One-Eyed Death Read online

  Crow had been ready for the move, every nerve tight and sprung, hand hovering over the walnut butt of the heavy Purdey.

  The gang of lads was in disarray. Some trying to follow Clem’s example and tug out their own handguns. Others eager only to get out of the way. Drink slowed them all down, mixed with a gut-feeling of fear for the tall, lean man in the black clothes.

  It was like hitting a barn wall while you were inside the building. At a range of around ten feet, there was no way at all that Crow could miss the struggling mass of humanity.

  He drew the scattergun with practiced ease, half-turning as he did so. The movement automatic now, presenting the smallest possible target to his enemies. Bending a little at the knees as he turned, keeping his balance on the balls of his feet. The butt of the gun snug in his strong right hand, the left coming across to steady it at the base of the sawn-down twin barrels. His right thumb cocking both the spurred hammers, index finger going straight to the narrow triggers.

  Not bothering to aim consciously. Squeezing the first trigger, feeling the familiar jar as the shot boomed out, the boys vanishing in a cloud of powder smoke. Crow heard the screaming, but he didn’t bother much about it. Shooting into a dozen people he knew that one barrel would be a great deterrent, but that both might just turn the day his way.

  The gun crashed out a second time, its hail of lead starring out just enough at that range to rip through the boys like shrapnel from a heavy mortar. Crow slipped the shotgun back into its special holster and reached around back of himself, drawing the Colt Peacemaker from his belt. Thumbing back on the hammer, feeling rather than hearing the triple click as the pistol readied for action.

  He stared through the clearing smoke into a scene of bloody carnage.

  It would be tedious to list the various injuries that the boys of Rosa Cruz had suffered. Only three of the eleven had escaped without a single wound, and all of them were cowering on the floor. Two on the right and one on the extreme left.

  It looked to Crow as though two and maybe three of them were dead. Clem had lost most of his face and was lying, feet kicking in the air, through the shattered window of the grocery store. The plump lady was still standing where she had been, but her dress was torn to ribbons and blood speckled all over her where the shards of flying glass had razored at her clothes and flesh. Her hands were squeezed over her face and crimson was seeping between them. She was screaming in a high, monotonous voice that seemed as it could go on for ever and ever.

  The tangled mess of limbs and bodies and heads that had been the drunken mob was shifting like a labyrinthine serpent, moaning and crying out. Blood was dripping through the boards of the sidewalk and puddling the dust beneath it into sticky mud.

  “Promised you a whole lot of blood,” said Crow, softly.

  “Murderer!” came a voice from across the street, and the shootist heard the crack of a rifle, the bullet missing him by a yard. Hitting one of the local boys through the temple as he struggled to his feet.

  “Jesus!” sighed Crow, spinning around, snapping off a couple of shots towards the dry goods store behind the wagon.

  “Get the killer!”

  “Gun him down!”

  “He shot our boys!!” screamed a woman’s voice, high and shrill. Rising above the sound of moaning and crying from the wounded and the dying heaped in front of the “Inside Straight’.

  It was looking bad.

  Crow had just three rounds left in his Peacemaker and a full load in the Winchester bucketed on his horse fifty yards back up the street.

  But now there were shots coming from opposite the wagon. At least three or four men with hand-guns, stepping out from cover when they realized that the shootist was low on ammunition.

  His only chance was to get to the stallion, but that meant running the gauntlet of raking gunfire that would surely pick him off.

  Suddenly he heard a voice from inside the wagon. Deep, with a west Texas drawl to it. “You goin’ for that rifle, mister, you better move. I’ll cover you and meet you a mile out of town. Go!”

  So, at the last, it wasn’t such a bad day after all.

  Chapter Four

  The guy in the wagon was real good.

  Using the cover of the canvas top to the Conestoga he picked off the would-be sharpshooters on both sides of the street, giving Crow a virtually straight run on through to his horse. As soon as the shootist had reached his stallion there was a shout from the wagon and someone whipped up the two-horse team. The stoop-shouldered boy scrambled clumsily aboard and the rig set off down the dusty main street, a rifle barrel still spitting fire from its back, deterring anyone from pursuing it.

