Twisted Hills (10 page)

“Señor, señor! Help us!”
cried Juan Mera. “A wounded gringo has gone mad and is shooting at us!”

Another shot resounded, followed by a loud crash of broken glass. Sam gave the man a shove away from him and hurried to the open church door.

Inside the church the priest saw Sam come with his gun drawn and ready. He pointed him toward a broken side window.

“He leaped through it!” said the priest. “He is out there!”

Sam backed out of the church and ran around the side of the stone and adobe building just as a peal of crazy screaming laughter rang out, followed by another shot, then another.

Four shots . . . ,
Sam reminded himself, running forward with caution from cover to cover to the rear of the church. He saw a man's bare rear end disappear around the corner, white shirttails flapping in the air. He hurried forward, then stopped at the corner of the building as another shot exploded.

Five shots . . . ,
he thought, counting silently, and stepped forward around the corner, noting a splotch of white maggots squirming in the dirt at his feet.

“Preston Kelso,” he said under his breath. “It figures.”

When he looked along a narrow alleyway running behind the church, he saw the wounded outlaw standing bowed at the waist, his free hand on his knee supporting himself. Sam could hear him wheezing and coughing as he moved toward him. Kelso held the big Dragoon clutched against his heaving chest.

Kelso lifted his banded head and slung it back and forth; white maggots flew. Sam winced slightly and kept advancing.

When Kelso noticed Sam, he straightened and batted his swirling mescal-blurred eyes and tried to focus. Mumbling something as if talking to someone beside him, he raised the Dragoon with one hand and fired. The impact of the big horse pistol threw his hand high and knocked him off his feet. More maggots flew from above his white cloth headband.

That's six,
Sam told himself. He began advancing quicker, his Colt out and cocked, his Winchester hanging in his other hand.

“Drop the gun,” he demanded. “You're out of shots.”

“Like hell I am!” Kelso screamed in a ranting, mindless voice. He struggled to his feet. “I've got plenty of reloads! Come and get them!”

“I hate thinking where you're carrying them,” Sam said half aloud. Kelso wore nothing but the wrinkled white shirt.

Kelso let out a shriek, raised the empty gun and clicked it at the Ranger. Sam knocked the big Dragoon aside. Seeing Kelso already staggering in place, Sam swept a boot sidelong and knocked his bare feet out from under him. Kelso fell to the ground. Sam clamped him down with a boot on his naked abdomen below the bandages on his chest.

“I know you! I know you!” Kelso ranted, squirming to get free from beneath the big boot.

“Shut up,” Sam said, ready to swipe the Colt barrel across his head if he didn't settle down. Maggots lay scattered in the dirt like wiggling grains of rice.

“Please,
señor
, do not hurt him,” Father Octavia called out, running up past Sam, kneeling over the downed outlaw. “He is a wounded man from the
enfermería
. He is out of his mind on mescal.”

“I see that,” Sam said. The priest held Kelso under control. Sam lifted his boot off Kelso's stomach. “Is everybody in your infirmary armed?”

“No, only him,” said the priest, holding Kelso, straightening the headband that had sagged and was dripping the white larvae to the dirt. “I gave him the Dragoon. I do not know why.” He shook his head. “He is a very convincing man. He convinced me to do his bidding and give him the gun.” He shook his head again. “What was I thinking?”

Sam heard more boots behind him and he looked over his shoulder to see the Hookes brothers walking up. He swung his gun toward them. They stopped in their tracks and raised their hands chest high.

“
Whoa
, easy, fellow,” said Charlie Ray. “We heard shooting. We come checking on our pal.”

“They gave him the mescal. Only God knows what they put in it to make him so loco,” the priest said.

“All right, he's got us there as far as the mescal goes,” said Hazerat, the two having caught the conversation. “And he's right about ol' Preston. He can be convincing as hell when it suits him. We brought him a swig or two to ease his pain—he kept our whole damn jug.”

“And it's about half peyote powder,” Charlie Ray put in. “Lucky he didn't kill somebody.”

The two leaned down and helped the priest pull Kelso to his feet. Kelso swooned and stumbled but managed to stay standing. His mind appeared to be spinning behind his shiny eyes.

The priest looked at Sam and gestured toward the smoking Dragoon lying in the dirt.

“Will you be so kind,
señor
?” he asked.

“Yes, go ahead. I've got it,” Sam said. Stepping over, he picked up the big gun and walked along behind them, as they led the half-conscious Kelso back toward the infirmary.

