Ten miles south of Spargo, Cherry Creek cut in close to the hillside bank and ran a deep, clear green. On one side, the foothills curved up steeply towards the looming Bucksaws, but the trailside was lined with trees. Willows crowded a broad stretch of yellow sandy bank and sycamores with mottled white limbs arched out over a deep, quiet pool.
Only ten miles, but it seemed like fifty to Duke Benedict as he finished off saddling the horses and then watched Brazos mix up a batch of sourdough biscuits.
It had been Brazos’ idea to stop off and make early camp when they came to the deep bend in the creek. Benedict had wanted to put more distance between them and the town with its dust and hate and smell of death, but he knew it wasn’t how far you went but where you went that mattered.
“Hungry?” Brazos grunted.
“Somewhat,” Benedict said as he pulled out his cigar case.
Brazos mixed flour, baking powder, salt and sourdough starter and worked it into a firm dough. Then he pinched off balls the size of walnuts, put them in the skillet that was greased with lard and set them in the fire. He inhaled deeply as the good smell of cooking biscuits rose, then squinted at Benedict who was staring absently across the creek.
“Chewin’ it over in your mind ain’t goin’ to do no good, Yank.”
Benedict frowned at him. “What?”
Brazos stood up and dusted his hands on his chaps. “You’re broodin’ over whether you done the right thing by quittin’ Kingston. Well, forget it. You done right all the way.”
“Perhaps.”
“No p’raps about it.” Brazos hazed a grin. “Let’s face it, Yank, we like clean-cut causes. We don’t shine when we ain’t dead sure who’s wearin’ the black hat.”
Benedict sniffed. “I don’t like the feeling of leaving something unfinished.”
“Well, I got information for you ... that feud back in Spargo ain’t goin’ to be finished until more blood’s been spilled, not with pilgrims like Clancy and Kingston callin’ the shots.”
“How long will those biscuits take?” Benedict asked.
“Half an hour. The delicate aroma gettin’ to you?”
Benedict grinned. “I think it might be.”
“My pappy always used to say that if a man can’t be tempted by sourdough biscuits, he’s dead.”
“Well, that would be right then—your pappy never being wrong about anything in his life.”
“That’s about how he was.” Brazos grinned and went down to the creek for water. He felt it was encouraging that Benedict was slinging off at his old man. Soon he’d get around to insulting him and criticizing his cooking. That would be a sure sign he was putting Spargo out of his mind.
It was late afternoon in Spargo and Tricia Delaney was sitting in her kitchen talking with Cole Kingston when unsteady steps sounded in the hallway. With a startled glance at Kingston, the girl hurried out to see her father lurching towards her.
“Father!” she cried, shocked. “You’re drunk!”
“Not just drunk, my baby ... stinkin’ drunk ... that’s what I am ...”
Cole Kingston came hurrying out and helped Tricia put her father to bed. Most women along Bonanza Street were accustomed to having brothers, fathers and sons coming home drunk, but Tricia Delaney had never seen her father really under the influence before.
“Father,” she chided as she pulled a blanket over him, “what on earth made you get yourself in such a state?”
“Free ... all free,” Delaney slurred, squinting his eyes. Then: “Cole? That you, Cole?”
“Yes, Shamus, it’s me.”
A stricken look crossed Delaney’s whisky-reddened face. He shook his head from side to side on the pillow. “It’s not right ... what they’re plannin’ to do. I ... I drank his free whisky so I’d forget it wasn’t right ... but I still know it’s not ...”
“What’s not right, father?” Tricia demanded. “What are you talking about?”
Shamus Delaney closed his eyes. He seemed to be wrestling with a bad dream. Then his eyes opened and they saw horror in them as he clutched at Cole Kingston’s sleeve.
“Go warn your father, Cole—hurry! Tell him to leave—they’re goin’ to—goin’ to ...”
“Going to what, father?” Tricia said, alarmed as his voice faded off.
Struggling with the effects of the whisky he’d drunk to deaden his sensibilities, Delaney slurred and muttered unintelligibly for a while before a brief period of lucidity returned.
“Goin’ to march on the hill, Cole. Clancy’s been workin’ ’em up to it at the saloon. Tell your pa ... tell him ...”
Shamus Delaney’s head rolled and he was asleep. Exchanging horrified looks, Cole and Tricia went out and closed the door behind them. The girl’s dark eyes were enormous with worry.
“Oh, Cole, what father said—could it be true?”
“I’m sure it is,” Cole said grimly. He turned to her as they reached the front door. “I’ll have to go tell Dad, Tricia.”
“Of course you must, Cole.” She kissed him. “But please be careful, darling. If there is trouble afoot, you could be in danger, too.”
“Heck, the miners have got nothing against me, honey,” he assured her, then he hurried down the path.
