Gunman and the Angel Page 8

  ‘Can you describe Zack Deller?’

  ‘Never met him. Everything was handled through the lawyer and the bookkeeper. They made it slick while they swindled us. Me, I’m still waiting for my partner, Will, after all these years and can’t find him, was going to seek another partner. I paid the sixteen-thousand for the claim but had nothing to work it. I needed Will’s eight-thousand. I had the original paperwork for the partnership. Four years ago. They stole it all away from me.’ He squinted and glanced around the cafe, then shook his head. ‘They’re watching us.’

  Dan cleaned his plate with a buttermilk biscuit then finished his coffee. He frowned. ‘Who?’

  ‘Somebody gave One-Ear Shocky more than a five-dollar gold piece. I’m not supposed to be here. I never come to Yuma. That’s what they said. The deal with the lawyer what swindled me, Oliver Ashby – it was him, Zack Deller, and Deller’s bookkeeper – cute little thing, I think her name was Jenny. I think Ashby, or somebody, told me Deller lay with her sometimes.’

  ‘You remember where the claim is?’

  ‘I think so. I’ll draw you a map.’

  ‘Is there a town close by, a place to start? All I know, the claim is northeast of here. Is there a town nearby with records? Is it near Aztec?’

  ‘No. My mind ain’t quite straight. I remember Jenny, but not her last name. I remember the lawyer – Zack Deller’s lawyer – Oliver Ashby, Mr Ashby. Me and Will was going through him. I bought the mine for sixteen-thousand dollars from the widow. The widow—’ He shook his head.

  ‘There had to be a town where this happened.’

  ‘There was but I can’t remember. It was years ago, so many years. So much has happened.’ His bloodshot eyes looked desperate. ‘What’s gonna happen to me?’

  ‘We’ll try to get the claim back. You got a new partner now, Mandy Lee. She’ll have the eight-thousand for you.’

  ‘I need some whiskey. Maybe a glass of whiskey will help me remember.’

  Dan said, ‘No whiskey. We got to get out to the claim.’

  ‘They’ll kill us. I’m not supposed to be in Yuma.’

  As jumbled as everything appeared, Dan had started putting events and people together. He said, ‘Do you know who gave One-Ear Shocky more money?’

  ‘It had to be the gunfighter looking for me. Dan, I’m not supposed to be here.’

  ‘Quit saying that.’

  ‘They told me I’d be dead if I came to Yuma.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I still got my copy of the contract between me and Will Lee. I got the original Bill of Sale for the mine claim. Will told me about the tin box, about the paper and money in it. They came up with new paperwork or changed Will’s copy if they got his tin box, but I got the originals. I got them hidden, that’s the only reason I’m still alive.’

  ‘Where are they hidden?’

  ‘Can’t say. Maybe after all these years it don’t matter so much. Zack Deller has already pulled hundreds of thousands from the mine.’

  Dan said, ‘Do you know the gunfighter?’

  ‘Handsome Jack Mills. He ain’t no gunfighter – he’s a killer. Does killing for Deller. He come through Aztec every week to check on me. When they beat me up them three times, I told them the papers was in another town, somebody else had them. If they killed me, the letter I wrote about the swindle and the papers would be sent to the Pinkertons.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘No.’ Dickers leaned forward. ‘I got them hidden. I’ll tell you where when I can trust you.’

  Dan leaned back. It would take too much time to get Dickers’ head straight. ‘The stage will be in late this afternoon. I got to talk to my boss. Right now, since it’s so dangerous for you here, we ride a little out of town where we can set up camp. We’ll head for the mine, see how it’s operating. You got a lot more to remember, Jerry. But I’ll get you out of Yuma.’

  Dickers’ pudgy face – still red raw with shaving the beard – lit as he sat straight. ‘I do remember something. The name of the widow I bought the mine claim from, Mrs Ida Collins.’

  ‘You think she’s still around?’

  ‘Oh no, she had an accident after the mine deal was done, got herself killed. Not sure when. I remember something else. Zack Deller married Sarah, Ida’s sister. Sarah was a widow too, with two little girls, husband killed in the war like Ida’s. She was just a snip of a girl. Deller swept her off her feet, married her, and moved on out to her ranch.’

  ‘Ranch, where?’

  ‘I can’t remember,’ Jeremiah Dickers said.