“We owe you a drink, mister,” Charlie Ray Hookes said to Sam over his shoulder.

Sam looked at the mumbling, mindless Kelso hanging between the three men. Maggots spilled from atop his head down the back of his shirt.

“Obliged,” Sam said. “But from the looks of your pal, I think I'll pass.”

The two gunmen laughed a little. Father Octavia shook his head and stared straight ahead, seeing no humor in Sam's statement.

Sam walked on, the big Dragoon hanging in his free hand. He'd only been in Agua Fría a day, but already he felt himself making inroads among the town's less wholesome element.

The first three weeks in Agua Fría passed quickly for the Ranger. From his perch at the front corner table in the Fair Deal Cantina, he had settled a few angry flare-ups among the drinking crowd before the situations had gotten out of hand. Two saddle tramps had been carried out with welts across their heads; two of Madson's lesser gunmen had staggered out on their own, their holsters empty. But there had not been a shot fired since the ones between him and the scalp hunters. Rolo the bartender had remarked that the place had stopped smelling like burned gunpowder. Graft had ordered a replacement mirror for the wide, empty space behind the bar.

Sam had spent enough time with men in both gangs to get a pretty good idea of how things worked. Segert and Madson kept a few close gunmen on the payroll, the ones they knew they could rely on. The rest of the men were lower-level gunmen like the Hookes, who worked for Segert, or the two saddle tramps whose heads he'd thumped, who worked for Madson. But these men weren't regulars for the two gangs. These were strictly extra guns when extra guns were needed. They hung around town just waiting to be called upon for the next piece of work. Sam knew that both Segert and Madson had heard about what he'd done to the three scalp hunters.

He knew that both men realized he was here looking for gun work. He'd been noticed. Nobody knew that he and Graft had a deal between them, yet everybody did know from the first day he'd arrived at the Fair Deal that he wouldn't stand for any trouble while he was there. His groundwork had been laid, he reminded himself, sitting at his table in the front corner, his Winchester across his lap. Now it appeared he'd have to be patient—
wait to be called upon,
he told himself.

He sat considering his situation as the Hooke brothers and Preston Kelso walked through the dusty door blanket and stepped over to his table. He'd spoken and drunk some with the Hookes the past couple of weeks, but it was the first he'd seen of Kelso since the day the gunman had gone wild-eyed mad on mescal and peyote powder.

“Jones,” said Charlie Ray, “might we join you? I'll stand us all a bottle of rye.”

“I'm drinking beer,” Sam said. “But seat yourself all the same. He gestured toward empty chairs strung around the table. The three pulled out chairs and seated themselves. Hazerat summoned a young Mexican woman named Mona Reyes, who hurried off to bring a bottle and glasses from the bar.

“How's the head?” Sam asked Kelso.

“Still raw and sore,” Kelso said in a dismal tone. “I don't look for it to ever be right.” He raised a large sombrero carefully from his head and set it on his lap. “Damn 'paches.”

Sam saw the thick wrapping of gauze around his head from his ears up.

Sam noted the big Dragoon was gone. A slimmer, lighter Army Colt conversion rested in a cross-draw holster on Kelso's left side.

“You're the one who knocked me on my ass when I'd gone loco on the poisons these two gave me?” Kelso asked.

“No,” said Sam. “But I kicked your feet out from under you, held you down until the priest came for you.”

Kelso considered it for a moment, then nodded.

“Obliged,” he said. “There's no telling where I might've winded up.” He eyed Charlie Ray and Hazerat as the young woman stood the bottle of rye and glasses on the table.

When Charlie Ray started to reach for his pocket to pay, Sam cut in and said, “I've got this.”

He pulled the bull scrotum pouch that had belonged to Curtis Rudabell from behind his belt and deliberately held it out on the table where Kelso got a good look at it. The tobacco had been removed, but the gold coins were still inside it. Sam opened it, pulled out a gold coin and let it lie on the table.

“No, sir, Jones,” said Charlie Ray. “I said I'd stand this one, and I meant it. Besides, you said you're not drinking rye.” He pulled out a wad of dollar bills and peeled one off and dropped it atop the table. The Mexican girl snatched it and was gone.

“Right you are,” said Sam. He let Kelso watch as he slid the coin back inside the pouch, closed the pouch and stuffed it behind his belt. This time he made sure the initials CR were turned outward, clearly visible.