He was right about that—but it didn’t mean he was out of danger. Whenever he visited Tricia Delaney, Cole left his horse around the corner at Goodpasture’s Livery so his father wouldn’t find out where he was. Now, as he swung around the corner, he came face to face with the Kellys—Dad, Sam and Joe Kelly, rough, hard-faced men, close friends of Paddy Clancy’s. They’d obviously been drinking.
Cole went to step around them, but young Joe Kelly barred his way. “Now where are you goin’ to in such a hurry, Kingston?” he challenged, red-faced and truculent.
“Ah, let the lad be, Joe,” counseled Dad Kelly. “He’s not the Kingston we’re after.”
“So, it’s all true!” Cole exclaimed. A mistake. He turned to run but Dad Kelly grabbed him by the coat and Joe Kelly punched him in the jaw. Cole fell to his knees and tried to get up. Joe Kelly punched him again and he slumped, unconscious, to the walk.
“No!” Dad Kelly barked as Joe lifted a brass-heeled boot above Cole’s head. “Leave him be.”
“He’s a Kingston, ain’t he?” Joe said, but he lowered his boot.
“He’s harmless,” the family leader declared. “Still, we don’t want him runnin’ loose this night.” He jerked his thumb. “Tote him home and lock him in the cellar till it’s over.”
The Kellys lived four doors past the Delaney house. Two minutes later, a stunned Tricia Delaney heard a commotion and looked out to see Cole Kingston being carried past by the Kellys, followed by some noisy urchins who thought it was some kind of game.
Her face a mask of shock, the girl rushed into the street. “Mr. Kelly, what’s going on? What happened to Cole? Where are you ...?”
“Go back inside,” Dad Kelly snapped at her. “This is no concern of yours.”
She gasped when she saw blood trickling from Cole’s mouth. She clawed at Joe Kelly’s arm. “Put him down, Joe. Please!”
Cole Kingston’s left foot hit the walk as Joe Kelly released his hold to backhand the girl across the mouth, knocking her down.
“I said it’s none of your affair, girl,” Dad Kelly growled, looming over her as she knelt there, stunned, her hand against her face. “Go back home and stay there. We won’t be doin’ any harm to your fancy gentleman, even if he be a dirty Kingston.”
Tricia got slowly to her feet and watched them carry Cole into the house. Her face ached from Joe Kelly’s blow, but that wasn’t what stopped her. She’d seen their faces. They were strangers.
She looked around her and Bonanza Street seemed unfamiliar, alien. Something raw and ugly was rising from the boards of Spargo and she was afraid.
She fought against her fear as she paused at her gate. Instead of going into the house, she hurried down to Coyote Street. There she encountered the same stench of fear. The town was fixing to erupt and she felt helpless.
Then she came to a sudden stop before Kate Warren’s sporting house as a desperate idea hit her. She turned and peered south over the rooftops. Benedict and Brazos had left several hours ago, but they hadn’t seemed in a hurry
It was a desperate hope, she told herself as she stepped from the path of a drunk staggering towards Johnny Street with a gun in his belt. Even if she caught up with them, it was unlikely that she could talk them into coming back to save the town.
A shot rang out in Johnny Street. It was only a drunken miner shooting at the sky, but the ugly report told the girl that even a slender hope was worth grasping at. If anybody could stop what was building up in Spargo, it was they.
The liveryman let her have Cole’s long-legged buckskin. Without getting into riding clothes, Tricia Delaney headed the buckskin out of town, then lashed the horse into a gallop along the trail that Benedict and Brazos had taken south.
The riders swung through the tall gates, clattered across the yard and reined in at the house. Wiping his nose on his coat, Art Shadie swung down in the deepening dusk and Foley Kingston came out rolling the chamber of a Colt .45 along his forearm.
“Got ’em all, boss,” Shadie said.
“I can count,” Kingston grunted. He’d sent Shadie down to fetch the Regulators from the Motherlode when it became apparent that big trouble was brewing. He noted that the men looked tense and pale.
“Take up positions inside with the rest of the boys,” he ordered. “Pick up extra ammunition in my study.”
Dismounting, the Regulators disappeared inside the house. Kingston waited until they were out of earshot before turning back to Shadie.
“You see anything of Cole?” When Shadie shook his head, Kingston frowned thoughtfully for a moment, then said, “How does it look with the strikers now?”
“Not good, boss. They’re still boozin’ at the Silver King. I reckon there’s no tellin’ what’s goin’ to happen when they stop drinkin’.”
Kingston moved a distance along the gallery to stare through the trees at the town. “How many do you calculate we might have to handle if they come?”
“No tellin’. But it won’t be less’n thirty or forty.” Shadie paused a moment. “Heavy odds, boss. Mebbe we’d better kinda disappear until they sober up and then—”
“No!” Kingston snapped. “If I show fear before those scum, I might as well throw in my hand.”
