The Bells of El Diablo (29 page)

James looked around. The canyon was dark, but a moon was rising. It wasn’t yet above the ridge, but enough light angled into the chasm that he could make out the rocks and shrubs and the crenellated walls of the cliffs on either side of him.

High above, an owl hooted. Aside from a rodent scratching in the brush, and the stomping and blowing of the tired horses and the squawking of tack, that was the only sound.

“Up that little canyon there?” Crosseye shouldered his rifle and looked at Jack dubiously. “How far?”

“Hell, we’re so close I can smell that gold from here!” Jack covered his mouth as he laughed, and, looping the handles of two lanterns over his right arm, he felt his way around the mules and moved carefully, one step at a time, toward the mouth of the cleft.

“Pretty dark,” James said. “Maybe we should wait till morning.”

“Jack said we shouldn’t be out here during the day.” Vienna took one of Jack’s lanterns. “Besides, we have these.” She stood beside James, her shoulders rising and falling as she breathed, obviously excited, staring into the dark cleft. Crosseye had presented her with the quail he’d carved, and it hung down her red-and-white-striped serape by a rawhide thong.

“That’s right. You’re a good girl. You remember what Jack says. Wish at least one of my wives would have been like you—then, maybe I’d have kept her.” Jack spat and reached out to grab Pablo’s arm, the handle of his
lantern squawking from where it dangled from his wrist. “We’re gonna have to walk from here. Lots of rocks, so be careful. Won’t light the lamps yet—don’t want any Apaches seein’ the light.”

“You’d best wait with the wagons, Jack,” Crosseye said.

“No, sir. I’m gonna go in and help fetch them three purty ladies out of there. They’re heavy. Two of you boys can carry one, but without block and tackle, it’s prob’ly gonna take every one of us to hoist ’em over rocks an’ such.” Jack spoke to Vincente and Chulo in Spanish, and they nodded, Chulo running his sleeve across his mouth hungrily.

James felt the pull of the gold himself. He still wasn’t convinced it was gold they’d be hauling out of the cavern, but he’d heard enough about it from Apache Jack for the fever to be catching. Jack didn’t know how much they were worth, but he’d said each bell probably weighed a hundred pounds. That was a hell of a lot of gold. Even if none of it would be his, he wanted to see it, touch it.

Chulo and Vincente hurried into the cavern behind Pablo, rocks grinding beneath their boots. Jack took James’s arm, tugged on his sleeve. “Remember what I said about Chulo? As soon as we get the gold out here to the wagon, you’re gonna have to shoot him.”

Vienna started into the cleft behind Chulo and Vincente, and stopped. Running her fingers pensively over the quail, she waited until the two Yaqui were out of hearing, then whispered back over her shoulder, “What if he doesn’t try anything, Jack?”

“He will. Somewhere along the trail, he will. Him or
Vincente or both.” Jack slapped James’s back and jerked on Vienna’s wrist. “Come on—what you waitin’ for, girl? Have bells cast of solid gold started growin’ from the dogwoods in Tennessee?”

As Vienna led Jack into the gap behind Pablo and the two Yaquis, James brought up the rear, sharing a dark glance with Crosseye. He wasn’t about to execute Chulo just in case he might try to double-cross him and the others. But he saw no point in Jack knowing that just yet. First, they’d get the gold out, and then he and Crosseye would keep a close eye on the two Yaquis.

The corridor into the cliff wall was narrow and littered with rocks of all shapes and sizes. At one point they had to climb over stone slabs that had torn away from the walls, blocking the trail. James and Crosseye had to take their time, helping the frail Apache Jack. Vienna scrambled over the rocks like the nimble little forest sprite she’d once been back home, when she and James and Willie had explored caves together in the hills around Seven Oaks.

Pablo led the way up a short thumb of rock on the cleft’s right side and into a ragged-edged cave opening. The floor was uneven. From somewhere inside came the faint tinkling of dripping water and the creepy sound of unseen, fluttering wings. James recognized the reek of bat guano. The ceiling was just low enough that the men had to crouch, holding their hats.

Jack muttered something to Vienna, and they lifted the lantern cowls and lit the wicks, adjusting the flames until the glow of the lanterns slid the shadows back against the cracked and chipped stone walls.

“That’s better,” Vienna said, lifting her lantern high.