  Crow made his own escape hanging low across the neck of the stallion, snapping off the last bullets from his pistol in his right hand, sending the curious scurrying again for cover, and helping to guard the rear of the wagon against any sneak attack.

  He caught up quickly with the rig well before it had covered a mile, seeing the rear drape pulled across and a man’s face. A middle-aged man, creased around the eyes, waving his rifle in one hand.

  “Good to see you, stranger.”

  Crow reined in and cantered easily alongside the back of the wagon. As he rode he reloaded his pistol and recharged the scattergun. Tying down the retaining cord over the hammers of the Purdey.

  “Guess I owe you thanks,” he said.

  “Cuts both ways, mister. You saved Daniel there from a kickin’. Mebbe worse.”

  “You’re handy with that Winchester.”

  “I guess. But that cannon of yourn surely blew them good ole boys away back yonder.”

  “I’m not so great with a handgun. All you need is something that’ll keep off the flies.”

  “Sawn-down ten-gauge, ain’t it?”

  “Yeah. English. Purdey. Hear it’s one of the best out there.”

  The man grinned. “I used to carry a Meteor once. Gave it up when I damned near blew my foot off.”

  “My name’s Crow.”

  “Hi. I’m Ben Ford. Pleased to know you, Crow. Hey, haven’t I heard somethin’ about you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “North?”

  “Been most places.”

  “And seen most things, I guess. Crow. Crow. Cavalry. That’s it. Busted officer. Turned shootist. Up Montana way, Dakotas.”

  Crow nodded. “That’s me, Ben. That bother you?”

  “What?”

  “Who I am?”

  “Don’t give a roasted damn who you are. Matters what you are, Crow, and that’s the truth.”

  “I hire my gun.”

  “Hell, I know that.” Ford laughed. “Known plenty of men did that. But what you did back there for Daniel, that was something else.”

  The shootist didn’t elaborate on his own reasons for butting in back in Rosa Cruz. There were times when silence was a good companion. And this was one of those times.

  A voice came from the front of the rattling Conestoga. An old man’s voice, but filled with vigor. “Who be that, Benjamin? Our blessed guardian angel from that abode of wickedness?”

  “Sure is, Mr. Spangel.”

  “I would meet and talk with such a man.”

  Ben Ford raised his eyes at Crow in a questioning way. The shootist shook his head.

  “Guess we’d best put some miles between us and Rosa Cruz ’fore we get to talking.”

  Ford nodded. Raising his voice against the noise of the wheels on the stones of the trail. “Figure we’d best leave that for tonight, Reverend.”

  “Why, Benjamin?”

  “The forces of the ungodly might be mountin’ their chariots of fire right now and headin’ after us with vengeance in their hearts.”

  He grinned at Crow, showing that he didn’t really take too seriously to all that religious way of speaking.

  “Very well. I guess you know best. But my thanks and prayers go to the stranger in black.”

  “His name’s Crow, Mr. Spangel.”

  “His foren
ame?”

  Crow shook his head in answer. Ford shouted back to the unseen person at the front of the wagon. “Just Crow. He don’t have no other name.”

  There was silence for a while. The shootist rode out a little to the side, peering in to try and see the man on the box. Heeling the stallion back.

  “It’s a woman, driving the team,” he said to Ford.

  “Yeah. That’s Mrs. Spangel.”

  “How come the one you called the Reverend isn’t doin’ that? It’s man’s work.”

  Ben Ford shook his head, biting off a chew of tobacco. Offering it to Crow who shook his head to the chaw. “Most times, Crow. But not when you’re blind.”

  At Crow’s urging they didn’t stop once during that eternally long, hot afternoon. The trail wound on westwards, but Ben Ford suggested to the Reverend Spangel that they might do well to come off of it onto a side trail. One that took them higher, pulling into the foothills of the big mountains. Crow dropped back at that point, keeping watch behind them for any sign of pursuit from Rosa Cruz.

  But the settlement slowly vanished into a blur among the shimmering arroyos and mesas, with the trail clear of dust. In the end the shootist decided that the damage he had done had been too devastating for there to be enthusiasm for a posse after them. And Ford’s accuracy with his rifle might have something to do with that.

  The sun was already out sight behind the orange-tipped peaks to their left and ahead of them before the rig finally creaked to a halt. The young man, Daniel, swung down and began to water the horses, looking silently at Crow from behind his own shoulder, turning awkwardly as though he was crippled in some way.

  Only then did Crow tie his stallion to a convenient rock, waiting for Ford to come and join him. But the middle-aged man stayed exactly where he’d been for the whole journey, flat on his back in the bed of the wagon.

  The shootist was turning away when Ford called out to him. “Be obliged for a hand, Crow …”

  “How’s that, Ben?”

  “Need a hand out.”

  “You shot?”

  “Hell, no. I’m ramrod for this family. Hired on their way west from Florida. Picked me up in Texas. Not far from Twin Buttes. Just lost my wife and I was figurin’ on movin’ out. Things was fine until a week ago.”

  “What happened?” Crow was aware that there were more folks in the wagon than he’d realized and that there was already the bustle of a camp being set up. But he was interested in Ben Ford’s tale.

  “We lost a wheel. Got the rig all propped up and I was greasing the axle ready for the new wheel to go on. Rock slipped. Wagon fell on me. Bust my hip in a half dozen places. Doc we saw in MacNally Flats says I’ll likely not walk again.”

  “Damned shame,” said Crow, climbing up and lowering the tail of the wagon. Holding out his arms and supporting the ramrod. Lifting him with a grunt of effort.

  “Hell, you’ll need Daniel or...”

  “I can carry you, Ben. Real easy. Ill set you down where they’re readyin’ the fire.”

  “My God, but you got muscles like a waterfront wrestler, Crow, You don’t look more’n one-forty. Skinnier than a whip-butt. Fine, down there.”

  It was something of a shock to see how Ford’s legs dangled helplessly, swinging in Crow’s grip like a rag doll.

  The shootist tried to think of something reassuring to say, but there were no words ready and he kept silent as he laid the man on the ground.

  “Thank you, Crow. That’s right neighborly of you. Guess I ought to introduce you to the rest of the family here. Reverend Spangel!”

  “Pa’s out yonder, behind them rocks. Making water,” said the son.

  “Oh, well ... You already seen Mr Daniel here. This here is Crow.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr Crow. And I’m mighty obliged for the way you saved me from them animals back yonder.”

  “Think nothing of it, son.”

  Daniel turned away and walked off, sideways, like a hunting crab. Ben Ford saw Crow watching the boy and waved a hand to attract his attention. Beckoning him to stoop so that he could talk low.

  “Fine party you gotten in with, Crow. Me a helpless cripple and the Reverend Spangel blind as a bat at noon. Daniel there’s lost the sight of his left eye. Clear gone. And I been watchin’ him and his right’s failin’, though he’s too stiff-necked proud to say it. That’s why he shuffles and looks at you crooked like he do.”

  “I wondered ’bout that.”

  “And there’s the ladies, God bless ’em.”

  Crow looked round. Seeing two women. One tall, middle-aged, walking around the site they “d chosen for their camp with a gentle, vacuous smile pasted on her pale cheeks. She saw Crow looking in her direction and dropped him a deep curtsey. Ben saw the direction of Crow’s gaze and chuckled.

  “That’s Ma Spangel, all right. Mrs. Lily Spangel, from Pensacola. Whole family’s from Florida.”

  “She have some troubles?”

  “Kind of. Not eyes or nothin’ like that. More her way of thinkin’.”

  “She doesn’t look as though she’s living in the same place as other folks.”

  Ben nodded, spitting out a stream of tobacco juice in the dirt. “Guess that’s one way of lookin’ at it. Fact is, Lily Spangel there’s not more than ten cents in the dollar.”

  “Lack brained?”

  “More than some, Crow. More than some. Half the time she doesn’t know rightly where she is and the other half of the time she don’t know what’s she’s doin’. I seen her water the horses with sand and try and put a fire out with lamp oil.”

  “That the daughter?”

  “Miss Mary? Yeah, that’s her.”

