The horse’s gait made Six’s body roll on the saddle and punished all the stiff, sore areas of his flesh and bones. The beating he had suffered at Ivy’s meaty hands had indeed been severe.
Going south on the coach road, he turned off at the Silver Dollar signpost and headed up toward a notch in the Rim. Starlight washed the trail; it was just after four. It wasn’t long before Ben Sarasen rode out of the brush beside the trail and sat waiting for him to come up. Sarasen still had no hat. When Six came along, the gunfighter fell in beside him with only a murmured greeting. Not talking, they climbed along the wagon road that had been laboriously cut and shored along the steeply ascending notch. Then, at the top, Six said,
“Take a good look around here. If Madden hits the wagon, it’ll most likely be in this area.” It was a district of boulders and cutbanks, scrub brush and piñon. Boulder fields on either side of the road offered ideal concealment. Sarasen’s shrewd eyes took it all in and he nodded his agreement.
After a while, with the eastward sky paling, Six said, “A bloody trail ahead.” He was recalling Hal Craycroft’s predictions. “I keep remembering Billy Hatfield. It takes a long time to grow a man. Only takes a tenth of a second to wipe it all out with a bullet.”
“I’ll tell, you something,” Sarasen murmured. “All this was written down before you and I were born. It’s a waste of time to fret.”
It was, Six reflected, the closest Sarasen had ever come to making a religious statement. He wondered what causes lay behind the bleakness that never went away from those pale eyes. After a while Six said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”
“Go ahead.”
“Why did that girl on the stage want to kill you?”
“She thinks I murdered her husband.”
“Did you?”
Sarasen’s shoulders moved. “I shot him dead. Sometimes it’s not the same.”
“You mean you had no choice.”
“That’s right,” Sarasen said. “But there were no witnesses.” Soon the dawn spread across the mountains. The upcoming sun first struck them as they topped a ridge; steadily the day brightened and warmed as the sun rose. Shadows shortened and then, following the rutted road across a meadow of yellow shortgrass on which a dozen lanky steers browsed, they turned along the face of a steep mountain and reached the Silver Dollar.
A bustling enterprise kept the place humming. This was no ten-man sluice operation. The Silver Dollar sported eight or ten separate shafts that drilled at various angles into the silver-rich slope; the size of the crew was suggested by the number of apparently idle men, most of them overseers and crew foremen, who crisscrossed the yards. The slag heap itself was assuming the proportions of a new mountain in the ancient range. A litter of offices, barns, stables, sheds, bunk-houses, cook shacks, and other outbuildings scattered the ground in patternless arrangement, all of it dominated by the huge gray building that was the reduction mill and smelter, its stacks spewing heavy plumes of thick black smoke into the sky.
It was like a section of a great Northern industrial city, somehow transported to the Arizona wilderness.
Outside the smelter, beside a door that looked tiny in the side of the immense structure, waited a heavy-wheeled ore wagon, high-sided and substantial, standing behind sixteen teams of mules strung out in harness. On the off wheel mule was a saddle, for the wagon driver to ride. Six recognized old Bill Poe, the driver, standing by the door smoking a corncob pipe and exchanging desultory conversation with a gang foreman while a crew of men laboriously transferred oblong ingots of shining metal from the building to the bed of the specially reinforced wagon. Farther down, some distance behind the wagon, half a dozen hard-bitten men stood around with saddled horses, waiting. That was the guard: six trail-hardened toughs who had been hired by the Silver Dollar for the express purpose of escorting one wagon twice a week along the seventeen miles of road between here and the Spanish Flat rail terminal.
Sarasen was saying, “I recognize one or two of those boys, from down the trail. They ought to be able to handle themselves.”
“It won’t hurt to give them a little help,” Six said, walking forward leading his horse.
Coming away from his inspection of the wagon-loading was a tall thickset man with an air of authority. That was Abe Danning, chief of security for the mine and smelter. Six waved to Danning, and the big man changed course to meet them. As Danning came up, Six noticed his speculative and half-suspicious glance hold on Ben Sarasen.
