Off the Mangrove Coast (Ss) (2000) (19 page)

At that moment, they heard the rattle of wheels and a shout from the stage driver. The three leaped for their saddles even as the first shot sounded. Racing their horses through the brush, they heard a burst of firing. Then their own guns opened up.

Dud Shafter came out of the scrub with both guns ready. A big, bearded man loomed before him and turned sharply in his saddle to stare with rolling eyes; Shafter fired twice. The big man went out of the saddle and his horse leaped a\way.

Behind Dud, Benzie's shotgun coughed hoarsely he could hear the sharp reports from Navarro's smoothly handled pistol. There was a flash of light from the trees and a crashing of brush. In a matter of seconds, it was all over, and four men lay on the ground. Dud stared at the brush, for there had been a fifth. The man with the white hat was gone!

He swung down, and the passengers poured from the coach. The shotgun messenger walked up and thrust out his hand.

"Thanks, partners! You-all saved our bacon! That outfit came in shootin'!"

"You hurt?" Dud asked, staring at the man's pale face. "Winged me," the messenger said. Shafter turned, feeding shells into his guns, and saw the passengers gathering around. A tall man in a beaver hat, a flamboyantly dressed woman, a solid-looking man with a heavy gold chain, a hard hat, and mutton chop whiskers. Then an old man with a beard, and a young girl evidently his daughter.

This must be the man the robbers had mentioned. He was short with pleasant blue eyes and a glint of humor in his face.

"Some shootin', boys! Thank you."

Dud walked slowly from one dead man to the other. None of them was familiar to Dud.

The man with the mutton chop whiskers thrust out his hand.

"My name is Wendover," he said. "James T. Wendover of Wells Fargo. You men saved our shipment and I can assure you you'll be rewarded. Can you tell us where you live?"

Shafter hesitated, then with a jerk of his thumb, he indicated the box canyon where they had camped beside the ruined adobe.

"We got us a sort of a ranch back up in there," he said. "The three of us."

"Good! Now what do you call it, and what is your name?"

"My name's Shafter," Dud replied. "The ranch is the "

"The Silver Springs Ranch," Navarro added smoothly.

At the name, the old man started and his eyes hardened as he stared from one to the other. Puzzled, Shafter noticed the girl had put her hand on her father's arm, and the grateful light was gone from her eyes.

Wendover turned away to where the other woman passenger was dressing the messenger's wound. That left Shafter and his companions standing with the old man and the girl.

She stared at him with accusing eyes. "So you're the ones!

Shafter shook his head. "I don't know what you mean, ma'am," he said simply, "but we probably ain't. Actually, we're just sort of riding through, like."

"You told that man you owned Silver Springs!" she protested indignantly.

"No, senorita," Navarro protested. "We have to tell him something. We could very much use the reward. It is a good place to wait."

"We'd been warned to expect trouble," the old man. said. "My name is Fanning, and this is my granddaughter, Beth. Silver Springs belonged to my brother, a long time ago. We were goin' to get off when we got there, but the driver wasn't exactly sure where it was. Are we there now?"

"Yeah," Dud agreed, "this is it. But you folks better know this. Them fellers we shot it out with, they were aiming to kill everybody on that stage, when we overheard 'em. What they was after was you, Mr. Fanning. They said they were going to make you talk."

"So that was it?" Farming's jaw hardened. "Well, I'd like to find who was behind this! He's the man I want!"

"One of 'em got away," Benzie suggested. "Could be 'twas him."

Navarro and Benzie appointed themselves a burial committee for the dead men, and Dud walked back to the stage to unload the baggage belonging to Fanning and Beth. Wendover was obviously nervous, wanting to get on to the stage station at Lobo Wells.

Leading the Farmings' horses that had been tied to the back of the stage, and with the girl's bag in his hand and a couple more hung to the saddle horn, Shafter led the way back toward the ruined adobe. As he walked, he explained about the little valley, and the condition of things, but Beth was not disturbed. She walked into the ruined building, took a quick look around, and then came out.

