Funeral By The Sea (13 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

‘Hold it right there, kid,’ a soft-spoken voice instructed.

Barnaby Gold came to an easy halt and turned his head slowly to look to his right, the half-smoked cheroot angled from a corner of his mouth raid the Murcott canted in a two-handed grip across his chest.

He had been on level ground for several minutes, trudging through snagging brush on the north rim of the ravine where the pines grew even more thickly than on the slope. There had only been the sound of his own footfalls and breathing for a long time since the gunshot in the far distance, which Hal Delroy had used to gain the attention of the men fleeing the fire.

The voice that intruded from the surrounding silence came from the side of a large boulder, all but enveloped by the creepers of a climbing plant.

‘Appreciate all your help, sir.’

‘You what?’ There was a note of surprise in the voice.

‘I said I...’

‘I heard what you said, kid.’

He stepped into view, right hand wrapped around the frame of a Winchester leveled from his hip and left holding the reins of his horse. A man of about thirty-five. Two inches under six feet with a build as lithe as that of Gold. He had iron grey hair and skin burnished to dark brown. His features were craggy and his eyes looked exceptionally blue.

His Stetson, kerchief, shirt, pants and boots were all grey, a couple of shades lighter than the markings of his stallion. There was an Army Colt with ivory butt plates in the holster tied down to his right thigh. And the hilt and handle of a knife showed at the top of a sheath he wore on his left hip.

He had not shaved in many days and the bristles sprouted in a mixture of black and grey on his cheeks, jaw and neck.

He sniffed. ‘You talk as cocky as you look. Now you figure you’re clear of that bunch.’

‘You helped me, sir. And I thanked you. If there’s anything else I can do.’

‘You ain’t outta the woods yet, kid.’

‘I can see that, sir.’ His green-eyed gaze shifted from the perplexed face of the stranger to the leveled rifle.

‘I don’t mean me,’ He tugged on the reins and the horse came up alongside him. So that he was able to slide the Winchester into the forward hung boot. ‘The fellers that are after you pretended to take off back to town. But not the four who made it into this timber while their buddies were blastin’ away from behind the wagon.’

Gold allowed the shotgun to sag to his side, holding it with just one hand now. ‘Just the four, uh?’

The stranger sniffed again. ‘Maybe not cocky. Just plain crazy? One man gunnin’ for you in this kinda country oughta be enough to keep you from strollin’ around enjoyin’ a smoke. Like you was out for some Sunday afternoon exercise.’

‘Least I was moving away from them before you stopped me, sir.’

‘Goin’ where?’ Another sniff.

‘Europe.’

A flicker of anger showed in the man’s eyes. But he quelled it with a shake of his head. ‘I wish I hadn’t asked. Come on, let’s get off this hill.’

‘I think you’ve done enough for me already, sir.’

‘Damn right I have, kid.’ Sniff. ‘And it weren’t out of no kindness of heart. Consider it a debt. Which I’m callin’ in.’

He tugged on the reins to turn his horse and then put his own back to Gold. Who hesitated for just a moment, then clicked his tongue and shrugged his shoulders, moved in the wake of the man and the stallion.

They went down the slope behind the boulder for a few yards then veered on to level ground for awhile. Perhaps a minute later, through a narrow gap in the trees, the black-clad young man got a brief view of the ravine. From atop one side of the narrow entrance. Saw with deadpan eyes the extensive area of fire-blackened ground humped with the charred remains of inanimate wreckage and dead flesh. There was still a little smoke drifting out of the timber above the burned-out heart of the fire, but unless a breeze came in from the ocean to fan the few flames which continued to lick among the pine needles, they would doubtless die soon, he decided.

Then the ravine was lost to sight as he was led down a very steep drop, the stranger whispering softly to his horse to calm the animal’s fear. And they emerged at the side of the trail where it rose and curved to run into the ravine entrance. Where the stranger slid a booted foot into a stirrup and swung up astride the stallion.

Looked down at Gold and sniffed. Then, ‘Climb aboard, kid. Even with two up, this nag’ll make better time than men on foot.’

He reached down with a hand and eased forward so that his crotch was against the saddlehorn.

‘Appreciate it, sir.’

Gold made use of the stirrup left clear and the man’s hand to get on the horse, his rump on the cantle.

‘Name’s Warren Pruett. Outta El Paso. My livin’s bounty huntin’.’

He set the horse moving, along the trail in the opposite direction to Oceanville.

‘Barnaby Gold Junior, Mr. Pruett.’

‘Heard what the woman called you, kid.’

‘New York City and Fairfax, Arizona. Was an undertaker before I started out for Europe.’

‘Guess that explains why you look like you’re in mournin’.’ A sniff. ‘Guns apart.’

He veered the horse sharply off the trail to the south. Going between two more brush-covered boulders.

‘Figure you know your trade, sir.’

‘Lived high off the hog from it for a lot of years. When I ain’t out makin’ the money to buy what I like.’

Gold returned to watching over Pruett’s right shoulder after looking at the stallion’s hoofprints in the dust of the trail.

‘So it’s okay if I just drop this cheroot stub?’

‘Sure, kid. Them fellers’ knowin’ we got together won’t stop them from trailin’ us.’

To the right, the terrain rose up toward the edge of the curving cliff that overlooked Oceanville, by turns shallow and steep. There was vegetation on the lower slopes, but just lush turf featured with barren rock higher up. The pine-clad mountain foothills through which Gold had ridden with Seth Harrow were spread out in the other directions.

Pruett sniffed at irregular intervals as he steered the stallion at an easy walking pace along a natural bridle path that curved gradually inland and then began to rise. And every now and then he ran his shirt sleeve across his moist nostrils.

