Chapter Thirty-Nine

John Henry Cole cut through the stand of ponderosa pines, moving at a right angle in order to make an approach to the rear of the house. He saw tracks in the snow of the fleeing men who had tried to ambush them. They were going away from the house, probably toward a remuda of horses they’d kept stashed. Sun broke through the shifting clouds and splayed down through the tall, dark pines. Overhead Cole could see patches of blue sky. Where the sun hit it, the snow sparkled. A large snowshoe hare broke from the cover of a rock and darted away.

It took ten, maybe fifteen minutes for him to cut through the woods and come out the other side, where he could get a clear view of the house. It was a long, low building with a shake roof and a stone chimney. There were several outbuildings and a couple of corrals holding some blooded brood mares whose dark bodies stood in direct contrast to the snow. Their ears pricked up when they caught wind of Cole and they moved around in the corral, coming to stand at the rails nearest his position. He waited until they settled down before moving toward the house.

He let several more minutes pass in case anyone in the house had caught sight of the horses stirring in the corral. Finally the mares lost interest and went back to feeding on the bundles of hay that were scattered on the ground. There was a privy thirty yards from the house. Cole figured to make that his first stop when he left the woods. From the privy, he could make a dash to a small lean-to, and from there to the back wall of the house. Anyone watching from inside would have a clear shot at him through the window. And if they were even half good . . . he didn’t want to think about it.

He rested the Winchester against the trunk of a pine. There was no use carrying it, not if the fighting was going to be up close. He watched the rear windows of the house for another half minute, and, when he didn’t see any movement, he broke for the privy. It seemed like it took him forever, crossing that patch of snowy ground. It was like one of the war dreams he’d sometimes have, the ones where he’d be in the middle of a battle and couldn’t move, as if caught in quicksand. He ran and ran and finally dived behind the outhouse. No one had taken a shot at him. After a couple of deep breaths, he rubbed snow out of the workings of his self-cocker.

The only thing between him and the house now was the lean-to. He could see a bellows and an anvil and a rack of tools hanging from hooks. Snow was ledged up around the opening. If he could make the lean-to without taking a bullet, he could reach the back of the house. Carrying the self-cocker in his right hand, he reached in his pocket and took out the Colt Thunderer with the short barrel and held it in his left. He wanted all the hardware he could get in making that next run. A gunman in the window would have to be blind not to be able to drop him if he saw him coming.

Cole took a deep breath and broke for the lean-to. Suddenly the glass shattered out of one of the windows and a pistol shot rang out. A bullet whined off the anvil just as Cole dropped in behind the thin plank wall of the lean-to. He heard Charley Coffey’s voice, yelling to someone inside the house that he thought he had got Cole. Cole was thinking: Anybody but you, Charley, could have made a killing shot from that distance. The problem was that he was trapped behind the plank wall. It was still a good ten, fifteen feet to the back wall of the house, and even Charley wasn’t likely to miss a second shot.

Cole could hear Charley yelling for Stevens to come have a look, but there was no reply. Charley was saying how maybe he was already dead and that maybe Mr. Stevens ought to come have a look for himself. Then Cole heard the roar of the sporting rifle as it echoed out into the frozen silence and he knew then why Stevens hadn’t come to the back of the house. He had been watching the front, waiting for Miguel to come from that direction.

Cole heard Charley shout: “What the hell!” His voice trailed away from the rear of the house. That’s when Cole charged to the back wall and slammed hard against it, just below the window out of which Charley had shot when he’d tried to kill Cole.

“Your man . . .” Cole heard Stevens shout from inside. “Did you get him?”

Charley said: “Sure did. What’d you shoot at out there, Mister Stevens?”

“The ultimate game,” Stevens said, his manner cool, assured. “There, can you see him lying in the snow, just about where we had those miners set up in the woods? I waited for just the right moment, Charles . . . that’s quite important, waiting for just the right moment.”

Cole didn’t wait any longer. He crashed through the back door just as Charley was returning to check his own handiwork. He had a dumb, startled look on his face when he saw Cole. He was carrying his pistol down by his leg, not expecting company. He was way too late. The force of Cole’s slug carried him halfway across the room and slammed him against the wall. He still had the dumb, startled look on his face when he slid to the floor, his legs out in front of him.

“Charles!” Cole heard Stevens call. “What’s going on back there?”

Cole stepped into the main room just as Stevens was turning away from the open window. Smoke was still curling from the blued barrel of his sporting rifle. He turned his eyes down to the expensive gun in Cole’s hands.

“Don’t!” Cole said.

Some of Stevens’s cool manner fell away and his teeth clenched.

