follow. He lifted his horse to a brisk trot. Several times during the next hour, he crossed horse tracks and guessed they had been made by Blade the previous day when he had ridden into camp. Lister could not help wondering if Blade had now discovered the truth.

  It did not take him long to discover that Halliday’s tracks were meandering and uncertain. He did not hesitate. The next time he came on Blade’s tracks, he followed them, knowing they would get him to the girls’ camp quicker. Blade, he soon realized, had a sure-footed horse, for Blade had taken some difficult and narrow trails. Often, Lister was forced to dismount and lead his horse. The trail made Lister wonder. Yesterday, Blade must have gone straight from the girls’ camp to Lister’s. Which meant that Blade must either have an uncanny eye for country or possess second sight.

  Suddenly, his horse trumpeted. Lister at once drew rein. The animal’s ears were forward. Lister dismounted and tied his horse. He was in deep timber and he did not feel comfortable with his vision being so limited and the abundance of cover all around him. Right this minute, Blade might be watching him. He slid his carbine from its boot and went forward with caution.

  Pretty soon, he came on a saddled horse tied to a tree. He recognized it as Halliday’s horse.

  His first thought was: My God, Blade has kilt him.

  His nose told him there was a fire not too far away. Carefully, he pushed his way slowly through the trees. He stopped when he saw the wagon in the clearing.

  This must be a trap, he told himself. He started to circle the wagon, keeping in the cover of the trees, frequently turning to check his rear. He was nervous and he knew it. Anybody who knew Blade like he knew him would be nervous. No shame in that. He found that he was soaked in sweat.

  He stopped.

  There was a man tied to the rear nearside wheel of the wagon and that man was Halliday. His head down, his chin on his chest. He looked like he was weeping.

  Lister ca
lled out: ‘Halliday, is Blade around?’

  The man’s head jerked up at once.

  ‘Thank heaven,’ he said. ‘Blade said you’d find me, but I saw myself staying here forever, till I was dead.’

  Lister knew how bad his own nerves were when he heard himself say: ‘If you’re lying to me, Halliday, I’ll kill you.’

  Halliday looked shocked.

  'No call for that kind of talk, Harry,’ protested the tied man. ‘He’s been long gone.’

  Harry Lister walked out of the cover of the trees. He turned slowly, his eyes everywhere, ready to shoot at a shadow.

  ‘What about the girls?’ he demanded.

  ‘They went with Blade and the other feller.’

  ‘You mean they left the wagon?’

  ‘There wasn’t nothin’ in the wagon, for God’s sake. What did they want the wagon for?’

  Lister hunkered down. ‘Tell me, Halliday, what did you tell Blade?’

  Halliday rolled his eyes to heaven and looked even more like a pious prairie dog. ‘I told him all there was to tell him. The girls are thieves. And murderesses.’

  ‘And did Blade swallow that?’

  ‘Can you tell what Blade swallows or doesn’t swallow? If you can, you’re a damn sight smarter than me.’ His tone turned to one of pleading. ‘Please, Harry, cut me loose. These rawhides’re carvin’ my hands from my arms.’

  Lister drew his knife and cut the man’s bonds. Halliday tried to get to his feet and fell over. Lister watched him curiously, not moving, slightly amused. Halliday sat up and started chafing his wrists. He winced and drew in his breath with pain as the blood started to circulate.

  I owe that to Blade, he told himself. This son-of-a-bitch Lister is laughing at me. But he won’t laugh at me when he sees what I do to Blade. I’ll have that bastard’s liver and lights. Nobody would ever laugh at him again, not after he had his hands on the gold and was rich. Blade would whittle down some of the others. There would be precious few of them alive for the final share-out.

  He stabbed the air in Lister’s direction with a thick forefinger: ‘Blade is mine,’ he said. ‘I don’t want you or anybody else killin’ him. He’s mine.’