With his shot glass in hand, Kelso sat staring numbly at Sam, his eyes staying on the pouch after Sam moved his hand away from it.

Charlie Ray and Hazerat took notice of Kelso's riveted interest in the pouch.

“Yo, Preston,” said Charlie Ray. “Are you going to drink that rye or let it age a little longer?”

Kelso shook his head as if to clear it. Instead of answering Charlie Ray, he stared at Sam. He forced himself to stare less intently.

“So, Jones,” he said to Sam, “where'd you get such a tobacco pouch as that?”

“I picked it up on my way here,” Sam said casually. He just stared at Kelso, knowing the pouch had struck a nerve. “Want to see it?” he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he pulled the pouch from his belt and pitched it in front of Kelso.

“Did you sure enough?” said Kelso. “You mean at a trading post, somewhere like that?” He clasped the pouch and stared at the initials on it.

Sam could see the wheels turning in his mind.

“Huh-uh, nothing like that,” Sam said. “Fact is I took it off a dead man.”

Kelso went back to staring at the pouch, pieces starting to come together in his mind.

“Who do you suppose killed him?” he asked, his eyes shooting back up at Sam.

“Apache, no doubt,” Sam said.

“Yeah, why do you say?” said Kelso.

“Because he was wearing the same kind of haircut you are,” Sam replied, nodding at Kelso's bandaged head.

“What else was he carrying?” Kelso asked, knowing he had to play this really careful.

“Not much else,” Sam said. “Why? Was he a friend of yours?”

“Yeah, I'll say he was,” said Kelso. “He was riding with me when we did a job on the other side of the border. We picked up a lawman on our trail coming through Nogales. Couldn't shake him.”

“Too bad,” said Sam. “Looks like the Apache got to him before the law could.”

“You just left him?” Kelso asked.

“Yep,” Sam said. “I dragged him off the trail into some rocks. He's still there if you want to take up a shovel and ride out. It's a two-day-straight ride from here.”

The Hookes looked at each other, then at Kelso.

Kelso looked at them, then back at Sam, throwing the pouch down in front of him.

“He was a good enough pal. I just might,” Kelso growled. He reached down, raised his shot glass and tossed back the rye. Sam could see a puzzling wave of questions streak back and forth across his mind. Did this stranger kill Rudabell? Did he take the saddlebags of money? Did the Apaches kill him and take it? Or did Rudabell manage to hide the money under a rock before he died?

Kelso slammed the shot glass down on the tabletop and turned toward the front door. Over his shoulder he called back to the Hooke brothers, “You two come with me. We've got to talk.”

The Hookes gave Sam a curious look, but Sam only shrugged. He sat back and watched as the two brothers scrambled up and hurried out through the swaying blanket behind Preston Kelso. He picked up the cork and palmed it down firmly into the bottle of rye.
That should give the three of them something to think about. . . .

•   •   •

Moments later, Mona Reyes had started to pick up the bottle of rye and the shot glasses from the table when a hand pulled the blanket serving as a front door aside and light spilled in from the street. She stopped clearing the table as Daryl Dolan, Clyde Burke and Jon Ho filed in and stepped over to Sam's table.

“Leave it,” Dolan said, nodding at the bottle. He looked at Sam as if for permission. Sam gave him a nod.

Dolan picked up the bottle, looked at it and swished its contents, judging the amount already consumed.

“You're one of those early drinkers, I see,” he said to Sam.

Sam didn't answer. He looked at each of the three, lingering on Jon Ho, having not encountered him before.

“You're not hard to find these days,” Dolan said. “I heard you sit here like you're waiting for mail.”

“You never know,” Sam said drily. “I could get a love letter.”

Dolan chuffed and pulled the cork from the bottle of rye.

“Here's to love letters,” he said. He took a swig and passed the bottle to Clyde Burke.

“I thought I got one once,” Burke said, raising the bottle halfway to his lips. “Turned out, it was from a cousin of mine—said I had left her with child.” He took a drink, then lowered the bottle. “I'd never even met the girl.” He let out a short whiskey hiss. “She was cockeyed as a goose. Must have figured me for some other cousin.” He passed the bottle to Jon Ho. “Cousins being how they are.”

Sam nodded.

“That's how stuff gets started,” he said. He nodded at Jon Ho, who stood staring at him intently. “Who's your friend here?”

“This is Jon Ho,” said Dolan. “He takes getting used to.”