  By noon, Dan and Jeremiah Dickers had checked out of the Yuma hotel and were three miles away alongside the stage route. They stopped in a clearing among junipers and Dan gathered mesquite to build a fire under the coffee pot.

  Dan said, ‘We’ll leave the horses saddled. We can hear the stage when it comes along.’

  ‘The stage will be going back to Yuma. I can’t go back.’

  ‘I know. I’ll talk to my boss. We ride the stage to Tucson on the return.’

  ‘What do we do in the meantime?’

  ‘You remember more. You got paper? I got a pencil.’

  ‘Just a napkin from the hotel café.’

  ‘Sit yourself over there and start drawing where the mine is.’

  ‘Not sure I remember clear.’

  ‘Draw it as close as you can. And where you think the ranch might be – and any town.’

  Dickers sat close to the campfire where coffee perked.

  Dan cocked his head. He thought he heard a noise, the grinding step of sand. A horse? At first he thought it might be the creak and groan of a moving stagecoach out along the road. Then he knew it was something else.

  A voice behind him said, ‘Turn around slow, Deadly Dan Quint. We gonna find out if you’re as fast as they say.’

  Lifting the loop from the Colt, Dan took a step to the left as he turned. The afternoon sun was in his eyes. He pulled the front brim of his Stetson lower. He looked at a short, clean-shaven man, under thirty in a black Ten Gallon Stetson. ‘You can’t be Handsome Jack Mills.’

  ‘The very same.’

  ‘You ain’t no bigger’n a minute. The desert wind will blow you away like tumbleweed. How come you quick-draw pretenders come so little? That Navy Colt is bigger than you.’

  ‘I’m big enough.’

  Dan waited while the short gunslinger stared up at him. ‘Well?’

  When Handsome Jack’s hand touched his Colt grip, Dan already had his Peacemaker in hand and shot him in the forehead, right through the brim of the Ten Gallon Stetson. Handsome Jack’s head jerked back and he fell quickly to desert dirt. The Colt flew over his bleeding face.

  Another shot rang out. Dan started to turn toward it when a third shot slammed into him, searing pain through the lower left side of his back. The force caused him to jerk around, bringing his Colt to bear. He bent with his gun arm extended, and saw Jeremiah Dickers throw the paper napkin high, clutch both hands over his bleeding heart, bloodshot eyes wide with disbelief as he fell back against the juniper. The next shot slashed a crease along Dan’s left arm just below the shoulder. But he had pinpointed where it came from. He knelt low and with gun arm extended, fired twice. Both slugs tore into Big Nose Rox Levant.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Dan pressed his hand against the back wound. ‘Ah!’ he shouted. Fire tore through his back. He dropped to his knees, Colt still in his hand. The gun began to shake. It fell to the ground. He breathed deeply, picked it up again, and looked where Levant had fallen. ‘Why you hombres keep pumping lead through me?’

  ‘If you died like you was supposed to, be no need for so much shooting.’ Levant’s pistol was too far away for him. Lying face-up, he dug his elbows in the sand trying to move toward it.

  Dan pressed against the back wound. He swung his leg out to kick Levant’s gun away. ‘Shut up while I see if the slug went through.’ He groped under his shirt to feel the lower left part of his belly. His hand came away
bloody. The slug had pierced through closer to his side than his back. His arm bled more, felt like a branding iron against it, skin chewed and soaking the sleeve of his shirt. Still kneeling, he slid his gun belt up to cover the in and out wound and tightened the buckle. With the Peacemaker back in its holster, he kept his hand pushed against the arm wound.

  ‘You mighta kilt me, Dan Quint,’ Levant said.

  ‘I told you to shut up.’ Dan pushed to his feet. His head went light. He staggered to Jeremiah Dickers and checked to be sure that he was dead. He picked up the napkin. There was a squiggly line with a Y, maybe for Yuma. A line for a road led to an X to mark where the silver mine was supposed to be. A circle at another corner of the napkin had the word, ranch, printed. A square between them had, town. Dan went down to one knee as the napkin became fuzzy. He shoved the paper in a vest pocket and waited, shaking his head.

  Big Nose Rox Levant groaned and shifted, still on his back. ‘You got to patch up my leaks, Quint. You caught a lung – I can barely breathe. I think you musta shot my liver.’

