The Savage Curse (18 page)

“I know,” she whispered back. “We'll put him in a wagon, take him to Tucson sometime today.”

“You might have two in that wagon,” John said, still whispering.

She nodded.

“I checked his pulse,” she said. “It was very weak.”

“Did you check Ben's?”

Gale gave out an almost-silent laugh.

“I should have,” she said. “He's dead to the world, poor man.”

“We'll be up at the mine, if you need us,” John said.

“I'll pack you a lunch, give you some vittles. You can cook up there. There are plates and utensils in one of the cabinets.”

“We'll be fine,” he said. “Thanks.”

As John made preparations to leave, he saddled both his and Ben's horses. He would let Ben sleep as long as possible. They had much to do. He was worried about Bellaugh and dreaded going back into the house to check on him. Yet he had sensed the night before that Clive knew he was going to die. His last words about getting Hobart let him know that the lieutenant never expected to ride out after the murderous outlaw.

It was sad, he thought. Bellaugh was a young man in his prime. He probably had a good future in the army. He had been cut down mercilessly by a man who didn't deserve to breathe the same air as Bellaugh.

Ben was still sound asleep when John returned to the house.

Gale met him in the front room, holding a flour sack.

“I'll put this next to the ore sample,” she said. “Are you ready to leave? It's still early.”

She looked so grandmotherly that John felt a tug at his heart. She had such a radiant face at that moment, he was deeply touched. He felt a sadness at leaving her alone in the house with one dead man, another probably dying. She had lit a single lamp and its orange glow softened one side of her face so that she looked almost youthful.

Outside, the dawn was just hovering below the horizon, wiping out all but the morning star from the bluing sky. Birds chirped and a mist rose from the grasses on a field surrounded by low mountains in solemn shadow.

“Yes, as soon as I can rouse old Ben there,” he said.

“Oh, he's not so old,” she said, and there was a coyness to her tone that he found charming.

“No, I reckon not,” he said. “How's Lieutenant Bellaugh doing?”

“His breathing is very shallow. And I could hear a slight rattling in his throat when I bent over him a while ago.”

“I hope he pulls through, Gale.”

“So do I,” she said, and her breathy whisper sounded like a prayer.

John stood next to Ben, shook his shoulder gently.

“Ben,” he said. “Time to get up.”

Ben's eyes fluttered open and he jerked up to a sitting position. He drew his legs up and massaged both knees. He rubbed grains of sleep from his eyes and looked at Gale.

“You look like an angel,” he said.

Gale's face turned pink with a sudden blush.

She made a slight curtsy to acknowledge the compliment.

Then she turned and set the sack of foodstuffs down on the table next to the chunk of ore and scurried off to the kitchen. Ben got up and stretched. A moment later, Gale returned with two cups of steaming coffee. She made both men sit down before she handed them their cups.

“Still wet outside?” Ben asked, blowing steam off his coffee.

“Pretty wet,” John said. The coffee warmed him, cleared the night phlegm from his throat.

“There's coffee in the bag,” Gale said, “and a pot in one of those cupboards in the lab. Clarence liked his Arbuckle's. I'm sending you two pounds, and we'll come by with more in a week, if you're still there.”

“We shouldn't be more than a week or so, if my plan works,” John said.

“That's pretty fast,” Ben said, swishing the coffee around his mouth to cool it some. “Hobart's probably in Mexico by now.”

John said nothing. He knew that Hobart had ways of finding out things that mattered to him. Very few people had known about the diggings in Colorado, yet Hobart knew just where to come and how many men he would need to slaughter everyone there. He had a hunch that Ollie knew people in Tucson who would give him the information he wanted, for a price. Gold made men mad. It also made them greedy and willing to sacrifice honesty and honor for a taste of it.

Ben and John said their good-byes and left Gale with Lieutenant Bellaugh, who was still alive despite great odds.