“For you, maybe,” Jack quipped dryly, giving his own lantern to Pablo, who led him forward. “Come on, honey,” Jack wheezed lustily at Vienna. “Last one to the treasure’s a rotten egg!”

James counted his steps as they moved behind Pablo into the cave, and they stopped when he’d reached twenty-three. Against the back of the cave was a wide stone shelf, and on the shelf were three hunched shapes. Slowly, the lantern light washed like liquid brass over the shapes, revealing them.

“
Sí,
” Pablo said through a long, gleeful sigh.

James stared in awe at the three small suns shining in the wan light of the lanterns. He moved forward, all his compatriots forming a semicircle around the bells. Vienna, standing next to James, gave a slow, quiet gasp as she crouched before them, her low jaw dropping.

Apache Jack cackled as though even he could see the three bells sitting on the stone slab before them—all roughly the same size, each about half as tall as a rain barrel, and nearly as broad. Obviously, Jack had been here recently to tend to his three precious ladies. He’d scraped off the grime and bird and bat shit of the past three centuries, and the foul and dirty rags lay around the bells like the soiled robes of saints.

The bells were solid gold. Loops had been cast in their tops through which a wooden beam had likely held them secure in the belfry of a long-vanished church. On the front of each a praying saint had been etched as well as the year in which each had been fashioned from the gold the Franciscans had mined with the help of their Apache slaves: 1567.

James stared at the gold, hearing the quiet rush of the centuries emanating from the three bells before him.

“The Bells of the Devil,” Crosseye said, breaking James’s reverie. The old frontiersman’s voice was pitched with portent.

James felt a twinge of fear strike him from out of nowhere. Annoyance pushed it aside. He’d come too far to be spooked by some old Indian legend.

“Don’t think we need to worry about that, pard,” he said.

“You don’t think so?”

“I think we need to worry about getting them out of here and finding cover before daylight,” Vienna put in. “We don’t want to get trapped in here.”

“Come on, you young bucks,” said Apache Jack. “I didn’t bring you along so’s you could stand here feasting your eyes and givin’ each other the fantods. Grab a hold, and let’s start haulin’ ’em back to the wagon. We’ll get two on the first trip, make a second trip for the third.”

James crouched over the bell on the far right, tipped it back, and got the fingers of one hand under the bottom. He tipped it back the other way and got the fingers of his other hand under the bottom, as well. He lifted, testing, and discovered that he could lift it with effort, but with a knot of pain growing in his lower back. Two would be able to lift it and carry it more easily, albeit awkwardly, in the close, shadowy confines.

While Chulo and Vincente got a hold of the bell on the far left, Crosseye got his own hands under James’s bell, and, grunting, the two Tennesseans began shuffling back toward the cave entrance. Vienna guided
them, lighting the way with her lantern, while Pablo held his own lamp for Chulo and Vincente. James and Crosseye had a rough time carrying the bell down from the cave to the narrow floor of the corridor, each man falling to his knees at least once and nearly dropping the bell at least twice.

They grunted and cursed, groaning and sweating, Apache Jack cajoling and offering advice. James felt as though his spine would rip out from his lower back before they finally managed to set the bell on the chasm’s floor, and he stepped back, hands on his hips, breathing hard. Crosseye dropped to one knee, doffing his hat and running a hand through his curly, thin, sweat-damp hair. Veins bulged in his freckled forehead flushed from exertion.

“How in the hell did you stumble on these bells, anyway, Jack?” James asked between breaths.

“Same way all great treasures is discovered,” Jack said, standing to one side of the cave mouth with Pablo, while Chulo and Vincente carried their bell up from the depths of the cave behind him. “By accident. I was on the run from ’paches, and I came in here to hide one late evenin’ without benefit of a lantern. I woke in the morning to see these three beauties glowing at me like celestial virgins.”

When Chulo and Vincente, struggling under their own burden, had joined them on the floor of the corridor, James and Crosseye hefted their bell once more and started back along the chasm toward the wagon.

It took them nearly half an hour, with the help of Chulo and Vincente, to get the bell over all the obstacles, but, sweating and weary, they finally set the bell
in the back of the wagon, atop a horse blanket laid out for the cargo. They took little time to rest, as dawn was near. They headed back into the chasm to help Chulo and Vincente get their bell over the several stone slabs in the path.

When they’d set the second bell in the wagon, they each took a pull from Apache Jack’s offered bottle. Jack suggested that he and Vienna stay with the wagons and keep watch for trouble. It wasn’t yet dawn, but the morning birds were beginning to chirp.

