‘NEVER GAMBLE WITH a one-armed bandit.’
Cuchillo guessed that it was a joke, but he didn’t understand it. What he did understand was the scream of panic that came ringing from the other side of the street, close to the entrance to the saloon.
They had all forgotten about Ettinger.
A man who seemed to lean so much on others for his strength, the maimed boy had seen every one of his men cut down about him. But, safe behind the wagon, he had managed to stay hidden. Quite overlooked in the collapse of the jail and the killing of Bond.
Now it was his turn for a last throw.
The smoke from the burning wreck of the jail blew even thicker around the town, sparks towering up in a crescendo of red and yellow, the ash and dust blanking out the sun. Ettinger saw Nolan injured by Bond, and the tall Apache blast his prize gunman clean out of his saddle.
Hedges, a handkerchief to his streaming eyes, helped the girl across the street. She was nearly fainting, leaning heavily on the arm of the little teacher. The men of the town, and some of the women, were still up on the overhanging balcony of the saloon, cheering their victory, and looking hopefully around for other targets for their guns.
That was when Ettinger made his move.
Colt in his right hand, he ducked out from cover, swinging the barrel of the gun at Hedges, sending him spinning to the dirt of the street. Grabbed Linda by the arm and ran for the nearby bank, dragging her after him.
She was so tired and shocked that at first it hardly registered what was happening. Frank’s face was white as death, and the grip on her arm was like steel bands, drawing her along.
The people of Angus Wells, safe one story up, saw the figures moving, but the roof of the jail had collapsed and the smoke was thicker than ever.
Cuchillo was helping Nolan, and saw nothing. His mind was on the wounded man, until he heard the scream.
Linda finally realized her predicament, and closed her eyes to the bleached face beside her, ignoring the reedy, whispered threats. And opened her mouth and screamed until her throat felt raw from the anguish.
The front door of the bank was closed, but Ettinger fired a couple of shots at the main lock, blowing it apart, kicking the door open, and vanishing inside, the girl in his arms.
Cuchillo broke into a crouching run, gun extended in front of him like the sting of a scorpion. Angry with himself for having overlooked the maimed boy. Doing what he could to make up for that error.
Too late.
Ettinger appeared again in the smoke, one arm around the girl’s throat, the pistol pressed to the side of her neck, just below the ear, his face wearing an expression of hatred and gloating triumph. He saw the Apache charging him, and called out, his high voice barely audible against the background of roaring flames and angry shouts as some of the folks began to realize what was happening, and told others.
‘Hold it right there, Indian! Another step and I blow off the top of the little lady’s head!’
‘Do that and you will die very slowly,’ said Cuchillo, stopping, and dropping warily into a crouch, ready to make his move when the chance came. But right at that moment, it seemed as though Ettinger held all the aces.
‘That’s better. You tell all those folks back there to keep away, ‘less they want to see a fine fountain of brains come squirting up from the lady. Way back.’
The blaze that had begun and burned with such ferocious intensity was now dying down with equal speed, and the smoke was thinning. Enough for the townspeople to finally be aware of what was going on, and to stop in a confused and angry circle, a few yards behind Cuchillo. Hedges had also risen, spitting out a spray of blood from a cut lip, moving in close behind the Apache. And further away, limping out of the saloon, adjusting his elephantine trousers, came the bulk of Sheriff Nolan, a hand pressed to the flesh wound in his stomach.
‘Hey, the gang’s all here!’ shouted Ettinger, hardly visible as he cowered behind the woman, face peeking over her left shoulder. ‘What are you going to do now, you son-of-a-bitch savage?’
‘Kill you,’ replied Cuchillo steadily, keeping his eyes fixed on the man.
‘I got six bullets in this little old equalizer. Four for you and one for her and the last one for me.’
‘If you used all six of your bullets on me, Ettinger, I would still tear the heart from your body before I died.’
Ettinger recoiled a step from the Apache’s bitterness, retreating into the doorway of the bank, tugging Linda with him. As he edged the door shut, he called out again to the watching crowd: ‘I will not stay here and die like a dog in a trap! I’m going to be free! You hear me? Free!’
The door slammed shut, and the blind came down. Nolan arrived at Cuchillo’s shoulder, panting with the exertion of running, combined with the pain of his wound.
‘What we do now? Huh? He’s in there with the girl. He’ll kill her sure as eggs grow into chickens.’
Cuchillo looked around at the crowd, buzzing with excitement, eager for more killing to keep their bloodlust boiling. ‘They would be well if they went from here. Keep four men—the best—to watch the back. That is all we need. The rest could move the bodies. In this heat the town will soon smell.’
Nolan laughed, putting his head closer to the Apache. ‘Guess that’s right. But I’ve always thought it stinks anyway.’
It was an hour after midday. The sun roasting down hot enough to melt a candle. Fry an egg on a tin lid.
The bodies had been dragged away, and the people cleared off the street. Nolan sported a massive bandage around his stomach, and Hedges’ lip no longer bled. The last flames still sported around in the ruins of the jail, flickering over the glowing coals, the heat dancing and shimmering about the wreckage.
There were four men with guns waiting around the back of the bank, while Cuchillo and Nolan and a couple of others waited patiently in the shade at the front of the hardware store next to where the jail had been.
‘No way he’ll get out,’ commented one of the men with them, spitting out a soggy hunk of chewing tobacco. ‘‘Less he waits till night and tries to sneak away.’
There had been no sound at all from within the cool darkness of the bank. No sign that Ettinger and the girl still lived. But everyone knew they were still there.
Nolan panted, easing himself off the wicker-bottomed chair to break wind, coughing to cover the slight noise of the escaping gas. ‘Can’t say I agree, Hiram. Frank Ettinger might not be the man he was, if you take my meaning, but he’s still a nasty streak of mean. He’ll be in there weighing up the angles, trying to come up with a way out.’
At that precise moment, the door eased open across the street, and Linda’s head poked out. Looking pale and frightened. ‘Don’t shoot. He’s got a gun stuck in my back. He’ll kill me. He says he wants a chance to go free.’
‘How?’ called out Nolan, clicking back the hammer on the heavy Sharps that lay across his lap.
‘I been figuring things out, Sheriff,’ called Ettinger, his own face just visible, floating in the blackness like a ferret at the mouth of a rabbit hole. ‘I guess you don’t want no more innocent folks hurt. And Miss Daughton here seems mighty innocent to me. I’m prepared to forget my quarrel with her and with the Indian, if’n you give me a break.’
‘Start with his neck, Fred,’ hissed one of the men.
‘Go on, boy. I’m listening. But I ain’t making you no promises. You understand.’
‘All I want is a horse and an hour’s start. One hour. Unless you agree, then the lady gets it, and maybe one or two besides. Give me your word there’ll be no shooting, and bring me a horse around front. I get on it with the girl, and when I’m an hour away and I see nobody coming after me, I’ll turn her loose. How about it?’
Nolan scratched his chin, looking around at Cuchillo and Hedges, rather than his fellow townsfolk. ‘Seems he’s going to ride clear away, ‘less we come up with some way of checking him.’
‘He must not be allowed to go free,’ said the barber, shaking his head primly.
‘Nor must Miss Daughton be allowed to suffer,’ said Hedges, his anger flaring.
‘Come on!’ The high-pitched voice rose to an uncontrolled scream. ‘I don’t have a lot of time. I just want to get free of here. I got me a knife here, and if you don’t give me your word about the horse and no shooting, I’ll cut an ear off this fucking bitch. Maybe carve me off her nipples and throw them out. Think what she done to me, and think what I can do to her. You think on it, you bastard scum!’
The door slammed shut.
Opened again.
‘Five minutes from now! Then I start carving me some white meat!’
The door slammed shut once again.
Nolan walked out in the middle of the street, holding his hands wide-spread to show he didn’t carry a gun. The last four minutes had been filled with frantic conversation between the sheriff and the town notables, hastily assembled. John Hedges had led the movement to let Ettinger go at any cost, as long as the girl was spared.
Nolan put that one in perspective. ‘We let him go, it’s like a dog that’s gone mad. Bitten a few folks. Then carries off its madness to a new town. Someone like Frankie, he’ll have friends. Boys like him. They’ll think it sport to shelter him a while. But then he’ll get the taste for it all over again.’
‘The girl!’
You truly reckon, Mr. Hedges, after what you’ve seen in the last couple of days, that young Frank is goin’ to keep his word? Spare her. Why hell! We let him ride away, then he’ll cut her up and feed her to the buzzards before he rides clean away. And us hogtied.’
‘So?’
‘So? So I guess we get him a horse, and we promise him no shooting and an hour’s start.’
Hedges shook his head. ‘You’ll keep your word? Despite what you just said?’
‘Yeah.’ Nolan grinned. A tugging of the lips that didn’t have any humor in it. ‘That’s what it’s all about. Isn’t it?’
Meller, the banker agreed, on behalf of the town, merely commenting that he hoped that young Frank would hold to the agreement, and not harm the girl.
At that point, Cuchillo snorted, and turned on his heel and walked away. Vanishing down the far end of the street.
‘Guess he don’t want to see us giving in,’ commented Nolan bitterly. ‘Can’t say I blame him.’
Now it was the turn of the sheriff to go on the line. He stood a few yards from the closed door of the bank, trying to penetrate the darkness within, wondering if he was going to get another bullet in the belly for his trouble. And wishing he’d stayed a mite longer in that quiet, safe privy.
‘Frank! You hear me?’
‘I hear you. Made it with eighteen seconds to spare. What you got to say?’
‘We agree.’
‘You do?’
‘To everything. You win, Frank. I sent a boy to get you a horse from the stables.’
‘No shooting and an hour’s start?’