Six introduced the two men and explained why he and Sarasen had come. “We’ve got an idea Oakley Madden may try to knock over your wagon today.”
Danning looked over his shoulder at the six heavily armed gunmen who stood by their horses. “If he does,” Danning said, “he’ll be running smack into a passel of grief.”
“Sarasen and I have it in mind to trail along, maybe half a mile in back of the wagon. That way if Madden bushwhacks them and pins them down, we’ll be able to catch him in a crossfire.”
“I don’t see that’s necessary,” Danning argued. “My boys can take care of themselves.” While he spoke he was laying a challenging glance against Sarasen, whose own eyes were sleepy and mild.
Six said, in order to placate Danning, “Sarasen’s bought a piece of this. He’s got a right to ride along.”
Danning said bluntly, “You’ll vouch for him?”
Six hesitated. “Yes.”
Danning’s shoulders lifted an inch and dropped. “All right.” He turned away with a snap of his thickly-muscled body and went about his business.
Sarasen drawled, “Once in a while I like to run into a man who’s not scared of me and yet isn’t spoiling for a fight. I imagine Danning’s a pretty cool customer.”
“He used to be a Pinkerton man,” Six said. Danning disappeared into the big maw of the building; in time the wagon was loaded and old Bill Poe climbed into the mule’s saddle, checked the rope that led back to the brake-handle, and nodded briskly to the sallow-faced youth who was his hazer. The young hazer trotted forward to the head of the long line of mules and broke his whip. The mules started ahead, strained in concert, broke the wagon loose, and started the long downhill haul toward Spanish Flat.
Six and his silent companion waited in the yard until the wagon went out of sight up the road. Then they mounted up, turned toward the wagon’s dust, and moved ahead slowly. It was only after seven, but the sun already laid a layer of heat across the mountains, and Six knew that later in the day the desert below would be smoky and almost unbearably hot.
Dust, hanging in the wagon’s wake, fogged the trail ahead. They stayed well behind the wagon, not wanting to give their presence away. The road dropped into the head of a shallow sprawling canyon opening westward, following the rocky floor of it until it ran up against the side of a tall steep ridge and turned to the left along the base of it. Sunlight slapped the rocks and sent up sharp slivers of silvery reflection from scattered mica particles, painful to the eyes. Squinting against that flinty brilliance, they jogged along the side of the ridge. The road kept to a flat ripple and presently ran across a dry sand creek bed. The creek meandered downward through a wide shallow cut in the hilltops; the road followed it, going parallel to it, and then moved away to go through a series of cross canyons on man-made ridges. Trees hemmed it in on both sides for a while and then, a mile further on, the descending trail brought them out of the timber and across an oblong clearing.
When they came to the edge of the clearing, they stopped in the fringe of trees to listen. Nothing was within earshot other than the rumble of the wagon half a mile ahead. They gigged the horses forward.
Halfway across the clearing Six’s saddle gave a strange sudden jerk, and hard on the heels of the thump, he heard the savage crack of a rifle.
By a combination of luck and trained perceptiveness, Six glimpsed the puff of black-powdersmoke at the edge of the trees to his left. He snapped a shot that way—the rifle emitted a round boom and rocked fiercely in his hands—and bent forward across the horse’s withers, driving it forward at a dead run. The horse broke into immediate gallop, startled by gunshots. He had time to see Sarasen cutting away behind him, charging straight into the trees at the ambusher’s position, firing his revolver steadily.
Six’s horse whipped him into the trees just as a horseman crashed into view ahead of him. He had enough time to recognize the man, one of Madden’s hangers-on, a scrawny gunman named Peso. He lifted his rifle and suddenly realized that its single chamber was empty; the shotgun charge in the lower barrel would not reach the distance. Peso fired hurriedly at him; the bullet ricocheted with a wicked whine off an aspen trunk inches from Six.