  Dan staggered to a craggy boulder next to Levant, big enough to lean against. He slid down to sit. His hand still gripped the bleeding arm. The arm bled more but his back still felt on fire. ‘You been living a high life, Levant. You put on some tonnage since I last saw you – plump as a hog ready for slaughter.’

  Big Nose Levant grimaced in pain, the saddle-horn nose pushed into waddles of cheeky fat, his little eyes like black ants. ‘Yeah, had me a chubby señorita along the Mexican coast last coupla years, kept feeding me tacos and beans and tequila and her special brand of loving. Pumped me up and wore me out – had to leave her when she got in a family way. Hardly recognize you, old hoss. You’re skinny as a pine tree.’

  ‘Where is Monte Steep?’

  ‘Oh, Jesus, I got some pain, Quint! Oh!’ He bit his fat lower lip. He hadn’t shaved in a week. ‘Steep dumped us. We, his loyal men, stuck with him. Three, four year ago, he just says, ‘adios, boys’ and cuts loose, leaves us stranded. Heard he changed his name. Even heard he sort-of went legit. Before he left us, he took to wearin’ glasses, had a gray shade to the lenses so nobody can see his eye color. Don’t know who he is now.’

  ‘I think I do,’ Dan said. ‘You know where he is?’

  ‘Last I heard a town called Darion, big time citizen, got a thousand-head ranch outside it. I was fixing to go there before you shot me up. He owes me money. Me and Handsome Jack thought Dickers would lead us to him, on account of the old guy left Aztec when I heard he shouldn’t. Maybe Monte Steep owed money to Jerry Dickers too.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Dan said. His head went light again and he felt his face flush. He pulled the belt buckle tighter. He needed something to wrap his arm.

  Big Nose Rox Levant cried out, ‘Oh, God! Dan, please, don’t let me bleed to death. Patch me up enough so I can make it to a doc.’

  ‘Can’t do it, Levant, got to let you bleed on out.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘On account of what you done.’

  ‘I ain’t never done nothing to you. I wasn’t even there when Steep shot your brother.’ He shifted and groaned some more. ‘That was a lotta years ago. OK, I fixed him up good enough to ride and we got outta town, but I had nothing to do with your brother.’

  ‘What about the wagon you torched and the family you killed?’

  Levant’s fat face wrinkled in a frown. ‘What wagon?’

  Dan grimaced. ‘So many you can’t even remember. Down by the Rio Gila River, close to Yuma. Not far from here. You took a tin box.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. But I never shot nobody. It was Monte, he was the one took the tin box and shot the man.’

  ‘Then you killed the boy.’

  ‘I never did no such. The wagon was burning. The boy jumped and misjudged. He come down on the wheel with the side of his head. Split it wide open. Now, you know the boy wasn’t shot. Nobody shot the boy. He fell and cracked his head on the edge of the wheel. Wasn’t much left of the wagon anyways. Burned up. Wasn’t me, Dan.’

  ‘You took the woman.’

  Levant coughed with blood in his spit. ‘No, sir, that was Monte too. He killed the man and took the woman.’

  ‘You used the woman for sport.’

  Levant closed his eyes. ‘Okay, yeah. But we only each had one turn. She grabbed Tom Baily’s Colt and pushed it under her chin and scrambled her face. Nothing we could do. Guess she didn’t want no more of our kinda lovin’. She was such a fine-looking woman, we was gonna take her to Mexico. None of that’s got nothing to do with you.’ He coughed again with more blood. His eyes closed tight. ‘Dan, if you’re gonna make me die here, promise to give me a Christian burial. Will you do that for me?’

  ‘No,’ Dan said. ‘I ain’t got strength to bury nobody. You shot it out of me.’

  ‘But, tell somebody there are bodies out here.’

  ‘Might be out of it myself in a bit.’ Dan looked out toward the road.

  Levant wrenched in pain. ‘Oh, God, at least say some words over me after I go.’

  ‘There was a witness at the wagon, saw you all, saw what you done. You and Steep both back shot the man, the back and the head. You threw the woman on the front of Steep’s horse, you did.’

  ‘What witness?’

  ‘The little girl saw you. She saw your faces. And that ain’t all you done.’

  ‘Not to you, Dan. I ain’t crossed you.’

  ‘What about Mexico? You and Monte Steep and three other fellas dry-gulched me those years ago. You killed my horse.’

  ‘Not me, that was Monte. I never wanted to go.’