‘I give you my word on behalf of every man in this town that there’ll be no shooting at you. And no man’ll ride away from here after you until a full sixty minutes gone by.’
The posse was already forming, but Nolan hadn’t much hope for it. A full hour to a man on horseback meant maybe twenty miles. And that was too much,
‘You got a deal, fat man.’
‘And the girl stays alive?’
‘Oh, yeah. Of course. The girl stays alive. You just keep your word.’
Nolan nodded, knowing that Ettinger was watching him from inside the bank, and walked back to the safety of the store, picking up his Sharps, not surprised to find that his hands were trembling. He wished that the Apache were there. The big man had disappeared totally in the last few minutes, vanishing somewhere around the back of one of the houses. Nolan could have done with his calmness and skill.
Angus Wells had been suddenly wrapped .in silence. The sun blazed down from a bright, cloudless sky. The shingle of the town doctor creaked as a stray breath of wind tugged at it. The watching men heard the clopping of hooves as a young boy brought out a bay mare from the livery stables, stopping in front of the bank, not knowing what to do next.
‘Tie it up there, boy!’ called Nolan, fingering the trigger of the Sharps nervously.
Hedges looked through the dusty window, worriedly biting a ragged string of skin on his right thumb. ‘Wonder where Cuchillo went. Just asked me what was the white man’s gravest insult for what happened to Ettinger.’
Meller laughed, the noise too loud in the stillness. ‘Hey! What’d you tell him?’
‘I said that “No balls” was the worst I knew. He seemed satisfied, then he walked off.’
‘Here he comes.’
The door swung silently open, banging against the stop, and Linda Daughton stepped out on the sidewalk, stumbling slightly, shading her eyes against the brightness of the sun. Ettinger was very close in behind her, the Colt still pressed against her neck.
‘Let me hear you say it again, Nolan! The promise! Now!’ Groaning, the sheriff got up and walked out on the porch, letting the rifle dangle from his hand as though he’d forgotten it was there. ‘All right, boy. One last time. And I want all folks in the town to hear this. Frank Ettinger is going to ride out of here without a shot being fired against him. Not one shot. And no man rides in a posse until a full hour’s gone by.’
‘And that’s—’
But Nolan hadn’t finished, ignoring Ettinger’s interruption. ‘On his side, Frank promises not to harm Miss Daughton and to let her go unhurt.’ He paused. ‘And if you don’t Frank, I swear I’ll hunt you down to the other side of Hell.’
Ettinger ignored him, walking out low and careful, down the steps of the bank, keeping the gun at the girl’s throat, pushing her down ahead of him, keeping his body pressed close against her.
‘You got nothing to fear, boy,’ called out Meller. ‘We all give our word. No shooting.’
Her bootheels stirring up a tiny cloud of red dust at each step, Linda neared the horse, standing patiently by the hitching rail. Eyes flicking everywhere, mouth working nervously, Frankie was right behind her, finger white on the trigger of the Colt. He muttered something in her ear, and she slowly reached up and laid one hand on the saddle horn, his arm around her, palm flat against her breast.
There were eyes at every window, watching the escape.
And eyes in the harrow alley beside the bank, where one of the Ettinger hands had died. Dark eyes set in a dark face. Staring at the boy’s back, estimating distances. Waiting for the right…
‘Hey! No balls!’
His voice an inarticulate snarl, Ettinger spun around to face the cry, echoing from the alley. His gun searched for the man who had dared to insult him with that taunt. That taunt above any other.
Like a jeweled wheel, the sun flaring off the steel and gold, the great cinqueda thudded into his throat, the point chipping the vertebrae in his neck, severing the spinal cord.
The gun fired as his lifeless finger tightened spasmodically on the narrow trigger, the bullet spitting up dirt near his feet. Linda hung on the saddle as the horse kicked, frightened by the sudden noise so close to its ears.
The boy’s mouth opened with shock, and he tried to speak, eyes looking for the man who’d done this to him. Words were molded, crushed, emerged.
‘No shooting. You … no … promised no … shooting … you … no … Dad!’
He toppled back, legs straight out, arms down by his sides. A real neat corpse.
The gold knife sticking up from his throat, catching the sun and bouncing it back a hundred different ways around the street.
‘No shooting.’ Cuchillo walked easily out of the alley, staring at the body, ignoring the weeping girl, and the bewildered men emerging from the store and the saloon and all along the street.
‘Hey!’ called out Nolan, intending to say something, then changing his mind.
‘It was said there would be no shooting, and I kept the words of the white man. Cuchillo says that man does not kill by guns alone.’
The hammer on the Sharps eased down with an audible click, then the talks began, like a flock of birds disturbed by a hunter, as the good folk of Angus Wells realized that the shadow that had hung over their town had finally lifted.
Cuchillo began to step toward the body to retrieve his golden knife when he heard the sound of horsemen, and turned in time to be the first to see the patrol of cavalry riding in, led by Cyrus Pinner.