"We can fix it up!" she said. "You'll help, won't you?"

Dud, caught flat-footed, assured her that he would.

"Good!" Beth said. "Now if you'll get on your horse and ride down to that stage station and just get us some supplies " She opened her purse, searching for money.

He turned and started for the Wells. Yet as he rode his thoughts were only occasionally with the girl. He was thinking more of the man in the white hat, and the fact that Fanning knew something, something that would cause men to contemplate murder.

The stage station was one of four buildings at Lobo Wells. There was a rest house and eating place in the station, and the station's office and a storeroom. The other buildings were the Lobo Saloon, the freight office of Bert Callan, and the Mickley General Store. Dud swung down at the hitching rail in front of Mickley's and walked in.

Ben Mickley was in low conversation with a tall man in a fringed buckskin coat. Both men turned to look him over, seeing his big-boned freckled face and the shock of rust-red hair under his battered sombrero. As he collected his order, he was conscious of their scrutiny.

"New around here, ain't you?" Mickley suggested conversationally.

Dud grinned at the proprietor. "Not that new. I spent a moment or two out there tying my horse up," he said, and added tentatively, "going to start ranching on the Silver Springs place."

"I'm afraid not."

Shafter's eyes shifted to the man in the buckskin jacket. He was smooth-featured with a drooping mustache and dark eyes. His jaw was hard, and there was a tightness in his expression that Shafter read as well as he read the low-hung, tied-down guns. The man was bareheaded.

"I reckon yes." Shafter's voice was calm. "We moved in there, my pards and me, and we figure to stay. We're riding for Jim Fanning, who owns the place."

"Corb Fanning filed on that place, a long time ago," said the hard-jawed man. "He was killed, and it lapsed. That spring now belongs to me."

"Lapsed?"

"I filed on it, mister. It's private property now ... my property."

Dud did not smile. He did not even feel like smiling. He turned around to face the other man, and in his dusty, trail-worn clothes, with his uncut red hair and big freckled hands, he looked like what he was a hard-bitten man who had cut his eye teeth on a gun butt.

"Where's your hat, stranger?" he asked quietly.

"Don't you go to proddin' him! That's Bert Callan and he's no stranger to me. He runs the freight company hereabouts." Mickley warned Dud, "And I don't want any shooting in my store. You understand?"

The icy blue eyes held Callan's eyes and Shafter spoke slowly. His hand rested lightly on his gun butt.

"All right, Mickley, throw that sack of stuff over your back, and walk out the door ahead of me alongside of this hombre. Unless, this hombre wants to try some six-foot distance shootin'!"

Bert Callan stared into the cold blue eyes and decided uncomfortably that he didn't want to try it. At a distance, yes, but six feet? Neither of them would live. It was out of the question. He shrugged and followed Ben Mickley to the door.

Dud Shafter threw the sack of groceries over his saddle bows.

"Now you two can go back inside," he said coolly.

"You-all better move off that spring and fast!" Callan's face flushed dark with anger and his hand moved toward his gun.

"You just put on that white hat, if it's yours, and come on up. You come up and tell us to move!"

He swung a leg over his horse and turned the horse into the trail. Then, at a canter, he moved out of town.

Ben Mickley stared after him, hard-eyed. "That's a mean one, Bert. You better soft-pedal it with him!"

"Mean, huh!" Callan flared. "The man's a fool! Go to shootin' in there, we'd both die!"

"That's right," Mickley said thoughtfully, "you would."

Shafter rode up to Silver Springs shortly after sundown; as he drew up to the adobe, he saw a man move in the shadows. It was Benzie, with his shotgun.

"All right?" Benzie asked. "No trouble?"

Navarro walked up as Dud explained briefly.

"There will be trouble," he ended. "They want this place. In fact they may own it."

Beth Fanning called to them.