  Mary Spangel looked to be in her late teens, but it was hard to tell. She was dressed in a long gown that trailed in the dust around her feet. Her hair was tucked under a faded poke bonnet and she also wore extremely thick eyeglasses, tinted a deep shade of blue, making it impossible to see her eyes.

  “She don’t see so well, huh?”

  Ben shook his head. “That’s a mite like sayin’ that a cougar can be a mighty cantankerous creature. With them glasses of hers she can make out folks if’n they’re close to her. And I seen her readin’ and figurin’. She’s bright enough, is Miss Mary.”

  Crow watched her with something akin to pity. His own eyesight was excellent, good enough to tell the color of a man’s shirt at a mile. And it was difficult to imagine what life must be like for someone who could barely distinguish the color of a man’s shirt across a well-lit room.

  “That’s all the family.”

  “You haven’t met the old man yet,” replied Ben Ford. “He’s kind of different.”

  “You say he’s short of seeing?”

  “No. I said he was blind. Full stone blind. Don’t know whether it’s day or night. Light or dark.”

  “I knew a blind whore once,” said Crow. “Somewheres out Oregon way.”

  “Yeah?”

  “She was blind from an accident with some scalding water, her Ma running a laundry. I recall her telling me that she’d wake in the night from a dream. Lie there staring up at the blackness. And she’d wonder to herself. Was she awake and blind, looking at the ceiling? Or was she awake and not blind, looking into blackness for a ceiling she couldn’t make out? Or was she dreaming the whole damned thing? Used to make her weep, I remember.”

  They both heard the rattling of stones and turned round to see the patriarch of the Spangel family stalking towards them.

  “Reverend Charles, Mr Crow,” said Daniel, formally. “Leader of our group seeking the one true place for our tabernacle.”

  Charles Spangel was an imposing sight. Topping Crow by nearly nine inches, putting him within touching distance of seven feet tall. His hair was silver-grey and tumbled around his shoulders like the foaming crest of a tidal wave. He also wore a full beard, nearer white than silver, combed and clean, almost covering the front of his neat grey shirt. His eyes gripped Crow’s attention. The old man�
�s blindness looked like it was caused by cataracts. Milky spheres obscured the eyes, reflecting the dying light of the sun so that they glowed with a hideous fire. As the old man turned his head, so the fires seemed to flash and die and flash again.

  Crow stood up. “Good to meet you, Mr. Spangel. Glad I could be of service.”

  The old man’s reaction startled the shootist, used though he was to relying on his own quick reflexes.

  Spangel carried a long staff, crudely carved at one end so that it resembled pictures Crow had once seen of old-fashioned shepherds” crooks. At the shootist’s friendly words he suddenly raised it and lashed out, faster than a blind old man had the right to be. Crow swayed back and the blow hissed by his head, missing him by less than three inches.

  “Impious and blasphemous dog!” snarled Spangel. “To take to yourself the rights of thanks belonging to the Almighty.”

  For a moment the shootist considered gunning down the crazed old man, but he stayed his hand. Seeing Ben Ford was trying to hide a grin.

  “What’s that for, Reverend? I done you a favor. Saved your boy’s life.”

  “No. No! No!!” The syllable louder and louder until it seemed to make the mountains around tremble with his anger. “It was the Lord. You were mere clay acting for him. His great spirit passed through you.”

  “Well, he fired my scattergun real well,” said Crow. “I’ll give him that.”

  For a moment he thought that Spangel was going to strike him again, and he readied himself for the draw and the shot that would have wiped him away in a heap of bloodied flesh. In the background he noticed that the son, the daughter and the mother were all frozen into stillness. Each watching in their different way.

  “You are either mad, Mr Crow, or you are filled unknowing with the essence of the Almighty. Topped to the brim so your mind o’erflows with the tincture of his goodness.”

  “Guess you’d know more ’bout that than me, Reverend,” replied the shootist.

  The great leonine head nodded and the knuckles gripping the staff relaxed. The milky eyes stared out beyond the hills towards the setting sun. Crow guessed that the old man could feel the warmth of the sun on his face and knew which way to turn.