‘You have to put up with this, kid,’ he said at length. ‘Got what the medical fellers call an allergy. Always happens to me when there’s pine trees around.’

The stallion left clear-to-see hoofprints in the springy turf, this sign superimposed on others made previously. Going in both directions.

An arc of cliff, not so high or long as that behind Oeeanville, showed ahead. With a pool of crystal water at its base. And Warren Pruett followed his own earlier sign until the turf gave way to rock at the start of the way to the top of the cliff.

‘Have to walk on up from here, kid.’

It was necessary for Barnaby Gold to dismount first and in doing this he had the best opportunity yet of killing Pruett, stealing his horse and riding it away from Oceanville, far ahead of pursuit. But he was not entirely certain that this distrust of the man had enough foundation. The fact that he admitted to being a professional bounty hunter from El Paso, Texas, did not have to mean he knew about the high price the Channon family had placed on the head of Barnaby Gold Junior.

And if it turned out that he did and was biding his time... Gold possessed more patience than most. And if there was a shell in the Murcott or either of the Peacemakers with Warren Pruett’s name on it, it would not have time to decay in the chamber.

So the black-clad young man who eased carefully to the ground delayed consideration of the possibility that he might have to kill Pruett. And concentrated his mind upon overcoming the more immediate dangers.

The ride from the top of the ravine had been a short one, but long enough so that he could in retrospect relish the relative comfort of being astride the stallion. For his punished body had not hurt so much, and it was not until he was trudging in the wake of Pruett leading the horse that he became aware of just how much he was hurting. And realized, too, the extent of his weariness. Perhaps had not felt as close to exhaustion even when he lay in the brush after the wagon wreck?

He shook his head sharply, annoyed at himself for yet again wasting time on notions that served no purpose - and comparisons between the present and what once had been were certainly useless.

Staying awake was what he had to do. Awake and alert. And only when he was certain of the motives of Warren Pruett - and maybe even not until he was a very long distance from Oceanville - would he be safe to indulge himself. Give way to the need for natural sleep.

His impressions of the surroundings as he followed the man and horse were dull-edged because of his weariness. He saw they were on rocky ground now, climbing steeply up a curve toward the top of the cliff overlooking the pool. And then he had to combat an attack of vertigo when a thick growth of high brush forced them to move along the very rim of the fifty-foot-high drop. Did this by gazing fixedly ahead at the gently swishing tail of the big stallion. Scowling at the necessity to do so in a situation that demanded he look put across the sun-sparkling water of the pool toward the pine-clad terrain they had just crossed, to search for the men who were certainly trailing them.

But then the horse took a sudden sharp turn to the left and when Gold blindly followed him, Pruett announced,

‘Okay, kid, you can take a breather now.’

The sweat of tension that bathed the younger man was abruptly cooled and dried on his flesh. And he felt weaker than ever as he blinked his eyes to an abrupt change in the brightness of the light.

The wall of brush had given way to rock, he realized. And Warren Pruett had led him into a cave in the rock. Because the narrow entrance faced north, no sunlight reached inside. But there
was enough pale morning light to show a dirt floor area of some twenty by ten feet with rough- hewn walls marked by old water stains. The roof was maybe fifteen feet high at the entrance, falling to less than five at the rear.

The air was cool and smelled of horse droppings. To one side of the access slit there were ashes of an old fire.

Barnaby Gold leaned against the wall on the other side of the entrance and clicked his tongue. Showed a wan smile as he said, ‘You’re a man full of surprises, Mr. Pruett.’

‘The reason I’m so successful in my line of work, kid. But everyone needs a fair share of luck. And I sure struck lucky when I spotted the openin’ into this place while I was waterin’ my horse down below.’

He took his bedroll off the stallion as he was talking and now he tossed it so that it dropped in front of Gold. ‘Here, rest up for awhile. Before you fall down.’

‘You said you’d done enough for me, sir. Aimed to collect what I owe you.’

Pruett was uncinching the saddle. ‘I need a feller that’s dead on his feet as much as I need a hole in the head. Just rest up like I told you, why don’t you. Then we’ll get started on taking care of what’s left of Hal Delroy’s bunch of hard men.’

He left the horse and came over to the other side of the cave entrance, set the saddle down and slid the Winchester from the boot before lowering his rump on to it. Took out the makings and rolled a cigarette, his elbows on the stock and barrel of the rifle that rested across his thighs.

‘Best offer I’ve had all day, sir.’

He leaned the shotgun against the rock wall and crouched to unfurl the bedroll. Took off his gunbelt, hat and coat. Rolled up his coat to form a pillow and stretched out on one blanket, draped himself from neck to booted feet with the other.

Warren Pruett lit and smoked the cigarette, ignoring his guest to maintain an apparently nonchalant surveillance over the wedge of country that was visible from where he sat.

The minor exertions of preparing the bedroll and then making use of it had triggered a series of sharp pains from Gold’s aching muscles. But the luxury of being flat on his back and able to give in to the weighty drag of his eyelids quickly soothed his hurting. And there was not time to be irritated with himself when yet another futile thought crossed his mind.

In the cool air of the cave, free of the scent of pine, his benefactor did not sniff.

Then he was asleep.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

‘WAKE up, kid. Time for you to start playin’ off on the investment I got in you.’

Something hard jabbed into his ribs roused Barnaby Gold from sleep and he heard the man speaking to him from what seemed a long way off. For stretched seconds he did not know where he was as his snapped open eyes
stared up at the dark rock above.

He rolled his head to the side on the makeshift pillow and saw Pruett, aiming a Winchester rifle at him. Experienced an instant of fear before the gun was withdrawn and the bounty hunter returned to sit on the saddle and gaze out through the gap in the rock. Then felt a flood of relief as he recalled the series of events which had brought him here, and that the rifle had simply been used to prod him awake.