“I bet he does,” said Sam, not wanting to be the first to break his cold dark stare with Jon Ho. Neither one blinked until Ho raised the bottle and took a deliberately long swig. His eyes welled as he lowered the bottle.

“Care for a chair, or are you going to drink all my whiskey standing up?” Sam asked flatly.

Jon Ho set the almost empty bottle back on the table and continued to stare. Sam looked at Dolan, avoiding Ho's venomous black eyes.

“No chair,” said Dolan. “Segert sent us to get you.”

“
Get
me?” Sam said coolly. He gave Dolan a tilted gaze.

“I meant
take
you to him,” said Dolan. “Escort you to him.”

Sam's stare didn't change.

“Jesus,” said Dolan. “
Ride
with you? Show you how the hell to get there? Okay . . . ?” He looked back and forth between Burke and Ho, then at Sam. “Ease the hell up, Jones. He sent for you. You wanted
gun work.
My guess is, he's got a proposition for you.”

Sam nodded as if considering it, not wanting to seem too eager to meet the man.

“I told you I'm thinking of going into business for myself,” he said.

“All right, then,” said Dolan. “That's what I'll tell him.” He nodded the others back toward the door. “Obliged for the rye.” He started to turn and leave. The other two followed suit.

“Hold on, fellows. I'm coming,” Sam said. He pushed himself up from his chair.

Dolan chuffed and shook his head.

“No offense, Jones,” he said with a slight grin, “but you are an aggravating man.”

“I've heard that,” Sam said.

Burke pulled the dusty blanket back and held it as Dolan and Ho filed through.

“After you,” Sam said to Burke, standing firm until Burke left in front of him.

He followed Burke out onto the street, and the four of them walked abreast toward the town livery barn where Sam had left his dun stabled during his days in town. On the way down the street, Sam saw the young woman, Lilith, seated at a whetstone sharpening knives out in front of a mercantile store. Her peddler's wagon sat at a hitch rail. She looked up at Sam with a guarded smile as he and the three men walked past her. But before he could return her smile, she lowered her head quickly as Jon Ho glared at her.

The four turned down a narrow alley to the livery barn and when they reached the end, the three gunmen lagged back a step. Sam turned quickly and saw they had stopped in their tracks.

“Oh, I meant to tell you, Jones. You won't need your horse,” said Dolan.

Sam knew instantly that something was wrong. He started to swing his Winchester up, but before he could, a lariat whistled in and looped around him, waist high. It tightened around both arms at his elbows and pinned the rifle down. He struggled. A hard yank on the rope jerked him off his feet. No sooner had he hit the ground on his back than another lariat swung in. The rope clenched tight around both his ankles. He felt the strong pull of horses draw both ropes tight.

“Good roping, vaqueros!” Dolan said to two Mexicans seated atop their horses, lariats in their hands.

Sam struggled again, but he felt the lariats draw tighter from either end.

“Whoa, now, look at Jones here!” shouted Dolan with a dark laugh. Stepping in, he clamped a boot down on Sam's wrist and jerked the Winchester from his hand. “Better give me that before you shoot your foot off.”

“He went down hard,” said Burke, as he and Jon Ho stood back watching.

Before he straightened, Dolan jerked Sam's Colt from its holster, and removed the two scalp hunters' guns and the bull scrotum from behind Sam's belt. He pitched the scalp hunters' guns over in the dirt, but held Sam's Colt and the pouch in his hand. He inspected the initials and smiled to himself.

“You sure carry a lot of stuff, Jones,” he said. Then he stepped back and gave the two Mexicans a nod; they loosened the tension on the two ropes a little. Dolan rested a boot down on Sam's chest, holding him to the dirt. He grinned down at Sam.

“You've been playing hard to get,” he said. “But I can tell you've been waiting for an offer from Segert or Madson, either one.” As he spoke, one of the Mexicans looped his lariat around his saddle horn, stepped down and quickly, deftly looped a length of the rope around Sam's wrists.

Sam resisted, but ended up lying helpless, his hands tied together and clamped to his belly.

Dolan cocked Sam's Winchester and aimed it down an inch from his face.

“Untie his feet,” he told the Mexican. To Sam he said, “Make a false move, I'll open your skull for the buzzards.”

Sam just stared up at him. He heard footsteps coming up from behind him. They stopped only a few inches from his head.

“Here he is, boss,” said Dolan. “Trussed up like a game bird.”