Dead Before Sundown

Chapter 21

“What are you talking about?” Joseph asked as he stared at Anton Mirabeau in surprise.

“Those men have no right to that gold,” Mirabeau replied with a confidence that bordered on arrogance. He thumped a fist against his buckskin-clad chest. “It belongs to the Métis!”

Joseph waved a hand toward the crated weapons. “We gave it to them in return for those Gatling guns. You know that, Anton.”

“And you know how hard we worked for it. You know the price that was paid.”

Joseph scowled. He knew, all right. Shooting had broken out during several of those robberies. Friends of his had died, gunned down by the law. Almost as bad, he had to live with the fact that innocent people also had been killed.

But such tragedies had happened before and no doubt would happen again before his people finally achieved their freedom, he reminded himself. There was always a price to be paid for everything in this world.

“What are you suggesting?” he asked coldly. “That we go after them and steal the gold back from them?”

An eager grin stretched across Mirabeau’s bearded face. “Exactly!”

“What about honor?”

Mirabeau shrugged and said, “They are Americans,” as if that excused anything he and his friends might do.

Joseph looked over at his sister. Charlotte was chewing her bottom lip worriedly. He knew the prospect of more violence bothered her, too, but he also knew she didn’t like to go against what Mirabeau wanted.

Like everyone else, she still had the idea in her head that one day he would be her husband.

Though his jaw was tight with anger, Joseph said, “There is nothing I can do to stop you, is there?”

Mirabeau shook his head. “No.” He turned to the other men. “Mount up. They will have gotten far enough ahead of us by now. We’ll circle around in front of them and set up an ambush. Wolverine Rock would be a good place.”

Several of the men nodded in agreement. They swung up into their saddles.

Mirabeau turned back to Joseph and Charlotte. “The two of you can follow us and bring the mules and the guns.”

From the sound of Mirabeau’s voice, Joseph was no longer in charge of this mission. Injured pride welled up inside him, but he forced it down.

“You don’t want us to come with you?”

“Someone has to bring the guns along,” Mirabeau said. He was trying to sound reasonable, but Joseph knew the real reason for the decision. Mirabeau no longer fully trusted him. He was afraid that Joseph would do something to ruin his plan.

“Fine,” Joseph said. Go get more blood on your hands, he thought. It won’t be the last, will it?

Mirabeau nodded and waved his companions into motion. They headed down the valley, riding hard. They would have to set a fast pace in order to reach Wolverine Rock ahead of the American outlaws. Fortunately for the Métis, this was their homeland. Mirabeau had hunted and trapped all over these mountains. He knew all the shortcuts.

“This could turn out badly, Joseph,” Charlotte said. “I wish Anton were not so stubborn.”

“But he is, and we cannot change him.”

Joseph began gathering up the reins of the pack mules. The Gatling gun that had been used earlier had been disassembled and returned to its crate. All the crates had been closed up and lashed to the animals again. He waited until Charlotte had climbed into the saddle of her horse and then handed some of the reins to her. He took the others.

They started down the valley, leading the mules. Their pace was much slower than that of Mirabeau and the other men. Joseph supposed that when they were done with their ambush—when they had finished killing the Americans and stealing back the chests of gold—they would either wait at Wolverine Rock or return for him and Charlotte.

There was nothing to say, so they rode in silence. The sun moved toward its zenith. It was almost midday, Joseph judged, when the sound of gunshots in the distance came to his ears.

Charlotte heard them, too. She caught her breath, stiffened in the saddle, and said, “I pray that Anton is all right.”

Sadly, Joseph was no longer certain he shared that sentiment.

Joe Palmer gave in to his curiosity and asked, “Say, exactly how much are those gold bars worth, anyway?”

Lundy grinned over at him as they rode side by side. “Tryin’ to figure out what your share’s gonna be, Joe?”

Palmer shrugged. “Seems like that would be an important thing to know.”

“Well, you know the same as I do that it all depends on how much you get for it. There’s not a set price.”

“You’re bound to have a pretty good idea, though,” Palmer insisted.

“It ought to be in the neighborhood of fifty thousand dollars,” Lundy said.

Palmer let out a low whistle. “That’s a lot of money. Ten grand apiece since there’s only five of us left.”

“Hold on a minute,” Lundy said, his voice hardening. “You’re not figuring the same way I am.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jericho and I were taking thirty percent.”

“Jericho’s dead,” Palmer pointed out.

Lundy shook his head. “That don’t change anything. I’m still taking fifteen thousand.”

The tone of his voice made it clear that Palmer, or anyone else, was going to have plenty of trouble on his hands if that decision was challenged.

“All right,” Palmer said. “So that leaves thirty-five grand to split four ways.”

“You weren’t in on the whole deal. Five for you, ten each for the other fellas.”

Palmer had to swallow an angry curse. He glanced over his shoulder at the other three outlaws. He didn’t know any of them personally, but he recognized the wolflike intensity with which they were watching him. They were listening to the conversation with great interest.

“You know what?” Palmer said, recognizing the razor-thin line he was walking. “That sounds mighty fair to me, Owen. I’ll be just fine with that split.”

Lundy grunted. “Good. Because that’s the way it’s gonna be.”

The valley had narrowed down as they headed east. Rugged, snow-capped peaks still loomed to the north and south, but ahead of them, Palmer could see a gap where the trail sloped down to the flats. They would still have to ride through some foothills, but they were about to leave the mountains at last.

