Savage Hellfire Read online

  4

  BEN AND JOHN WERE SLAPPING SADDLES ON THEIR HORSES WHEN they heard a rustling in the aspens. They turned and saw Krieger, a wan, sheepish look on his face, pushing aside a low-hanging limb.

  “Come back for our packs,” he said, stooping to grab a strap on his own pack.

  “Be quick about it,” John said.

  Krieger slung his own pack on his back and picked up the straps of the other two with his left hand. His right hand was red and swollen.

  “Don’t come back here,” Ben said as Krieger turned away to walk back up the creek.

  John shot a glance at Ben that was a dark scowl.

  “Oh, you ain’t seen the last of me,” Krieger said, then turned to look at John. “What did you say your name was?”

  “It’s Savage. John Savage.”

  “I’ve heard that name before,” Krieger said, his forehead furrowing in thought. “Yep, I sure as hell have.”

  “You might wish you never had,” Ben said. “Now, git.”

  “I’m leavin’, but you got some payback comin’, Savage.”

  “If you want to keep breathing, Krieger, you’ll forget about any payback.”

  Krieger grunted and walked off, rattling the aspen limbs, rustling the green leaves. His footsteps faded and it was quiet again as John pulled his cinch tight and buckled the strap.

  “Some folks you just can’t get shut of,” Ben growled as he finished saddling Rusher.

  John said nothing, but stared at the leaves of the aspens as they fluttered green and near white until they stopped moving.

  “Whit, you ride double with Ben. You take us where you walked down to the creek. I’ll follow.”

  Ben climbed into the saddle and reached for Whit’s arm, pulled him up behind him.

  “You ever rode a horse before?” Ben asked.

  “Sure. Not one this big.”

  Ben chuckled. “Just wrap your arms around me and hold on,” he said, then ticked his horse’s flanks with his blunt spurs. They rode downstream, John following, avoiding the talus debris at the base of the bluff. The creek made a slow bend and the bluff began to shrink until it finally disappeared for a good long stretch.

  Whit pointed to a wide path next to another slight rise and Ben turned his horse.

  “You been here before, ain’t ye?” Whit said.

  “Yep. Me’n John scouted that land up there many times whilst we was gold panning and blasting that mine of ours.”

  “We come up another way, but I found this path and come down it,” Whit said.

  “It’s a old elk trail. Mule deer use it, too,” Ben said.

  “Yeah, I saw some old tracks. Lots of ’em.”

  Ben chuckled.

  John rode up alongside the two and they all climbed up to the top together.

  “John, what was all that about naming your bullets?” asked Ben. “I never heard you say that before.”

  “You keep a man’s brain occupied, he’s liable to let down his guard.”

  “Pretty slick. But how’d you know it would work?”

  “I didn’t, Ben. I just thought I’d give Krieger something to puzzle over while I got ready to take him down.”

  “Namin’ bullets. I never thought of that.”

  “Krieger didn’t, either,” John said.

  He took Gent over the top of the slight rise, and looked at acres of grass spread out for as far as he could see. Behind the vast meadow, the snowcapped peaks of the Rockies broke the skyline, their mantles gleaming white in the sun.

  He waited for Ben and Whit to catch up to him, breathing deep of the thin air.

  “Mighty pretty country,” Ben said. “Just like I remembered it.”

  “We’ll have cattle feeding on this grass pretty soon,” John said.

  “Yessir, we sure will.”

  “But you can’t,” Whit said. “Look yonder, up where the timber stands at the far end of this valley.”

  Ben and John looked where the boy was pointing.

  “That your place?” Ben asked.

  “It sure enough is.”

  Ben looked at John.

  John shrugged and tapped Gent’s flanks with his spurs.

  “I don’t see no cattle,” Ben said.

  “We ain’t got none yet. Pa’s gonna get us some and we’re goin’ to be rich. He’s down in Denver now, buying us some breeding cattle.”

  Ben turned his head for a quick glance at John, but John’s eyes remained fixed on the far mountains as if he were in some kind of trance.

  And he was, for there was the fresh clean scent of dew-wet grass in the air, the perfume of wild columbines, pine, spruce, juniper, and fir, as heady as any fine brandy in a snifter. The grandeur of the land and the sheltered valley spread out before him, inducing a rapture that was mesmerizing. He could never get enough of it, and since he and Ben had first seen that pristine valley, he had wanted to live there, not on the land, but in it, surrounded by ancient mountains and trees thick as deep pile carpeting.

  “Let’s get the boy to home,” John said, shaking his head slightly as if to free it of lofty thoughts and the nagging notion that squatters had ruined his dream by building a house on land he and Ben owned.

  Grass grew on the tabletop, young sprouts no more than a few inches high, and the heady scent of small yellow flowers and budding columbines mingled with the scent of grass wafted on the vapors of evaporating dew. High clouds over the distant mountain peaks proclaimed a bright spring morning against an ocean-blue sky.

  “I don’t see any of our stakes,” John said to Ben.

  “Yeah, I noticed that.”

  “Did those stakes have numbers painted on ’em?” Whit said.

  “They did,” Ben said.

  “I pulled ’em up. Pa gave me a penny for ever’ one I carried back up to our camp. He used them for kindling.”

  “Damn, boy,” Ben said, the rasp of irritation in his voice, “them stakes was markers for me and John’s land boundaries. A hunnert and sixty acres apiece and we laid ’em out so’s we have this whole wide valley to graze our cattle on.”

  “Pa said—”

  “I don’t give a damn what your pa said,” John cut in. “You had no business pulling our stakes.”

  “I didn’t know,” Whit said with a sheepish whine. “Pa said—”

  “Your pa said a hell of a lot,” Ben said.

  “Let’s get this boy back home,” John said, and Gent stepped out at his spurred urging.

  John and Ben both knew where they had driven the stakes according to the land surveyor’s instructions. The cabin lay square on one edge of their combined properties. John wanted to help the boy, but he knew he and Ben faced more than a homecoming. The log cabin loomed as an intrusive force on land they had staked out, filed claims on, and in truth owned. The cabin spelled trouble, yet he wondered if he could throw the squatters off their land without a terrible tug at his conscience.

  A man stepped out of the trees as Ben, John, and Whit rode up. He held an ax in his hands. He was sturdily built, a bronze cast to the face that peered out from under his sombrero, brown arms and hands, a red bandanna around his neck.

  “Who’s that?” Ben looked at Whit.

  “That’s Manolo Pacheco. We call him Manny. He works for us.”

  John held up his right hand, palm facing Manny Pacheco. Pacheco smiled and let the ax fall to the ground. He turned to the doorway of the house and spoke some words John couldn’t hear. A moment later, a woman came to the open door, shaded her eyes with the flat of her right hand.

  “Whit, is that you?” she called.

  Whit waved at her.

  A sign of relief flooded the woman’s face as her hand fell away and sunlight washed across her features. She started to run toward her son.

  Pacheco grinned and waved at Whit.

  “Whit, I was so worried,” the woman said as Whit eased himself down, favoring his injured leg. The two embraced.

  John looked at the woman’s beaming face. She
appeared to be in her late twenties, perhaps touching on thirty, with intense blue eyes, auburn hair, and finely chiseled features, a patrician nose, a dimpled chin. She gazed up at John, a look of silent gratitude in her eyes.

  She looked somewhat regal in her faded gingham dress and her high-topped, lace-up boots, and it was difficult for John to picture this woman with a man like Argus Blanchett. The two did not seem suited to each other. Not at all.

  “Ma’am,” John said, doffing his hat. “You better keep this boy to home. He had a close call down on the creek.”

  “Whit’s not tied to my apron strings, mister,” the woman retorted. “What happened down at the creek?”

  “Your boy can best tell you that, ma’am,” John said. “May I light down?”

  She appeared flustered for a moment, her eyes darting from side to side, her mouth opening in surprise, her hand flying to her hair to pat it down as if she were about to answer a knock on the door and wasn’t expecting guests.

  “Why, yes,” she said, “how inconsiderate of me. I thank you for bringing Whit home. Will you have some tea with us, fresh brewed, or I can make coffee.”

  Ben swung out of the saddle.

  “Tea would be fine,” John said, stretching a leg out to touch the ground as he held on to the saddle horn.

  “Manny, tie their horses to the hitchin’ post,” the woman said.

  “I’m John Savage, ma’am, and this is my partner, Ben Russell.”

  The woman held on to her son as she turned to go into the cabin.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m Emmalene Blanchett. Everyone calls me Emma.”

  “Ma’am,” Ben said, tipping his hat courteously.

  Before she reached the open door of the cabin, Emma called out.

  “Eva.”

  John heard the scurry of feet inside the dwelling, and a second or two later, a young woman appeared in the doorway. John felt the air leave his lungs as if he had gasped aloud. She had long dark hair woven into twin pigtails that drooped over her small, comely shoulders. Her face was radiant and young, and her eyes were the blue of a mountain lake, vibrant and penetrating. They seemed to stare directly into his, and he felt a shiver up his spine as if he were standing under a trickling waterfall and ice-cold water was dripping on the back of his neck.

  “Eva, get out the cups and pour tea for all of us.”

  She turned to John, who gaped at Eva like a poleaxed imbecile, his mouth wide open, his eyes enlarged to the size of agates.

  “That’s my daughter Evangeline,” she said. “We call her Eva.”

  “Yes’m,” John muttered as Eva disappeared and Emma stepped up into the cabin. He stood there, frozen to the spot where he had halted.

  Ben slapped him between the shoulder blades.

  “You just goin’ to stand there, Johnny, gawkin’ like a love-struck schoolboy?”

  “Aw, shut up, Ben. She’s just a girl.” His voice was pitched low and it was soft as eiderdown, but Ben heard him. He heard the croak and the husk in John’s voice, and saw the light dancing in the man’s eyes for just the shaved fraction of a second. But he knew his friend was smitten, and he knew how hard the road ahead was going to be, not only for John Savage, but for Emma, Eva, Whit, and himself as well.

  But Ben said nothing.

  He just wondered how and when John was going to tell this family that he had killed Argus Blanchett, husband and father, less than ten days ago in Cherry Creek.

  He followed John into the dark cabin, and it was like stepping into a funeral parlor in some small poor desolate town.

  5

  AL KRIEGER GLARED AT PETE ROSSET AND HARRY SHORT. HARRY was wrapping gauze around his calf and Pete was daubing an aromatic salve on his arm, wincing with each touch, tears eking from his eyes as he gritted his teeth to bite off the pain.

  “You sorry bastards,” Krieger said.

  “What the hell happened?” another man said as he walked up from the creek, his shoes dripping with every step, his pants legs soaked to the knees. He was carrying a bucket and the water was sloshing over the rim, splotching the ground.

  “Gimme that bucket, Corny,” Krieger said, holding out his left hand.

  Dave Cornwall slipped the rope handle into Krieger’s hand.

  “I was goin’ to make some coffee with that,” Corny said.

  Krieger set the bucket down and plunged his right hand into the water. He squatted, then sat down, letting his hand float in the cool water.

  “You can have it back when I’m done.”

  “What’s wrong with your hand?” Corny asked.

  Harry snickered.

  “Huh?” Corny said, an inane expression on his face.

  “You shoulda been with us,” Pete said. “We found that kid.”

  “The kid busted your hand, Al? The kid we stole the cow from? That cow’s over there, tethered to a tree.”

  “No, the damned kid didn’t bust my hand.”

  “Where are your rifles?”

  Pete bent his head to point downstream.

  “You left ’em down at the new place you was goin’ to try?” Corny said.

  “Yeah,” Harry said. “We just left them down there for seed.”

  “For seed?”

  “You know, to grow more rifles.”

  “Aw,” Corny said, a sheepish grin cracking open his face. “You’re funnin’ me.”

  “No, we ain’t Corny,” Pete said. “We forgot our rifles. Al wants you to go down there and bring ’em back to us.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so?” Corny said, and started walking through the littered camp with its four small tents and one large one for their supplies of picks, shovels, rockers, foodstuffs, medicines, ropes, horse blankets, saddles, bridles, and other tack.

  Al glared at the young man and shook his head.

  “Corny, come on back,” he said. “Pete’s full of shit. We run into trouble downstream. Got shot at. You start packin’ your pistol and keep a rifle handy. Those jaspers just might ride up here and try to snuff our lamps.”

  “Aw, Al . . .”

  “He’s not kidding, Corny,” Harry said. “You start packin’ iron and dig out those extra rifles for us. Man, I never saw such shootin’.”

  “Who shot you?” Corny asked as he walked toward the supply tent, stumbling over an empty airtight that had once contained peaches.

  “Some bastard what says he’s already got that stretch of creek we wanted to prospect,” Al said, moving his hand up and down in the bucket.

  “He was some slick, Corny,” Harry said. “Had a fancy pistol, and was faster’n a snake.”

  “Yeah,” Pete said, “that hogleg fairly shone with silver inlays.”

  “Inlays?”

  “Like some kind of writing, I reckon. I only got a quick peek at it. Sun hit that silver and made it shine like lightning.”

  “You boys were too slow,” Krieger said. “One of you should have dropped him when he shot my rifle out of my hand.”

  “Al, that corker didn’t give us time to think,” Harry said.

  “You can’t even think slow, Harry,” Krieger said.

  “Well, he caught you first, Al. You always brag about how fast you can draw and shoot.”

  “He didn’t give no warning,” Pete said. “No warning at all.”

  “I bet I could take him,” Corny said.

  “Well, you just go on down there and brace that bastard, Corny, and bring our rifles back.”

  Corny’s face blanched as if he’d been punched in the stomach. He looked down at the glistening creek. Lights danced in its mottled waters and he had to squint out the glare. He pulled in a breath and turned to Harry.

  “How fast was he?”

  “You never saw a man so fast, Corny. He was like a rattlesnake.”

  “I’ll get him,” Krieger said. “One day I’ll get that bastard.”

  “Maybe you ought to wait until Thatcher and Ferguson get back from Denver, