One-Eyed Death Page 6

  “They ought to …”

  The shootist shook his head. “No, Ben. They’ll likely get in the way.”

  “I’ll stay here and keep my gun cocked under the blanket.”

  “Guess with just three I’ll do the same. First sign of trouble, then fire like the blazes, Ben.”

  He saw the flash of white teeth in the dark blur of the ramrod’s face. “Hell, Crow. I know that.”

  The sound of the horses was coming closer. Stopping out of sight, then moving in.

  “Hello, the camp!”

  “Troopers!” hissed Ford.

  “Lay still and quiet. I heard Apaches speak good enough to get right in among wagons.”

  “Hello, the camp there. We’re comin’ in.”

  “Identify yourself first!” called Crow.

  “Lieutenant William Birtles. M Troop, Sixth Cavalry. With two Troopers, Mulcahy and Taylor.”

  “Come ahead slow and easy, Lieutenant, so we can see you.”

  Three shadows appeared, stark against the lightening sky. Moving on at a walk, until they turned into men. Soldiers. An officer leading, the other two fanning out on either side of him.

  “Looks all right,” whispered Ben Ford. “I can see their faces and they ain’t no Apaches. Nor no Mexicans, neither. What’d you say?”

  Crow breathed slowly out. They looked right. But there was something nagging at him. Something that just didn’t set quite right with him. There’d been the smoke the other day. A large patrol quartering the desert. Indian ponies in the night. All the signs of some kind of trouble going on around them.

  So what was such a small patrol doing out on its own at dawn? Maybe a scouting unit. But a Lieutenant and only two soldiers? Somehow it didn’t …

  “Hold it there!” called the shootist. “Swing on down and let’s talk a little.”

  “You’re mighty suspicious, mister. Just the two of you?”

  “Two more in the wagon. Two under it.”

  “Oh. Dismount, men. Want us to stay here and shout or could we come over and stir up that fire? Make us all some coffee?”

  There was still something. Picking at Crow’s mind, sending the short hairs tingling at the back of the neck. Yet everything seemed calm and normal. Daniel was crawling out from under the wagon and he could hear the voices of the women raised from inside.

  “Sure. Come ahead.” It would have been churlish to refuse. But Crow sat up, keeping the blanket draped over his lap, the shotgun still cocked and ready. His right index finger set on the triggers.

  The three soldiers walked over, spurs jingling. Sitting in a semi-circle on the opposite side of the fire. Ben Ford struggled to a sitting position, holstering his pistol.

  “You goin’ far, Mister … What’s your name?”

  “We’re heading out westwards. This here is Ben Ford. Young fellow is Daniel Spangel. Man still sleeping is his Pa. Reverend Charles Spangel.”

  “Them women?” asked one of the Troopers, jerking his thumb towards the Conestoga.

  Ben answered. “Wife to the Reverend is Mrs. Lily Spangel and the daughter is Miss Mary. I’m the ramrod. Was, ’til I bust my hip.”

  “You crippled bad, Mr Ford?” asked the officer, solicitously.

  “Sure am. Can’t walk. Crow here has to damned carry me like I’m a ... What’s wrong?”

  The officer had straightened at the name. His hand sliding down to the buttoned holster. Neither of the Troopers had reacted at all. The shootist cursed under his breath, knowing that this could lead to trouble.

  “You the Crow that used to be an officer with the Third? First Squadron, under Captain Menges? Hell, sure you are. I heard of you.”

  At that Mulcahy and Taylor both tensed, eyes turning towards Lieutenant Birtles as if they were waiting for a signal.

  “You were court-martialed and booted out of the Army. Cowardice, wasn’t it?”

  “I don’t talk about it, Lieutenant.”

  Crow knew it was going to be trouble. His case had run through the Cavalry like a brush fire in August, leading to his expulsion from the Army.

  “I guess you don’t.” For a moment it looked as though Birtles was going to say more, but he checked himself. As the sun rose, Crow could see the faces of the men more clearly.

  The officer, in his mid-thirties. Gingerish hair and moustache and side-whiskers. Narrow eyes like slits in a pine fence. Mulcahy, tall and broad. A drinker’s face, with heavy bags under the eyes and jowls that hung like dewlaps over his collar. Taylor, younger than the other two. Probably early twenties. High cheekbones and a nervous tic that tugged at the corner of his mouth, making it seem that he was trying to control a grin.

  All three of them were dirty and unshaven, but out on patrol Crow knew well enough that few officers made any attempt to keep high standards of dress while out on patrol against hostiles.

  “You’re Crow. By God, but I heard plenty about you. I was up there, you know.”

  “Where?”

  “With Custer. Well, truth is I was with Reno and Benteen. Two damned days and little water up there with ten thousand screamin’ Sioux all over us. Closer to us than that wagon. Why, good morning, Ma’am.”

  He jumped to his feet as Lily Spangel tucked her head out of the wagon like a frightened bird. As the officer bowed to her she disappeared again.

  “What was I sayin’?” asked Birtles.

  “You was talkin’ about bein’ up on the Little Big Horn,” prompted Mulcahy.

  “Yes, so I was. Thank you, trooper.”

  Crow noticed that the soldier had not said “Sir’ to the officer. And that was unusual.

  “We was there, Crow. Menges was killed there, wasn’t he? No, some other place. Worst thing about that defense with Benteen and Reno was the smell.”

  “Dead bodies?” asked Taylor. Again, no “Sir’.

  “No, not that. Just shit. Place stank of shit. Guess there was hardly a man there didn’t foul himself that battle. Brown breeches were the order of the day. Know what I mean, Crow?”

  The shootist nodded.

  “I seen men pulling triggers on Springfields that they’d not even cocked.”

  Crow still had the feeling that the soldiers were waiting. Making conversation until they’d learned what they wanted to know, then they’d be ready to act.

  Nearly every Cavalryman that Crow had met since he had been court-martialed had looked upon him in disgust and hatred. Yet these three men didn’t seem unduly concerned to be sitting around a fire with him.

  Daniel came and joined them, followed by the two women. Birtles kept up a flow of chatter about his time in the Army, flavoring his stories with enough excitement to make Mary and her mother exclaim in shock at times, but never strong enough to give offence. The fire blazed more brightly and the coffee steamed and hissed.

  Crow kept mainly silent, hands still holding the Purdey under the blanket. If the soldiers recognized any threat from him, none of them spoke. And after a while the shootist began to relax a little.

  Finally, he asked them the question that had been bothering him since their arrival.

  “You out on patrol, Lieutenant?”

  “Part of a patrol, Mr Crow. There’s been some trouble. Folks been talkin’ about a party of Mescalero bucks raisin’ Hell.”

  “I still figure them for Mexicans,” said Taylor, cradling his mug of coffee between both hands.

  “Could be. There’s a band around robbed a payroll wagon a week back. Fifty thousand dollars is the word.”

  Mulcahy licked his lips. “Yeah. Fifty thousand dollars.”

  “How come you’re split off from the rest?”

  The answer didn’t come quite as fast as Crow figured it should have done. “Captain wanted three of us to go scout the trail back east a ways.”

  “Officer with two troopers?”

  “Sure. Nothin’ wrong with that, is there, Mr Crow?”

  The shootist didn’t answer, sitting quiet, his mug of coffee down by his boots. Ben Ford l
ooked at him strangely, as though something of Crow’s unease was beginning to communicate itself to him.

  But Crow couldn’t pin it down. The relationship between the Lieutenant and the two ordinary soldiers didn’t seem quite right. It was too casual, even for a small patrol. And why send out a full Lieutenant with only two Troopers on what they claimed was a casual scouting mission?

  Lily Spangel had gone over to wake her husband, singing gently to herself. Coming back to stand alongside the officer, running her fingers along the back of his neck, making him start.

  Kneeling down alongside him, smiling up into the brutally handsome face. Birtles was uncomfortable, looking at his men, then at Ford and Crow.

  “You are a pretty boy, a pretty blue soldier. Soldier blue, soldier blue, who will marry you? Who will marry you, sweet soldier blue?” she sang.

  “Ma’am, I’d surely …” began the officer.

  “Leave him, slut. You are an abomination in the eyes of the Lord and shall be punished in the flames that burn forever and cannot be healed.”

  The Reverend Spangel towered over everyone, hefting his long staff. The soldiers all looked up in shock at the sight, hands reaching for their pistols. Ben Ford started to draw his own gun. “Take it easy, he don’t mean …”

  Before Crow could make a move the officer had grabbed the woman round the neck, jamming the barrel of his pistol against her neck, the hammer back, gloved finger on the trigger.

  “Take it easy, you crippled fuck!” he snarled. “Don’t tell me that shit.”

  “Billy, let’s bust ’em all,” said Mulcahy, his own Dragoon drawn and covering Ford and Crow.

  The shootist sat very still, the blanket tugged up over his lap. Wondering when he ought to try and make his move.

  “You’re damned deserters,” snarled the ramrod. “That’s the filth you are.”

  “Man like you ain’t really a man no more, old-timer,” sneered Taylor. “You talk too big for a fuckin’ cripple with no legs.”

  “You’re quiet, Crow,” said Birtles, grinning round at the tableau. “One move and the lady dies. You know I mean that?”

  Crow’s voice was so quiet that it barely rose above the bubbling of the brown enameled coffee-pot.

  “Yeah, I know, soldier. I know.”

  And he squeezed the trigger of the scattergun.

  Chapter Eight

  The decision to squeeze the trigger of the Purdey was based on a clear and simple calculation.

  It had become obvious that Birtles and the troopers were not everything that they claimed. Crow’s growing suspicions were that they had deserted when they had the chance to go after the robbers of the payroll. It was also beyond doubt that they would kill the entire Spangel party. Having gone as far as they had, there was no other option left open to them.

  In another few moments one of them would have gunned the shootist down where he sat, as potentially the most dangerous of the group.

  The officer stood slightly to the side of the woman, so that her body wasn’t in front of him. His arm was round her waist and the muzzle of the revolver was drilling a hole in her neck, beneath the ear.

  The roar of the gun was deafening, scarcely muffled by the blanket. The rectangle of grey cloth was blasted to shreds, lifted high into the air by the shot.

  Lead tore across the few paces, ripping into the soldier a little below the level of his belt. He was driven immediately backwards, mouth jerking open in horror and white agony as the shot smashed into his groin, pulping through soft flesh, grinding through splintered bones.

  He let go of the woman, his pistol flying from his grip and she fell to one side with a scream, hands going to her mouth.

  The two other cavalrymen stood frozen for a fatal moment, giving Crow time to swing the remaining barrel of the Purdey and blast Taylor off his feet, the shot hitting home at the top of his chest, near the throat. At such short range the effect was devastating and instantly lethal. Nearly ripping the young soldier’s head off of his shoulders.

  Only Mulcahy was left, holding his pistol, looking at his two dying comrades with a mixture of shock and disbelief. One moment they had controlled the situation, with the prospect of some rapid murder and then some rape to follow. Followed by two more murders.

  And it was gone.

  His lips moved but he was the only person to hear the words.

  “It’s all fuckin’ gone.”

  Crow dropped the scattergun immediately he’d fired the second shot, reaching for his pistol. But Ford was quicker. Drawing his own Colt and thumbing back on the action, ready to gun down the last of the troopers.

  But Lily Spangel spoiled it all. Her already frail mind shattered by the attack and the killing, soaked in blood from the dead officer, she clawed her way straight to her feet, turning to look for somewhere to run. And put herself clean in line with Ben Ford’s shot.

  The ramrod was just able to check his movement to shoot Mulcahy, yelling at the woman to get out of the way. Crow had a clear shot but was slower in drawing his own Peacemaker.

  Which gave the soldier time for just one bullet of his own.

  His mind flickered over the possibilities, while his shreds of self-control disappeared from his grasp. There was the skinny man in black with the smoking shotgun, still surrounded with tendrils of powder smoke. The cripple who was holding a cocked pistol and calling out in an urgent tone.

  The rest of the family didn’t concern Mulcahy at all.

  Except for the wife.

  Lily.