Targeted on horseback, Six knew he had to get cover. Slowing to a canter, he leaped from the saddle. While the horse ran on into the forest, raising a considerable clatter on the rocky roadbed, Six hit the ground and rolled off the road in pine needles, and came up on his feet, shaken and bruised. He couldn’t see Peso from here. Quickly reloading the rifle, he cocked it, brought it up, and searched the circle of his vision. He wondered what had happened to Sarasen. As though in answer to his unspoken question, a number of guns started shooting, all close by, but none of them apparently aimed at him. Did they have Sarasen pinned down, or was it all a ruse? Was Sarasen one of them?
He half-believed it, but if it were true, why then hadn’t Sarasen simply shot him on the trail? Or perhaps that wasn’t Sarasen’s way. Six couldn’t make head or tail of it.
Brush rattled, and in a moment he had a quick glimpse of movement in the timber close by. Peso was riding slowly through the trees, hunting for him.
Six moved on soft feet, aiming to intercept the gunman in mid-timber. Once he lost Peso’s position and froze until movement and sound drew him forward; once again, the guns behind him opened up. Men’s voices started calling back and forth in the timber. He recognized a few, but none belonged to Madden or any of Madden’s chief henchmen. They must have been shooting at Sarasen, for none of the bullets came anywhere within Six’s view.
Ahead of him Peso had stopped, perhaps in fear, perhaps to scout. Six halted, moved around behind a pair of trees, and suddenly lost Peso. The man was nowhere to be seen. Six turned his head slowly, to catch little sounds against the flats of his eardrums. He thought he heard heavy breathing, but for a third time the shooting began again in back of him and he could not be sure. Nonetheless he moved forward.
Peso started off again, breaking wood underfoot. Six stepped on exposed roots and rocks as much as possible, to avoid sound. There were sporadic volleys of gunfire in the forest. He had occasional views of Peso moving along in jerks—now halting, now trotting ahead on his horse. Whenever the other stopped, Six slowed his pace cautiously. His course of travel was calculated to meet Peso’s not far distant, but all the time had had to watch his flanks and back to make sure no one else was boxing him.
He was coming up from behind Peso’s right shoulder. Presently, with a clear twenty-five foot shot at Peso between trees, Six halted and lifted the Hawken rifle. “Hold it, Peso.”
Peso froze awkwardly, bent forward in the saddle. His head began to turn. When he picked up Six in the corner of his vision, he suddenly dived off the saddle into the brush. Six’s shot missed him.
Cursing, Six reloaded. Peso had dropped flat, rolling over, drawing his six-gun. The maneuver dropped Peso’s vital parts out of sight behind the thick bole of a pine; with his clear shot spoiled, Six had to wheel back behind cover. It was just as well; at least the contest now was fair. Not that it made much difference where a man’s life concerned—once dead you didn’t much care how you had been killed. But the rules and the badge were buried deep in his nature and it was hard to fight against them.
He could see Peso’s boots from his concealment; to shake the man up he sighted the Hawken on one bootheel and fired. The gunshot roared in the forest corridors; the heavy heel spun deliriously away from the boot. Legs jarred, Peso drew his feet up protectively. Six could hear his high-pitched Spanish cursing on the thin flat air. Then, over that sound, he heard the crush of horse-hoofs. Men were yelling back and forth.
“Peso, where in hell are you?”
“Jimmy, you back there? I got one of ’em bottled up over here. Come on over.” That was Walt Smiley, one of Madden’s erstwhile partners.
“Wait a minute ... something funny, Walt. I can’t rouse Peso.”
“I’m right here,” Peso called out, laughing. “Hey, Six, you hear that? Mexican stand-off, we got. That’s fine with me. Wait till the boys come up.”
It lent a sudden urgency to the moment. Six knew he had to wrap it up quickly, or face a murderous crossfire. He drew his revolver and put a quick flurry of shots into the earth around Peso’s position, hoping to rattle Peso enough to make him do something foolish. But Peso was not stupid. He stayed put and in a moment Six heard him chuckling.