“Lay it there on the floor and kick it away.”

“It’s a two-thousand-dollar custom-made weapon, sir,” he protested.

“I don’t care if Queen Victoria gave it to you in payment for stud services, lay it down and kick it away.”

He did, a pained look on his face as his gaze followed it across the floor.

“Move away from the window.”

As soon as he stepped aside, Cole went over and glanced out the shattered maw of glass. Lying there in the snow, at a distance of a hundred and fifty yards, was Miguel Torres, face down. He couldn’t see any movement. “It’s over, Stevens. Get your coat.”

“Whatever are you talking about?”

Cole walked over and slapped him hard across the face with the back of his hand. He staggered back, then Cole slapped him again, and he fell to one knee. “It’s not a debate,” he said. “Get your coat!”

Stevens was bleeding from the lips and from the nostrils and his smoothly shaven flesh was scarlet where Cole had hit him. He struggled to stand, still wobbly from the blows. His hand reached up to his mouth and came away smeared with his blood. “You killed them?” he said. “All the men I’d posted in the woods?”

“Just the ones that needed it. The others got smart and ran.”

Stevens walked in a slow, pained manner to the coat rack and took down a greatcoat and put it on. “What now?” he said.

“Out that way.” Cole nodded toward the front door.

They walked the hundred and fifty yards to where Miguel was lying.

“Stand off a little,” Cole told Stevens. He waited until Stevens walked off about twenty feet before he rolled Miguel onto his back. Miguel groaned when he did. The bullet had punched a fist-sized hole through him.

Miguel looked up at Cole, coughed. “Reach me my . . . flask . . . would . . . you?”

Cole reached inside his coat, pulled out the metal flask, smeared and sticky with his blood, unscrewed the cap, and handed it to him.

Miguel looked in Stevens’s direction. “That the son-of-a-bitch that . . . shot me?”

“Yeah, that’s the son-of-a-bitch.”

Stevens flinched, but Cole didn’t think it was from the cold or from having been slapped a couple of times.

“Ask him, will you?” Miguel said, then coughed.

Cole turned his full attention to Stevens. “He wants to hear you say it.”

“What is that, may I ask?”

“He wants you to say that you had a hand in his brother’s killing.”

Stevens shrugged. “I don’t even know this man,” he said.

“His name is Miguel Torres and his brother was Robertito Torres and the other man’s name was Shag Hargrove. You had Robertito killed because of a gold claim up around here somewhere.”

Miguel was sipping the whiskey and coughing up blood and most of what life he had left was staining the snow beneath him. His eyes were a little glazed and he was slipping fast.

“Sorry,” Stevens said. “I don’t know the man of whom you’re speaking.” The sad truth for Cole was he believed Stevens probably had not known Robertito Torres, at least not by name. But the rest of it was true—that either he or Charley Coffey had killed Robertito and scared off Shag Hargrove. Cole was willing to bet the bank on that.

“What’d . . . he say?” Miguel sputtered.

Cole looked at Stevens, hard. “Go on, tell the deputy here that you had his brother killed over a claim.” It wasn’t a request but a flat-out threat on Cole’s part.

“Maybe there was a man,” Stevens said. “I believe I remember Charley saying something about it.”

“There you go, Miguel. We got your man. Robertito’s killer. You can rest now.”

Miguel’s eyes widened as though he’d suddenly thought of something, or seen something. He stiffened. “Killed us . . . both,” he muttered. “God-damn toad like . . . that.” Then Miguel Torres died much as he had lived, without fanfare. He simply closed his eyes.

Stevens was standing there, shivering, looking on. Cole stood up from the body of the lawman.

“I need to know something,” Cole said.

“Well, I guess you are in the position to ask whatever questions you wish,” Stevens said in that way that made Cole want to slap him again.

“You and Liddy Winslow,” Cole said. “She’s your sister?”

He nodded.

“Funny she would lie to me about it.”

His right eyebrow arched. “Are you so certain that is what she did . . . lie to you, Mister Cole? Or was it more that she left out certain parts of her story when she was convincing you to do her bidding?”

“I’m not buying it, Stevens.”

He smiled with his busted lips. “Well, I suppose a man of your low sensibilities would be blinded by a woman that was far beyond your station. I mean, look at you, a frontiersman!”

Cole didn’t say anything. He just crossed the space between them and knocked him down, only this time he didn’t slap him. He hit him and felt his jaw snap. Then he dragged Stevens to his feet, put him on a horse, and prayed he would do something to make Cole kill him before they got back to Deadwood. Go on, Stevens, he kept thinking the whole ride back, make this easy for all of us. Run!