By mid-afternoon they were on the mesa and had set their bedrolls, saddlebags, and rifles inside the lab building. John found all the pots and pans, plates, and eating utensils, and there was plenty of wood to cook and keep them warm at night.

“I wonder what happened to that Injun you caught, John. Coyote. Think he was part of that bunch that jumped the soldiers?”

“Probably. I wouldn't worry about him. We're leaving first thing in the morning for Tucson.”

“You're just goin' to ride in there, pretty as you please, and pay no nevermind that Hobart's bunch might be there?”

“Yep, I am. Goin' straight to the assay office with that chunk of ore and some of those pouches of dust.”

“You have to show the assayer the gold dust?”

“I want to make his eyes wide,” John said.

“If I didn't know you better, Johnny, I'd say you'd gone plumb loco.”

“Maybe. I have a hunch the word will get out pretty quick once that assayer sees what we have. And I'm counting on his having a big mouth.”

“You goin' to see that Sheriff Wilts that the lieutenant told you about?”

“Yes, but I'm sure Gale will beat us to it.”

“She goin' up there today?”

“If Bellaugh can make the trip,” John said.

At dawn the next morning, John and Ben were already riding toward Tucson, carrying the chunk of rich ore and several bags of gold dust they still had from the diggings in Colorado.

Gold, John thought, was like a magnet. It drew people to it, cast them under its magic spell.

He hoped Hobart would be the first to succumb to its golden allure.

23

THE SIGN ON THE ADOBE STORE WINDOW READ: HIRAM L. ABERNATHY, PROP. ASSAYS, MINING CLAIMS, NOTARY PUBLIC. The morning sun was the only light on the street and halfway down, the small building was still in shadow. John could see a man moving around inside the store brandishing a feather duster. Motes of dust danced in his wake like mothlings stirred from their night beds.

Ben and John tied their horses to hitchrings embedded in an adobe cairn in front of the boardwalk, and walked inside. Ben carried a gunny sack with the ore sample, John had his saddlebags slung over his shoulder, one pouch bulging with sacks of gold dust.

Abernathy looked up at the big clock on his wall as the two men entered his store. A bell tinkled above it, bobbing on a slender bar of metal. The sound startled Ben and he staggered to the side in a misstep. Abernathy chuckled.

“That's just my warning bell,” the man said, “so's I can hear if anybody comes in while I'm in the back room working at my trade.”

“You the assayer?” John asked.

“Hiram Abernathy at your service, sir. What can I do for you on this fine morning? Early as it is, we're open for business.”

“You get much business?” Ben asked, hefting the heavy burlap sack.

“Not so much, not so steady, but tollible, sir, tollible. What you got in your sack?”

“Gold ore,” John said, his voice booming in the small room. “From the old Gill mine.”

“Knowed old Clarence,” Abernathy said. “He was good people. Gale sell his mine to you boys?”

“Yes,” John said. “We have some ore we took out yesterday. Got more of it up there and we got some dust we want weighed.”

“You boys must have been workin' hard. Where'd you get the dust?”

“We have a place,” John said.

“Not up on that shelf.”

“You ask a lot of questions, Mr. Abernathy,” John said. “We want an assay and a weighing, that's all.”

“Sure, sure, glad to do it. Let me see your ore, then we can weigh your dust.”

Ben thought Abernathy's eyes would pop out of his skull when he slid the ore from the sack. The assayer turned the ore over and over in his hands and his eyes bulged even more.

“Take me a day or so to get you an assay on this. I'll have you sign some papers, which I will also sign, and then we'll both be protected.”

“Fine,” John said.

Abernathy took the ore into a back room. Ben and John could hear him load it onto a shelf. When he returned, he was smiling. He brought with him a legal document and a receipt. He wrote down all the pertinent information.

“Now, your name, sir, if you please?”

“John Savage.”

Abernathy wrote down the name. John watched him closely, saw no sign that his name registered with the man. The assayer signed all the papers and wrote out a receipt for the ore sample. He gave John a copy that matched his own. He slid his copy under the counter, out of sight. John folded his receipt and handed it to Ben, who tucked it inside his shirt.

