Chapter Nine
“Did I hear somebody use my name?” Dave Winter said. “I don’t like men talking my name behind my back.”
“Boss,” Frank Tucker said, “I only allowed how Dave Winter is a name folks won’t soon forget in this part of the country. There’s a hell of an excitement going around.”
Winter, tall, thin, dressed in black, grinned in the light of the campfire. “Is that a fact now, Frank. If folks won’t forget it, neither will you, and maybe you’ll get it into your head to talk it to the wrong people. Get my drift?”
“I would never do that,” Tucker said. “I’m as loyal as the day is long. I ride for the brand.”
Winter sneered. “Ride for the brand? You’ve never done an honest day’s work in your life.”
“Well, since I met you, Dave, I’ve put in plenty of dishonest ones,” Tucker said, grinning.
Some of the men around the fire laughed, but softly and nervously, and for a moment the whiskey bottle stopped its rounds.
“Was that meant to be a good joke?” Winter said. A man with rust-red hair and beard, he wore two guns, butt-forward in stiff, canvas holsters buckled over his frock coat. “I don’t like good jokes about me, and I don’t like the men who tell them.”
Bean Gosford, a gray-haired, careful man who’d been with Winter for three years and was acknowledged to be the gang’s fastest gun, looked across the fire at Tucker and said, “Frank, shut your trap. You talk too much, so don’t say another word.”
Gosford knew two things about his friend Winter that Tucker didn’t.
The first was that Dave had spent eight years in an insane asylum and during his escape from the place had killed two doctors, three nurses, and a female secretary, all six of them savagely bludgeoned to death. The second was that Winter was a dangerous madman, a homicidal powder keg ready to go off when any number of different fuses were lit. Teasing, even good-natured teasing, was one of them.
Some people never learn, and Frank Tucker was a prime example.
Stupidly, unbelievingly, instead of pulling in his horns and keeping his mouth shut, Tucker grinned and blew Gosford a noisy, wet raspberry.
For a few moments a gasping silence fell on the camp, broken by Winter’s soft-spoken words, “Was that another good joke, Frank?”
Young, reckless and good with a gun, Tucker said, “Gray hairs in a man’s beard don’t give him the right to tell me what to do.”
“Truer words was never spoke,” Winter said. He settled by the fire and, a man who seldom drank whiskey, poured himself coffee. “Bean,” he said without turning his head, “you got no call to be giving another man advice.”
“I’ll bear that in mind, Dave,” Gosford said.
“See you do,” Winter said. “Now, how close are we to the San Saba?”
“I’d say half a day’s ride,” Gosford said. Then, anticipating Winter’s next question, “At this time of year it’s easy to ford.”
“And the trail to Fort Mason?”
“After we cross the river, there’s a stretch of rolling hills, some of them rocky, but then the trail evens out into flat country and there’s plenty of water. It’s an easy ride, and we’ll make good time.”
The army had abandoned Fort Mason in 1871, but the rumor persisted that in 1880 the outlaw Len Blackburn had buried thirty thousand in gold and silver coins there, the proceeds of a train robbery. A year later, before he could recover his loot, Blackburn was killed by a Mexican bandido for his boots, silver saddle, and fancy Smith & Wesson revolver.
Gosford said, “You think the treasure is still there, Dave?”
Winter shrugged. “Maybe so. It’s worth a look on account of how there’s slim pickings around this country since the Apaches emptied it of white folks.”
“Might involve a heap of digging,” Gosford said.
“Digging? Yeah, a heap of digging if that’s what it takes.”
Frank Tucker then dug his own grave deeper. “I don’t use a damned shovel for anybody, Dave. My pa was a laborer, and I seen him work himself to death with a shovel, and I swore I’d never do the same. And I never did after I got this.” He tapped his holstered Colt.
Winter smiled and nodded. “You won’t have to, Frank.”
“But if we find the treasure, I still want my fair share,” Tucker said. “I’m the top gun in this outfit, remember?”
“You’ll get what’s coming to you, Frank,” Winter said. “Don’t worry about it.”
Seventeen men sat around the campfire that night . . . but only two of them, as they stared through the scarlet-flickering gloom at Tucker, knew they looked at a dead man. One was Bean Gosford and the other was Dave Winter.
Gosford built a cigarette, listening to Tucker, who didn’t know when the hell to shut up.