A large rock squatted on the left side of the trail. Something about it struck Palmer as familiar, and after a moment he realized what it was.

The rock generally had a rounded shape, but it thrust out sharply toward the trail like an animal’s snout and on top of it were two knobs that looked like ears. Most of the rock was dark in color, but a lighter band encircled it.

“It looks like a wolverine,” Palmer said with a grin.

“What?” Lundy sounded confused.

“That big rock up yonder.” Palmer pointed. “It looks like a wolverine’s head.”

Lundy began, “Yeah, I guess it—”

He stopped short when smoke puffed from behind one of those earlike knobs and a bullet made a flat whap! as it passed through the air between them, near their heads.

A fraction of a second later, one of the men riding behind them let out a pained grunt. Palmer whipped his head around in time to see the man topple out of the saddle with a black, red-rimmed hole in the center of his forehead where the bullet had struck him.

“Move!” Lundy yelled as he kicked his horse into a run. “Somebody’s shootin’ at us!”

That seemed pretty obvious to Palmer. He heard the wind-rip of another bullet past his ear as he leaned forward to make himself a smaller target.

“Hyaaaahh!” he shouted at his horse as he urged the animal into a gallop. Lundy had gone to the left, so Palmer went to the right. When you were under attack, it wasn’t smart to bunch up. Make your enemies split their fire.

The other two outlaws were scattering as well. Palmer heard the flat crack-crack-crack of rifle fire now and saw a cloud of powder smoke rising over the odd-shaped rock. Some bastards had gotten up there and set up an ambush for them.

Palmer had a pretty good idea who they were, too. Those damn half-breeds were trying a double cross, he thought as he rode swiftly toward some trees.

His horse suddenly lurched underneath him. Palmer cursed bitterly as he felt the animal going down. He kicked his feet out of the stirrups and let go of the reins. He was thrown clear as the horse fell, but after sailing through the air for a few feet, he slammed into the ground so hard that he was stunned and all the breath was knocked out of his body.

He lay there gasping, unable to get any air in his lungs. He knew he needed to get up and make a run for the trees. Out here in the open, he was an easy target.

His muscles wouldn’t obey him, though. He tried to force himself up but slumped back down, helpless.

A few feet away, his horse lay bleeding to death from the terrible wound a bullet had ripped in its throat. Its hooves thrashed madly in agonized panic.

The horse’s body would give him a little cover, Palmer thought, if he could just get behind it. Gritting his teeth, he finally succeeded in forcing his body into motion. He began to crawl toward his stricken mount.

Palmer had to circle around the wildly flailing hooves. The horse’s movements were less urgent now as death approached rapidly, but those slashing hooves were still dangerous.

The horrible bubbling sounds the horse was making came to an end. The hooves stilled. Palmer pulled himself behind the carcass just as bullets began to thump into it.

He huddled as low to the ground as he could and hoped that would be enough to protect him. What felt like a burning brand raked along his leg. He realized that one of the bullets had just grazed him. He pressed himself closer to the dead horse.

From where he lay, he couldn’t see Lundy anymore, but he saw that one of the other men was down, knocked from his saddle by bushwhacker’s lead.

Where was the pack horse with the two chests full of gold bars?

That question suddenly filled Palmer’s mind. He desperately wanted to lift his head so he could take a better look around, but he knew that doing so would invite the bushwhackers to put a bullet through his brain. He clenched his teeth together and made himself keep his head down.

The first man who’d been hit had been leading the pack horse, Palmer recalled. Shot in the head like that, he would have let go of the reins.

A horse wasn’t like a mule. It would spook a lot easier when the shooting started. The pack horse could have bolted.

Which meant that it—and its valuable cargo—could be anywhere by now.

The ambushers continued firing from the rock for what seemed like an eternity to Palmer as he hunkered behind the dead horse. In reality, it was probably only a few minutes.

Then the shots died away, leaving an eerie, echoing silence in their wake.

Palmer knew better than to move. He stayed right where he was, convinced that if he popped up from behind his bloody cover, he’d be dead a second later.

He heard horses moving down the valley, from the vicinity of the gap that the funny-looking rock guarded. The hoofbeats faded into the distance, but still Palmer didn’t move. This could be a trick. The others could have pulled out but left behind a sharpshooter to finish him off when he showed himself.

But more time dragged past, and flies started to buzz around the horse’s carcass. The coppery stink from the pool of blood in which he sprawled filled Palmer’s nostrils and sickened him.

“Owen?” he called. “Owen, can you hear me?”

There was no response.

“Anybody else? Anybody alive out here?”

Nothing. Palmer’s teeth ground together as he tried to figure out what to do.

When he judged that at least an hour had passed, he muttered, “The hell with it,” and heaved himself up from behind the carcass. Nobody shot at him. He climbed laboriously to his feet and staggered toward the two bodies he could see. They belonged to a couple of Lundy’s men.

Palmer had never learned their names. He didn’t give a damn about that, either.

He spotted another body lying at the edge of the trees. When he hurried over to it, he saw it was the third member of Lundy’s gang. This man was as dead as the other two.

And sure enough, there was no sign of the pack horse as far as the eye could see. The saddle horses had stampeded and were gone, too.

In utter disgust, Palmer asked aloud, “Now what the hell am I gonna do?”

Somewhere not far off, somebody moaned.