“Now let's take a look at your dust. Gold is at sixteen dollars the ounce.”

John reached into his saddlebag and set six sacks of gold dust on the counter. Abernathy's eyes strained to get out of their sockets. These were large leather pouches and when he lifted one, his mouth twisted into a half smile and his nose wrinkled.

“My, you two have been busy,” he said.

Abernathy opened one pouch and looked inside, eyes wide as a bird egg.

He set the scales.

“I should pour this out,” he said. “Sack weighs so much.”

“Do what you have to do,” John said.

“Well, let's see here,” Abernathy said. He poured the gold dust into a small funneled container on the scale. He reached under the counter, pulled out a piece of paper and the stub of a lead pencil.

He marked the weight of the dust and wrote it down on the piece of paper. He hummed to himself while he did this.

“Now I'll just weigh this pouch empty, and we might be able to speed up the process. Looks like each sack weighs about the same. Unless you want a real accurate figure on how much your dust weighs.”

“Close is good enough,” John said. “We're in something of a hurry.”

“We'll do it that way, then. You want to cash any of this dust in for greenbacks?”

“No.”

Abernathy removed the container with the dust and weighed the leather pouch. He wrote down that figure.

“Now,” he said, “we'll just weigh these other pouches and see how many ounces in each, subtracting the weight of the pouch.”

Ben watched Abernathy, who hummed some tuneless ditty while he weighed and subtracted and wrote down figures on the piece of paper. When he was finished, he handed the sacks to John, one in each hand. John put them back in his saddlebag.

“My, my,” Abernathy said to himself as he totaled the figures. “You have a goodly amount of dust here. Is this all you have?”

“No,” John said. “We just brought those in because they were handy.”

Ben's eyes went wide, but he kept his thoughts to himself. He poked his tongue into one cheek, pooching it out as though he had a lollypop in it.

Abernathy turned the piece of paper around, pushed it toward John.

“Those are the ounces, and I took the liberty of multiplying those by sixteen to give you a dollar figure on what your dust is worth at this moment.”

John studied the figures, but did not pick up the piece of paper.

“Sounds right,” he said.

He left the paper on the counter and Abernathy made no more mention of it. Instead, he licked his lips, looking like the cat who swallowed the goldfish out of the bowl, his eyes protruding like a pair of marbles in a bowl of mush.

“See you in a couple of days,” John said. “Thank you, Mr. Abernathy.”

“Yes, you come back, sir. I'll have your assay ready for you.”

“At first glance, Mr. Abernathy, does the ore look promising to you?” John asked.

Abernathy cleared his throat.

“Well, hard to say. Have to do some checking, some weighing. And, as you may know, an assay can only assess what's measurable. If you have a vein, it could peter out after a couple of inches, or it could go several feet, high or low, deep or shallow.”

“I understand,” John said.

“Ah, do you have any more like that one?” Abernathy asked. “None of my business, of course, but just curious.”

John thought a moment as he looked into Abernathy's eyes. They were lit up like a pair of glowworms.

He looked at Ben and winked with the eye that Abernathy could not see.

“I got a couple of wheelbarrows full of ore just like that chunk I brought in.”

Abernathy swallowed, which seemed to act on his eyes, both of which widened and swelled like a pair of roasting marshmallows on a stick.

“Well, now,” Abernathy clucked without making a sentence or expressing his thought.

“See you in a couple of days, Mr. Abernathy,” John said again, holding back his smile. He and Ben walked out of the building and onto the street. They untied their horses and rode off at a slow pace.

“Where now?” Ben asked.

“First to see Sheriff Wilts,” John said.

“Then back to the mine?”

“No,” John said, “I want to take a look at that saloon Crudder mentioned when we were in the canyon.”

“Hobart's hangout?”

“That's the place,” John said.