“Dave, if we find the thirty thousand, you maybe think about retiring?” Tucker said. He was a twenty-five-year-old towhead with cold blue eyes, a ladies’ man who abused whores and had killed three men, none of them in a fair fight. He was fast, but shooting down unarmed men was a shaky foundation on which to build a reputation as a dangerous hombre with a gun.
“I haven’t studied on it any, Frank,” Winter said, his face composed. “Why do you ask?”
“I reckon I’m destined for great things, Dave, and when you decide to retire, I aim to take over the business,” Tucker said. “I got a lot of good ideas and new ways to do things.”
“Business? What business, Frank? We’re a gang of outlaws,” Winter said, drawing a laugh. “We’re not businessmen.”
Tucker didn’t like that. He didn’t like it one bit.
“I’ll make it a business, Dave,” he said, irritated. “Maybe we’ve been doing too many things the old-fashioned way for too long. We got to move with the times.”
Gosford, his own annoyance niggling at him, said, “I walk into a bank and order the teller to fill a sack with money. If he does what he’s told, I leave him be. If he don’t, or gives me sass, I put a bullet in his belly and fill the sack my ownself. If that’s old-fashioned, how would you do it different, Frank?”
Tucker was silent for a few moments and then said, “Well, I can’t say right off, but I’ll think of something, you can depend on that, Bean.”
Winter said, “If and when I retire, I’ll leave it to a vote by all present to decide who takes over. I can’t say any fairer than that.”
“Fine by me,” Tucker said. He grinned and tapped the holstered revolver on his hip. “But Sam Colt here will have the casting vote.”
Bean Gosford, who would not be intimidated by any man, rose to his feet, his hand close to his gun. His eyes were on Tucker as he opened his mouth to speak. But Winter didn’t want a shooting, at least not that night.
“Bean!” he said, louder than he’d spoken before, almost shouting the tall gunman’s name. “Tell me about that settlement south of Fort Mason.”
Gosford unwound slowly, one piece of him at a time. When his breathing and heart rate went back to normal, he said, “You mean Fritztown?” His eyes were still on Tucker, who studiously ignored him.
“Yeah, where the squareheads live,” Winter said.
“There ain’t much to tell, Dave, just a bunch of Germans who brew beer and make wine. They also call the place Fredericksburg.”
“Farmers?”
“For the most part.”
“I was thinking . . . if the payroll thing doesn’t pan out, we could hit their bank on our way back to the border.”
Gosford considered that and said, “I don’t recommend it, Dave. The Texas Rangers love Fritztown, and they’re always riding in for a beer and a sausage. Last time I was there, a few years ago, five rangers were in town, and one of them was John B. Armstrong, who arrested Wes Hardin in Florida that time.”
“He busted up Wes pretty good, they say.”
“Bent a six-gun over his head.”
“I liked Wes,” Dave said. “Real good on the draw and shoot.”
“Fast.”
“Yeah, fast, and then he’d usually hit his mark.” Winter rose to his feet and stretched. “Getting late. I got to spread my blankets.”
“What about Fritztown?” Gosford said.
“The hell with Fritztown. I don’t want no truck with rangers. We’ll ride around it,” Winter said.
* * *
Dave Winter and his gunmen woke with the dawn to a mist that ghosted the grass country for miles around and smelled of raw iron. Sour, grumbling men, last night’s whiskey punishing them, boiled up coffee, and a few, hardier than the rest, broiled bacon over the fire and ate it with sourdough bread that had turned stale days before.
One of these was Frank Tucker.
“Hey, Dave, how are you feeling this fine morning?” he said, talking through a full mouth. He wore his gun, and his saddle lay at his feet. “You got a touch of the rheumatisms maybe?”
“Nah, I can’t complain,” Winter said, blowing across the boiling-hot coffee in his cup.
“Just as well,” Tucker said. “Nobody would listen anyway.”
“About the size of it,” Winter said. “A man complains, and nobody listens or cares. That’s always been the way of it.”
Tucker had a habit of standing hipshot, his right hand resting on the butt of his Colt, a sneer substituting for a smile. Some said Bill Bonney had a mocking smile like that . . . until the year before these events when grim, unsmiling Pat Garrett had wiped it off his kisser permanently.
The same thing would very soon happen to Frank Tucker.
Sneer firmly in place, the youngster said, “I’ve been thinking about what you and Bean Gosford was saying about Fritztown,” he said. “I got something to say about that my ownself.”
“Then say away, Frank,” Winter said. “We’re all listening.”