A sudden racket erupted inside.
Kingston scowled. Then, hearing his wife’s voice raised in anger, he strode into the house with Shadie at his heels. They went through to the foyer that gave onto the servants’ entrance, where they found a furious-faced Rhea Kingston attempting to pull Regulator Jib Hilder away from the closed door.
“All right, all right, goddamnit!” Kingston shouted above the clamor. “What’s going on here?”
“This—this mendicant refused to let me out, Foley!” Rhea blazed. “He even dared lay hands on me.”
“I’m sorry, boss,” said red-faced Hilder. “But you said that—”
“That nobody was to come in or leave without my permission,” Kingston finished for him. “That I did, and you did the right thing, Jib.”
“Just a minute—” the woman began furiously, but her husband cut her off.
“Dressed to go out, I see, my dear. You wouldn’t have been running out on me, would you, just because things look a little uncertain tonight?”
Anger made Rhea Kingston’s face ugly. She was doubly angry because Kingston had guessed what she had in mind.
“Foley,” she said threateningly, “I don’t have to tell anybody where I’m going or when—and that includes you. Now tell this ape to get away from that door.”
“Sorry.”
“What?”
Foley Kingston smiled at his wife, but the smile was as cold as sleet. “You’re staying, Rhea. I’ve put up with your headaches and your locked door and your sharp-tongued bitchiness and your wandering around as you please for too long—but tonight you’re staying where you belong. With me!”
Rhea’s fury had drained away, leaving her face a sour cream color. She felt herself go weak in the face of Kingston’s new strength and fear bit into her stomach.
“Foley,” she panted, “you don’t understand. You don’t understand what’s going to happen. You—”
She broke off, but it was too late. Kingston loomed before her, a hard, dry shine in his eyes.
“What are they going to do, Rhea?”
She didn’t want to blurt it out, but fear had loosened her tongue. “They’re going to burn the house down, Foley. We’ll all be killed if—”
“Who told you?” She hesitated and his hand cracked across her face. “Who told you?”
“Foley—”
“Who?”
“Ace, damn you!” she raged. “Ace Beauford. He and Clancy are coming to burn you out and I hope they kill you.”
“So ...” Kingston smiled coldly. “It was Beauford. I knew there was somebody. But a dude gambling man? That’s a come-down for you, Rhea.”
“At least he’s a man,” she blazed. “At least he’s not obsessed with money and power and—”
“Shut up!” he cried. “I don’t want to hear about your grubby little affair.” His eyes glittered. “I’ll take care of Beauford when this is over.”
Scorn twisted at her mouth. “You’ll take care of Ace? You fool, he’s going to take care of you! They’re going to kill you, don’t you understand that? They’re going to kill the great Foley Kingston and I’m glad!”
Kingston staggered as if he’d been struck. “You want to see me dead?”
“Yes, damn you, yes!”
His face hardened. “You dirty tramp, I’ll see—”
He broke off as Rhea made to rush past him. He grabbed her by the arm. She whirled and raked the side of his face with red nails. He punched her on the point of the jaw and she crumpled to the floor.
“You stay,” he gritted out. “If I go down tonight, goddamnit you’ll go down with me!”
His eyes jolted back into focus as he looked at Shadie. “Lock her in her room,” he ordered and strode off. “Tie her up if you have to—but she stays.”
“Right, boss,” Shadie replied. Looking down at the unconscious woman who’d never missed an opportunity to belittle him and drive him crazy with her unreachable sensuality, he grinned and added softly, “With pleasure.”
“Tricia!” Benedict breathed in astonishment, lowering his gun and stepping out from behind the willow tree as the girl rode into the fire glow on a lathered horse. “What in the world are you doing out here?”
Brazos appeared from behind a boulder on the opposite side of the camp where he’d taken cover at the sounds of hoof beats coming from the trail. Tricia sighed with relief and smiled at the big Texan.
“Oh, thank heaven it’s you. When I saw your fire I prayed that it would be.”
“What’s wrong, Tricia?” Brazos said, holding her horse’s head as Benedict helped her down. “You look kinda peaky.”
Moments later, seated on a log by the fire with Benedict grave-faced at her side while Brazos poured coffee, Tricia told them what was happening in town.
“I know that none of this is really any concern of yours now,” she said, accepting a tin mug of steaming black coffee from Brazos, “but I couldn’t think of anybody else who could possibly stop this ... this ...” Her voice broke off.
“You just drink your coffee, Tricia,” Brazos said quietly, then his eyes asked a question of Benedict.
Benedict stood and stared down at Tricia’s dark head. He was silent for a while as he thought it out. He’d seen drunken mobs before and they were one of the ugliest sights on earth. He’d never have a sound night’s sleep again if he were to turn his back on a town threatened by a mob.
They would go back. They had no choice.