"Come and get it before I throw it away!"

When they were eating, she looked over at Dud.

"What did you three plan on doing? Riding on when you get your money?"

He detected the worry in her voice and leaned back on his elbow, placing his plate and coffee cup on the ground.

"Maybe we'd better stick around," he said. He looked over at Jim Fanning. "You want to tell us what this is all about?"

Fanning hesitated, chewing slowly. "Reckon you fellers have helped us a mite," he finally said. "What do you think, Beth? This is your say-so as much as mine."

The girl lifted her eyes and looked at Dud for a long moment, then at Navarro and Benzie.

"Why, tell them," she said, "I like them all, and we have to trust our friends."

Dud swallowed and looked away, and he saw Benzie's face lighten a little. The Negro looked up, waiting. It was something, Shafter thought, being trusted that way. Especially when you didn't deserve it. A little one way or the other, and they might have robbed that stage themselves.

"We've got a map," Fanning said. "My brother, Corbin, he filed on this place. He come west with six wagons, and he aimed to stay right here. He brought a sight of money along, gold coin it was. Had it hid in his own wagon, nigh to forty thousand dollars of it. It was cached here on the place, and he sent me the location in a letter."

"What happened to him?" Navarro asked softly.

"Injuns. At least they say it was Injuns. Now that these fellers are lookin' for me, I don't know. Beth and I came here to restart the place and that money was goin' to help us do it."

"Can you find it?" Dud asked. He was thinking of forty thousand dollars, and that all three of them were broke. It was a lot of money. How far could Navarro be trusted? Or Benzie? Or himself?

"Maybe. Now that I'm settin' here the directions aren't as clear as I'd like."

"You could let us help you," he said. "But maybe it would be a good idea to have us ride out of here an' you find it on your own ... you shouldn't trust anyone you don't know."

"No," Beth interrupted. "You saved our lives. I say we should get it now and deposit it with the Wells Fargo. Then it's their worry."

Shafter nodded. "Well, that's best, I'm sure." He scowled, remembering the man in the white hat and the man at the stage station. Too bad their glimpse of the rider who escaped had been so fleeting. He had taken no part in the fighting, and when Shafter and the others broke from the brush, he had fled at once, as if fearing to be seen.

When morning had come, Jim Fanning left the breakfast table and returned with a fold of papers. They all walked outside. Carefully he laid out the letter in a patch of sunlight.

"This here drawing," he said slowly, "don't nowhere make sense as I'd like. There's the 'dobe all right. Over yonder is the flat-faced cliff, an' here's the stream from Silver Springs. But lookee here, this says, 'gold buried under the ... no." The ink is smudged, it don't make sense."

Navarro looked up sharply, his eyes meeting Shafter's across the fire. Slowly he got up and walked around the fire and knelt over the map. Dud knew what he was thinking, and what Benzie must have in mind. The cave was under a vine, or behind a vine, if you wanted it that way.

Shafter stared down at the map. In the cave then. But he didn't speak up and neither did the others.

"Look out!" he said softly. "Watch it!"

Dud got to his feet and Jim Fanning smothered the letter in his fist. Navarro and Benzie got up, too. A tight-knit bunch of riders were walking their horses up the canyon toward them. One of the two men in the lead was Bert Callan.

Eight of them. No, there was another rider following.

Nine to four, and a girl in the way of the shooting. Dud Shafter's jaw set hard.

"Callan he's one of them men will want me," he said quietly. "The rest of you stay out."

"We're partners, amigo," Navarro said softly. "Your fight is my fight."

Benzie moved out toward the adobe, then halted. Jim Fanning was by the fire, and the girl close to him.

"So? Caught up with you, did we?" Callan stared hard at Shafter. "You're on my place and we're gonna clear you out. First, though, we're gonna have a talk with the old man here."

There could be no backing down. One sign of weakness and none of them had a chance. Then he recognized the ninth rider.