And all of the outlaws were. They stood in silence, attentive, steaming coffee cups to their faces, wondering if Tucker was about to challenge the mad old bull for leadership. The morning mist drifted among them like sacrificial smoke from an altar, as though waiting for the drama to unfold and create a new god.
Tucker began, “It seems to me—”
“Is this about a modern way of doing things, Frank?” Winter said.
“No, not modern, just sensible,” Tucker said.
“Then go right ahead, Frank. Sorry for horning in.”
“Listen up, Dave. Sodbusters don’t drink, they don’t whore, and if they ain’t walking behind a mule’s ass, they’re a-readin’ of their Bibles. That’s why clodhopper banks are always stuffed to the rafters with money.”
“You know that for a natural fact, Frank, huh?” Winter said.
“Yeah, I know it, and so did the James boys, and that’s why Jesse and them done such great things.”
“Jesse’s dead, Frank,” Winter said.
“And we can take his place.”
“All right, then let’s hear it,” Winter said.
“Well, look around you, Dave. We ain’t pick-and-shovel men. I say forget Fort Mason and a buried treasure that’s sure to be nothing anyway, and head straight for the Fritztown bank.”
“And then?” Winter said. He poured the dregs from his cup and then let it drop.
Tucker missed the clue.
“We rob the bank, load up, and head for the Rio Grande and ride into Old Mexico,” Tucker said. He grinned. “And, man-o-man, then we have us a time.”
A few of the outlaws made approving noises but kept them low and quiet. Dave Winter’s gun hand was free and there was no telling which way the pickle would squirt.
Winter didn’t keep them guessing for too long.
He smiled as he talked. “You heard what Bean said, the squareheads have a liking for Texas Rangers and feed them sausage and beer, so robbing their bank may not be as easy as you think. And even if you did, it’s near three hundred miles from Fritztown to the Rio Grande and you’d have lawmen that were pulled away from their sausage supper dogging your trail every step of the way. A hungry ranger is an angry ranger, and an angry ranger is a man you don’t want to mess with if’n you don’t have to.”
“Can I believe my ears? You ain’t turning yellow on us, Dave?” Tucker said, sneer firmly in place.
A spare, dry wind thinned the mist, and out in the long grass a coyote yipped its hunger to the emerging sky. Around the outlaws, the air carried the good smells of horses, burning wood, and coffee . . . and something else. Death maybe.
“Time we saddled up, moved south for Fort Mason,” Winter said.
“You got nothing to say to me, Dave?” Tucker said, his grin somewhere between a smirk and a grimace. He knew he was fast on the draw and shoot, but he’d never drawn down on a named shootist. That unfortunate gap in his education would very soon kill him.
“Nothing much, Frank,” Winter said. “Only that you’re the dumbest son of a bitch I ever knew.”
Tucker’s face stiffened.
“That’s hard, Dave. Mighty hard.”
“The truth sometimes is, Frank.”
Tucker knew he’d been called out, and the circle of unshaven, expectant faces around him knew it too. Time stood still. Tucker’s life tick . . . tick . . . ticked to its end.
The youngster looked around at the other men. A few revealed concern, but most showed open contempt. The damned kid had gotten too big for his britches and was overdue a slap down.
Tucker read the faces. Read the derision. Read what would have to be his next move.
“Damn you, Dave!” he yelled.
His hand dropped for his gun.
Dave Winter didn’t move.
But Bean Gosford did.
He was faster than Tucker, faster by the split second that wins gunfights. The younger man’s Colt hadn’t cleared his fancied-up holster when Gosford’s first bullet hit him dead center in the chest. Another shot missed as Tucker fell. But when the young man landed on his back, Gosford scored two more hits, both an inch below the left collarbone.
Dave Winter looked at Tucker, shook his head, and stepped to the young man, looming over him like the angel of death. He stared into the youngster’s terrified eyes and said, “Why, Frank, you ain’t even nearly dead yet.” Winter triggered two shots into Tucker’s face. “Now you are,” he said.
Winter turned to Gosford. “Good shooting, Bean,” he said. And then, “Throw Frank’s saddle on his horse and bring it along with us. I’ve always admired that Palouse.”
“Hey, Dave, can I have his boots and his gun?” an outlaw said, a lank man with green, reptilian eyes. He looked around at the others. “I spoke first.”
“Sure, Sam, take them,” Winter said. “Poor Frank no longer has any use for them.”