“Give a yell if he starts pawin’ you,” James told Vienna, winking at her, as he and Crosseye and Chulo and Vincente headed back down the corridor to retrieve the other bell.

“I’m armed.” Vienna patted her pistol and returned the wink.

Another half an hour later, with Pablo holding the lantern, James, Crosseye, Chulo, and Vincente wrestled the bell over the last rock slab angling over the corridor and set it on the chasm’s floor. James had just stepped back against the wall when he saw Vincente lunge toward Crosseye. A blade flashed in the clubfooted Yaqui’s fist a quarter second before he buried it in the old frontiersman’s belly.

“Look out, Jimmy!” Crosseye bellowed as he fell, Vincente crouching and grunting over him.

James jerked his gaze toward Chulo, who had a long-barreled Remington in his fist, the barrel aimed at Crosseye. The cow eyes held flatly on James, though the big Yaqui’s broad mouth quirked in a mocking grin.

Pablo screamed and lurched backward, falling. The lantern clattered to the ground and blinked out. At the same time, Chulo’s pistol flashed and thundered. James barely registered a sting across his left forearm as he clawed both his Griswold .36s from their holsters.

The Confederate pistols leaped and thundered, the flashes revealing Chulo’s hulking figure against the far wall. Chulo’s own pistol flashed and roared. James fired two more times, and in the light of the lapping flames he saw Chulo jerk backward. The man’s pistol thudded on the chasm floor.

There was a yowl to James’s right. Vincente’s thick, short figure bent forward, knees buckling, while Crosseye’s silhouette pulled its arm back from the
clubfoot’s gut. “There you go, you son of a bitch!” Crosseye said in a pinched voice.

James glanced at Chulo’s unmoving figure, then ran to Crosseye, his heart thudding dreadfully. He dropped to a knee, holstered one of the Griswolds, and put a hand on the stout man’s shoulder. “How bad he stick you, hoss?”

“Ah, hell,” Crosseye said, chuckling and getting a knee under him. He placed a forearm on his knee and heaved himself to his feet. “He stabbed one of the shell belts. Poked me a little through the leather, but I been bit worse by skeeters.”

James squeezed the oldster’s neck with affection. “I thought he’d gutted you clean.”

“So did he.” Crosseye stared down at Vincente, who was hunkered over his knees, quivering his life out on the chasm floor. Crosseye slipped his Leech & Rigdon from the holster strapped to his right hip, clicked the hammer back, and aimed it down at the dying Yaqui.

James nudged his partner’s gun hand down. “No.”

He walked over to where Pablo sat on the ground near one of the slanting stone beams. Even in the darkness, James could see that the boy’s eyes were wide as saucers as he stared at the two dead men. James extended a hand toward Pablo.

A gun thundered, echoing from the main canyon. Apache Jack’s muffled voice was high with anguish. “Oh, you dirty devil…!”

James wheeled from Pablo, clicked his Griswold’s hammer back, and ran down the chasm as fast as he could without risking tripping over a rock. The corridor’s mouth shone like a purple vertical rectangle in
front of him, slowly growing as James approached it. He could hear Crosseye’s ragged breaths as the older man chugged along behind him.

Vienna screamed, moaned. James dashed out the chasm mouth into the canyon, crouching and extending both his .36s, expecting to see Apaches dashing around in front of him. He stopped, dropped to a knee, and aimed across the canyon toward where Vienna stood with a tall, long-haired man wearing a sombrero behind her, holding a gun to her head. The second lantern was held aloft by one of the other men in the pack standing around the first man and Vienna.

Apache Jack lay on the far side of the wagon, on his back. He was thrashing and groaning, clutching his belly.

All the other dozen or so men and Vienna stood in bizarre silhouette though a faint wash of lilac shone in the sky above the canyon.

“One more step, amigos, and I blow a hole in the princess’s beautiful, double-crossing head.” It was the voice of a gringo, vaguely familiar, but James couldn’t place it.

Double-crossing? Then he remembered: Red Mangham.

“Kill her,” said a tall man standing near the Denver City outlaw leader. His voice, too, was familiar. “Kill her and let’s get out of here. We’ve only got about an hour before sunrise.”

“Shut up, Stenck!” Mangham barked. “Now that we have the gold, I’m liable to shoot you!”