  ‘But you did. And you back shot the girl’s pa, and had sport with her ma, and left them there in the rain with all their belongings burning in the wagon. So, you got to bleed out and die and nobody to think over you again.’

  ‘We don’t get help; you’ll die too, Dan Quint. And who will think over you?’

  ‘Not me. I ain’t gonna die. I’m waiting for a stagecoach.’

  Dan Quint sat in desert sand leaning against the rough rock, gritty wind blowing, sun hot against him. He slept in a woozy daze, the air turning cold with a setting sun. Lightheaded dizziness came from his loss of blood, or by those other wounds through the years – belly, chest, head, arm, leg. His hand had slipped from his upper arm – the shirt sleeve was soaked. He shook his head to a sound and opened his eyes. Where was his horse Mesa? The chestnut stood tied to a juniper over by the gunfighter’s body.

  They were all dead; Big Nose Rox Levant, Handsome Jack Mills and Jeremiah Dickers. Mandy would be upset she wasn’t there. She wanted to be part of Levant’s killing. It was her parents he and Steep had slaughtered. If she hadn’t been hiding under that burning wagon, her body would have been added to the family.

  The sound came again.

  Dan didn’t have enough strength to stand. Blood seeped from under the high, tight gun belt. He was losing too much. He rolled against the rock to his right, away from the wounded arm, to his knees. With grunts, he lifted his right knee.

  ‘Hiya!’ the stage coach driver shouted from a distance.

  Dan used his elbows on top of the rock to get his left foot under him. Leaning forward he pushed unsteadily while straightening his legs. Sparks of pain shot through his back. When he was standing, he turned around and leaned back. Mesa raised her head, her ears went straight up. She looked at Dan then her head moved as she watched the stagecoach rumble and rattle along the road.

  ‘Hiya!’ Coot shouted to the four-team. A kid not twenty rode shotgun. They were coming along quickly, the four-up loping at an easy, noisy gallop.

  Dan pushed off the rock and staggered the seven or eight feet to grip Mesa’s saddle horn. He untied the reins and draped them over the horn. He didn’t have the strength to mount. His leg wouldn’t raise high enough for the stirrup. He heard the stage rattle fifty yards away, too far for Coot or the kid to see him tucked in the clearing. With a grip on the saddle horn he turned Mesa’s head. He patted her
rump and she started to walk toward the road while he stumbled alongside.

  The stage was in full view now, coming straight out and moving fast.

  ‘Coot!’ Dan shouted. ‘Coot!’

  Neither heard him. The stagecoach had two passengers, while it bounced and rumbled with so much noise nobody inside heard him. Dan pulled the Peacemaker. He fired a shot in the air, the crack echoed off bluffs under a cloudy sky, pregnant with rain.

  The stagecoach kept rolling along.

  Dan aimed at the top of the stage where luggage was tied. He aimed toward the front, just behind Coot’s head. He fired again. Mesa jerked so hard Dan had to clutch the horn.

  The kid stood and turned to look in the direction of the shot, the Winchester to his shoulder.

  Coot spun half around, squinted hard, then leaned back pulling the reins tight. ‘Whoa!’ he shouted. ‘Ho, easy.’ He stood up from the seat as the horses slowed. He spit tobacco juice over his left shoulder. ‘Is that you, Dan?’ he said. ‘What the hell happened to you?’

  At the coach, the passengers helped – two railroad engineers setting up an office in Yuma. They used clean-laundered shirt strips to wrap the arm and back wounds. Coot hovered outside the stagecoach door. The kid kept the team settled, up front.

  Coot nodded to the kid, said, ‘This here’s Timmy – supposed to be a crack shot but don’t look old enough to connect a belt buckle. We’ll try to patch you temporary until we get to the doc in Yuma.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Dan, I got a wire for you, come in from Abilene two days ago.’

  Dan felt lightheaded. ‘Coot, I’m about to go out, I’m so woozy. There’s dead men out there. Let somebody in town know.’

  ‘Here.’ Coot handed the envelope to Dan.

  Dan pulled the wire out. The sun dipped below clouds on the horizon, bright red and without warmth, sneaking under the line, barely enough light to see. He had lost feeling in his left arm. The words on the paper were fuzzy but he shook his head until they cleared up some.

  Dan.

  Come home. Stop. CK is dying. Stop.