Six pinched his mouth firmly tight; his jaw lay forward in a grim line. He looked all around. Horse sounds were louder, only a few hundred yards away. Someone called, “Peso? You got him yet?”
It was no time for caution. Six ducked out from behind the big pine. Hoping to spoil Peso’s aim by surprise, he dodged forward, angling toward Peso’s position, and threw himself flat, sprawling into a shallow depression of earth just as Peso’s quick shot split twigs overhead.
Peso’s head and shoulders were in view; the scene began to move very slowly for Six: Peso bunched himself, starting to draw back to cover like a tortoise into its shell, and Six watched the big Hawken rise in his own hands. Peso’s eyes were wide. The Hawken went off, very loud in the dim forest, and Peso’s head jerked slightly. The bullet had taken him through the throat, possibly snapped his neck, for his head lolled strangely and he flopped, mouth open.
A voice, startlingly close, cut forward impatiently, “Peso. Peso, you got him? What the hell is going on?” And a moment later, “Walt?”
“Over here,” called a more distant voice. “I thought I had this jasper pinned, but now I ain’t so—” The words were cut off in the middle by a gunshot. Pistol, Six thought. Sarasen’s? Walt did not speak again.
In a rising tone of panic, Jimmy called, “I got his horse. Walt? Peso? Hey, where is everybody?” Farther back in the trees there was a sudden crashing as a horse went galloping away.
Six pointed himself toward Jimmy’s voice and sloughed forward through the forest. For a long time he saw and heard nothing. Then, behind him, a new voice opened up, “Jimmy ... watch yourself. Peso bought out!”
“Judas Priest!” Jimmy ejaculated. Six placed the sound of the voice now to his right, and changed direction accordingly. His feet quietly pressed down the forest floor. Soon he came in sight of Jimmy, a short squat man standing still with a revolver lifted hesitantly, holding the reins of two horses—his own and Six’s. Jimmy was looking straight ahead and for a moment Six was sure Jimmy was looking right at him, but Jimmy made no motions of recognition. The stranger’s voice back in the timber called again, “Hell, I’m gettin’ out of here. Look out for yourself, Jimmy.”
Jimmy’s mouth opened and he bawled plaintively, “Where’s Walt?”
“Gone home—wing busted. That Goddamn Sarasen’s prowlin’ around here somewhere. I’m clearing out.” The horse clattered to a gallop and faded from earshot.
Jimmy’s mouth dragged shut. Six lifted his rifle before he spoke, in a low tone that was meant to carry no farther than Jimmy’s ears.
“Drop the gun, Jimmy.”
Jimmy jumped. Reaction tightened his fist on the six-gun and it went off, plowing a trench in the earth six feet before his boots. He dropped the gun as if it were a red-hot iron. His hands shot up. Six strode quickly forward, shouldered around behind Jimmy, yanked the man’s hands down and handcuffed them together behind Jimmy’s back. Then he boosted Jimmy onto the horse, mounted his own, and called out, “Ben. Ben Sarasen. All clear.”
In a very short time, Sarasen appeared, leading his horse, pistol in hand. His face was flushed, his clothes awry. He said, “I skinned one of them. He went home. They had me boxed for a while. Sorry I couldn’t buy in over here.”
Six regarded him suspiciously. Had it all been an act? Had the rest of them, calling back and forth, merely been mouthing words Sarasen had put there for them? But if so, what would be the reason for it? He couldn’t decide whether to trust Sarasen or not. It struck him as mighty suspicious that none of the big guns of Madden’s outfit had put in an appearance.
Sarasen was holstering his gun and gathering the reins to mount. Six said, “We’d better go after that wagon, though I didn’t hear any shooting from that direction.”
“I have a feeling they wanted us first, then the wagon,” Sarasen said. “When the bushwhack didn’t work, it spoiled their raid on the silver.”
Sure, Six thought. But where were Madden, the Boltons, Faro Price? None of it made any sense. He put his foot in the stirrup and climbed up.