  She had gone totally insane. Standing with her fingers tearing bloody furrows from her own cheeks screeching out at the top of her voice: “Riding on a pony, riding on a pony, riding on a pony!”

  The noise was unbearable and made it impossible for the soldier to think straight.

  Eyes blinking in panic, mouth working, he turned and put a ball through the woman’s heart, kicking her back in the broken ground.

  Ben Ford promptly shot the soldier, placing four bullets in an area the size of a playing-card, just to the left of the row of dull buttons on the man’s tunic. Mulcahy fell sideways, dropping his gun, rolling on his face and making a massive effort to crawl away towards the horses.

  He managed less than five yards before he died.

  After that there was a brief silence, then Mary Spangel began to cry, quietly, shoulders shaking. Her brother groped his way towards her and put one arm around her, whispering in consolation.

  The Reverend Charles Spangel stood like a stricken sequoia, massive and untouchable. His great head turning from side to side.

  “What has passed? Will nobody speak? Tell me! Are there dead? Is this place touched by blood? Lily! Answer me, wife. Answer me!”

  Crow stood up, holstering his unfired pistol. “It’s over, Reverend. The soldiers are all dead. And so’s your wife.”

  “I commend this the body of Lily Edith Spangel to the earth of this land, Lord. She was a good wife and mother though you saw fit in your infinite wisdom to steal away some part of her mind and make her less able in the later years.” There was a small mound of earth. Daniel and Mary had done most of the digging, Crow refusing to help. He had wanted to get away from the place, leaving the four bodies where they’d fallen. But Spangel had insisted on a burial for his wife, though he had agreed to let the other corpses he.

  As he spoke out over the grave the old man was weeping, great lumps of tears coursing down from the milk-white, blind eyes, pattering on the dusty boots, turning the pale mud to bloody crimson.

  “We thank thee for thy help here in saving us all from death so that we might go on our travail to discover where the ark of your covenant with us is to rest.”

  The shootist was leaning in the shade of the wagon. Ben Ford had been lifted in and lay in the bed of the Conestoga, eyes half-closed. The fight seemed to have drained him of any vitality. He had drunk a lot of their precious water, and then vomited it all up over the tail of the rig.

  “Damned gibberish,” mut
tered Crow. “Should be off and moving.”

  “Where?” asked Ford, wearily.

  “On west. There’s a spread with some sweet water about a day and a half over the next ridge of the mountains. Dutch family, as I recall it. Get stocked up there.”

  The ramrod sighed. “Might be my turn to lie under the earth, Crow.”

  “Yeah. Might be. Might not.”

  Ford attempted a smile but it got no further than his lips. “Man has to know when time’s come, Crow. I had me a good life and I don’t have many regrets. I’ll not be mourned, but that’s no matter to me.”

  “That’s true. Never could understand that kind of fussing.”

  “Yeah. You frightened of dyin’, Crow?”

  The shootist sniffed. Shaking his head, vaguely aware that the burial of Mrs. Lily Spangel was nearly done.

  “No. Don’t say I welcome it. It’ll come one day. Maybe I’ll know it, maybe I won’t. I’ve killed a lot of men that passed from life into blackness without realizin’ that I’d opened that last door for ’em.”

  “Mr Crow!”

  “Yes, Reverend?”

  “Will you join us in a hymn?”

  “Not a great singer of hymns, Reverend. But you go right ahead.”

  “Very well. Then we shall be done with this accursed plot and will be ready to travel on once more.”

  “We’re ready,” replied the shootist.

  The hymn was one that he didn’t know. With a chorus about “sleeping with the saints above, smiling on the sinners below.”

  After the last “Amens” were said the family climbed back again into the wagon, Mary last of them. She looked once at Crow, but her face was blank of emotion and he couldn’t read anything into it.

  Daniel drove, with his sister on the box beside him to guide the way. The Reverend sat in the back of the rig, hands clasped, praying in silence. Ford lay in his usual place, looking out through the open canvas at the trail behind them.

  Crow saw him staring at the mound of earth and heeled his horse closer to the ramrod.

  “Hell of a long way to come for that.”

  “What’s that, Crow?”

  “Five feet or so of Arizona earth. She traveled a thousand miles for it.”