Chapter Forty-eight
“What can I do for you gentlemen?” Ebenezer Cobham asked.
“We’re looking for a feller goes by the name of English Nate Condor,” Jacob O’Brien said.
Cobham pretended to be eager to help. He gave a little bow and rubbed anguished hands together. “Oh, dear me, you just missed him. He left . . . well, not fifteen minutes ago.”
“Did he have a wagon?” Dallas Steele asked. “And did he say he was heading south?”
“No, he didn’t have a wagon. But he did mention that he and his associate were planning to do a little bird hunting up Bear Mountain way. That’s northwest—”
“I know where it is,” Jacob said.
Cobham’s eyes grew wide as the muzzle of Jacob’s Colt slammed between them.
“Where is Nate Condor?”
“North, mister. Honest.” Piss ran down Cobham’s pants leg. “That’s all I know. Him and another man rode north fifteen minutes ago, like I said.”
“Who’s the other man?” Jacob shoved the gun into the livery man’s midsection.
“His name is Gaudet,” Cobham said. “He works for Mr. Strangewayes.”
“I reckon he’s telling you the truth, Jake.” Steele shook his head. “Oh, dear me, Mr. Cobham, it seems like you just pissed yourself.”
“It’ll dry.” Jacob looked at Steele, puzzled. “Why would Condor head north? The gold is south.”
“He plans to kill us out of town where there are no witnesses, I reckon.”
Jacob lowered the hammer of his revolver and dropped it into the holster. “Well, he’s going to get his chance.” He stepped to his horse, Steele walking behind him.
Gunshot roared loud within the walls of the stable.
Jacob heard Steele groan as the bullet hit him. He turned and pulled his gun as he eased the Pinkerton to the floor.
Silas Strangewayes, holding a smoking revolver at eye level, stood outside the open door of the tack room.
They fired at the same time. Strangewayes’ shot burned across Jacob’s neck, but the little man staggered under the crushing impact of two .45 rounds dead center to his chest.
“Damn you!” Strangewayes screamed, taking an unsteady step forward. “You’ve killed me.” The little man fell on his face, twitched like a stepped on bug, then lay still.
Cobham, his face ashen, backed away. He looked at Strangewayes’ body. “I thought he’d never die.”
Jacob ignored that and kneeled beside Steele. He held the Pinkerton’s head. “You lay still, Dallas. I’ll get a doctor.”
Steele, his lips pale, shook his head. “The hell you will, Jake. Get after Condor.”
“You’re hit hard, Dallas.”
“Yes, I know.” His face puzzled, he said, “Who shot me?”
“Strangewayes, and I did for him.”
“I’ll survive, Jake. Now go get Condor.”
Cobham stepped closer and Jacob said, “Bring a doctor.” The man hesitated and Jacob yelled. “Now, damn you!”
Cobham fled.
“Now leave me be, Jake.” Steele winced. “I hurt like hell. What the hell did he shoot me with?”
“Looks like a .38-caliber British Bulldog.”
Steele smiled. “British? Good, at least it was a gun with class.” He grabbed Jacob by the front of his shirt. “Go now, Jake. I’ll be fine until the doc gets here.”
Jacob eased Steele’s head onto the floor, and then rose to his feet. “I’ll bring you Condor’s scalp.”
“Just put an extra bullet in him for me.” Steele’s eyes fluttered closed and he drifted into unconsciousness.
Jacob stepped to Strangewayes’ body and with his boot rolled the little man onto his back. His water-colored eyes were wide open, but he was dead as he was ever going to be.
Later, the Silver City Miner newspaper would speculate on why Silas Strangewayes remained at the Blue Coyote livery stable after Nate Condor and John Gaudet left instead of immediately returning to his place of business. The only explanation reporters could come up with was that the old man, known citywide for his mean and nasty disposition, had homicide in mind.
The unfortunate events that followed were laid at Strangewayes’ doorstep. The Silver City Miner stated that, “It is our opinion that the crook and moneylender Silas Strangewayes had escaped the gallows for too long. He is no great loss.”
Understandably, that was also Jacob O’Brien’s opinion.
Jacob O’Brien rode into the high timber country north of Silver City, the sky above him like the inside of a blue ceramic bowl. It was not yet noon but the day was hot and the mountain air was thin as muslin and hard to breathe.
His horse tight-reined to a walk, Jacob constantly scanned the rugged land ahead of him. But, familiar with the code and conduct of skilled, gun-fighting men, he did not fear an ambush.
English Nate Condor was a named gun. To outdraw and kill Jake O’Brien would greatly enhance his reputation among other belted men, but the deed must be done face-to-face, mano a mano, or it would not stand. On this point, the code was strict and unforgiving, a thing Nate Condor understood and would therefore act according to its mores.
Thus, Jacob rode without fear of a bushwhacking, but with fear of a different origin . . . the fear that he wasn’t fast enough on the draw and shoot to shade a man like Nate Condor, said to be the best with Colt’s gun there ever was or ever would be.
Fear ices a man’s belly and Jacob accepted that. But he’d inherited his sand from Irish warrior kings and there was no backup in him. Condor was indeed an enemy to be reckoned with, but as the Colonel once told him in the old Gaelic, “Laech cach fer co forrager.” Every man is a warrior until he’s defeated.
Jacob bore that in mind as he rode on through the brightening day . . . along with the certain knowledge that he would meet up with Condor soon and have it to do. The tracks he followed were fresh, two horsemen heading north and they were not more than a few minutes ahead of him.
The trail led across a grassy meadow bright with wildflowers hemmed in on one side by a thick stand of timber, a craggy parapet of weathered rock on the other. Two hundred yards ahead of him it rose gradually to a treed hogback, a boulder-strewn clearing at its crest.
Nate Condor sat on a small rock in the clearing and watched Jacob. A second man stood a few yards apart from him, holding the reins of the horses.
Jacob rode within talking distance and swung out of the saddle, walking his horse forward.
Condor, grinning, rose to his feet. “Jacob O’Brien is your name, matey, is it not?”
“It is, and there’s no need to tell me yours, Condor.”
“Ah, then let me introduce my associate, Mr. John Gaudet.”
Jacob’s eyes flicked to the man. He’d stripped to his shirt and pants and wore a gun in a shoulder holster rig. Little else about Gaudet caught his interest.
“So, Mr. O’Brien, what brings you all the way out here?” Condor asked.
“I’ve come to kill you. That’s the short answer to your question.”
“I must confess I’m a little disappointed Mr. Steele is not with you. He’s not ill, I trust.”
“He’s otherwise engaged today.”
“What a pity, I was rather looking forward to meeting him,” Condor said.
Jacob slapped his horse away from him, out of the line of fire. Then he took time to study Condor.
The man stood with his legs apart, his slim hips crossed by two gun belts. There was no fear in his eyes, just a glint of triumph, as though he was glad to finally see the famous Jacob O’Brien in the flesh. “You can’t shade me, O’Brien, you know that. But it’s a beautiful day and I’m willing to do you a favor.”
“I don’t want any favors from you.”
“At least have enough manners to hear me out and stop acting like a raggedy-assed Irishman fresh out of the bogs.”
“Talk then, and be damned to you.”
“Turn around, mount your horse, and I won’t kill you. When I get back to Silver City all I’ll do is spread the word that I put the crawl on the famous Jake O’Brien, gunfighter of the top rank.” Condor turned to Gaudet and spread his arms. “Mr. Gaudet, can I say fairer that that?”
Gaudet grinned, but said nothing.
“See, Mr. Gaudet agrees that I’ve made you a magnanimous offer,” Condor said.
“You’re finished in Silver City, Condor,” Jacob said. “Silas Strangewayes is dead and you’ve got nowhere else to go with your gold.”
Condor was shaken, a sight that pleased Jacob greatly.
“You’re a damned liar, O’Brien. You piano-playing blackguard, you’re lying.”
“Mr. Strangewayes ain’t dead,” Gaudet said. “He can’t die. Everybody knows that.”
“Well, when I left him he was laying on the floor of the Blue Coyote livery, his beard in a pile of horse dung,” Jacob said.
“That’s a lie, O’Brien,” Condor said.
“You’re making fighting talk, Condor. Do you have the sand to back it up?” Jacob asked quietly.
“I can back it up. Catch this!” Condor made a two-handed draw, his guns slicking fast from the leather.
Jacob’s own Colt was suddenly bucking in his fist, his draw as fast and smooth as Luther Ironside and constant practice could make it.
Too slow by a heartbeat, Nate Condor took Jacob’s bullet in the chest. Condor’s breastbone seemed to cave in as his shoulders jerked forward and his entire upper body bent around the blossoming wound. His own shots went wild, missing Jacob by inches.
Insane with fury, Condor screamed in frustration and desperately tried to bring his Colts to bear.
Jacob shot him again and again, the smack-smack of the bullets an ugly sound. And Condor was done.
Jacob didn’t wait to see the man fall. He turned on Gaudet, thumbing back the hammer as he spun, but the gunman wanted none of it.
He stood frozen to the spot and shrieked, “No quarrel! No quarrel!”
His heart pumping, his nerves raw, Jacob thought about it, but finally lowered his gun. “You got lucky today, Gaudet.”
“Is . . . is he dead?” Gaudet said, staring at Condor’s sprawled body.
Jacob nodded. “As dead as three bullets to the chest can make a man.”
“I never saw a man draw and shoot as fast as you did, O’Brien. Never thought it was possible.”
“I reckon.” Jacob punched shells out of his Colt and reloaded.
The expression on Gaudet’s face was a mix of shock, wonder, and admiration. “I can’t draw near as fast as you did.”
“Few men can,” Jacob said as he gathered up the reins of his horse.
“Then why the hell am I wearing this?” Gaudet said, gesturing to his holstered revolver.
Jacob turned his head and looked at the man. “Wear it, boy, just don’t try to draw down on mean fellers like me.”
“The hell with that.” Gaudet stripped himself of his Colt and threw the gun into the trees where it struck a branch, then thudded into underbrush.
Jacob stared hard at Gaudet. “That’s the second wise thing you’ve done today.”