Chapter Forty-one
Nate Condor and Barney Merden camped in flat brush country a mile east of the Victorio Mountains. They found a narrow, sluggish creek that smelled of sulfur but provided enough water for the mules and horses.
Merden stirred the coals under the coffeepot that smoked on the fire and inclined his head toward Condor. “How much will the Gimp pay, you reckon?”
“As little as he can.”
“How much is little?”
“Don’t worry. Enough to keep you in whiskey and whores for years.”
“There’s law in Silver City, Nate,” Merden said. “We’ll need to step around real careful, like.”
“Humphrey the Gimp owns the law, like he owns most everything else in the town. The only thing we need to be careful about is not to let him beat us up on the price.”
“What you gonna do with your share of the money, Nate?”
“Buy a house back East with an oak tree out front, violets in the window boxes, and a yellow-haired woman in the kitchen.”
“And now you’re pulling my leg.”
“The hell I am,” Condor said. “The West is getting smaller and smaller and pretty soon there will be no room for men like us, Barney. When this is over, I’ll hang my guns on a nail and retire.”
“Jesse tried that, remember? Look what happened to him.”
“Jesse didn’t retire, and neither did Frank, at least not until after his brother was killed. I might move to England. There are no Bob Fords in London.”
“Yeah, and then somebody recognizes you and you’ll get hung fer a pirate rogue and a slave trader.”
“Boston then. Or New York, where no one knows me or cares.”
Merden grinned. “Nate, you’ll spend your money on whiskey and wild women and raise hell, just like me.”
Condor nodded. “I guess so. It would be nice though, wouldn’t it? I mean a house in the country where everything is peaceful and quiet and the birds sing in the morning.”
“It ain’t fer us, Cap’n.”
There was a touch of regret in Condor’s smile. “No, you’re right. It isn’t for us and it never was.”
“Hello, the camp!” A man’s voice, harsh and confident, rang out from the darkness.
Condor and Merden jumped on their feet, instinctively stepping out of the firelight.
“What the hell do you want?” Merden yelled.
“We’re honest travelers with something to trade,” the man yelled.
“You got nothing we want,” Condor said. “Ride on, feller.”
“Hell, you ain’t seen it yet,” the man hollered.
Two men emerged from the darkness, sitting astride wiry mustangs, a shadowy figure behind them on foot. Both riders were dressed in buckskins, the fringes on the arms a foot long. They cradled Winchesters and one had the stub of a clay pipe stuck in the corner of his mouth.
“I told you fellers to ride on,” Condor said. “There’s nothing for you here.”
Clay Pipe’s gaze fixed on Condor and sized him up as a man to be reckoned with. “Jes’ came in fer a warm up and a cup of coffee. And some honest tradin’ if’n you have a mind.”
“We’ve nothing to trade and only enough coffee for ourselves,” Merden said. “Now move on like the cap’n said.”
“Cap’n, is it?” Clay Pipe said. “Cap’n o’ what?”
“Of your destiny, feller,” Condor said. “Now you git and take your friends with you.”
“You best take his advice, boys,” Merden said. “You done woke up the wrong passengers on this trip.”
If the buckskinned riders were intimidated, they didn’t let it show.
“What you got in them pokes back there?” Clay Pipe motioned with his chin.
“None of your business,” Condor said. Then, “And don’t push it any further, mister.”
The man turned his head and barked something. A young girl stepped out of the shadows. She wore a buckskin dress, but she was black, with short-cropped hair and huge frightened eyes. She had a thin string of red and white beads around her neck.
“I’m selling her for forty dollars,” Clay Pipe said. “She cost me twice that over to Missouri way a spell back, so I’m takin’ a loss. She’s young and she don’t know much yet, but she’ll keep you gents’ bellies warm.”
Condor was not in the mood for a gunfight, but he’d had all he was going to take. “I’m spelling it out. I don’t want blood and dead bodies all over my camp, so I’m giving you one more chance—shut the hell up, ride out, and take the black with you.”
“Harsh words,” Clay Pipe said. “Harsh words to men engaged in an honest trading venture.”
“Mister, I’m done talking.” Condor drew both guns and thunder rolled.
Hit hard, the men tumbled off their horses, dead as ragdolls when they landed on the ground.
After his ears stopped ringing, Merden grinned. “I guess them two never come up against a real gunfighter before.”
Condor nodded. “Right now, that’s what they’re telling each other in hell.”
He holstered one gun, motioned to the terrified girl with the other, and said to Merden, “You want that?”
Merden shook his head. “I’ll have no truck with her kind. Damned animals.”
Condor pointed the gun at the girl. “You, get up on one of those mustangs and git the hell out of here.”
The girl stood frozen in place with fear.
Condor fired and a V of dust flew up an inch in front of her toes. “Git!”
Startled, the girl ran for a horse and jumped into the saddle. After one scared glance at Condor, she rode away into the darkness.
“Hell, Nate, why didn’t you gun her?” Merden asked.
“We will have two bodies to drag away from here. Why make extra work for ourselves with three?”
Merden smiled. “Or maybe just then you was thinking good thoughts, like the house with the tree out front.”
“Maybe,” Condor said. “But I doubt it.”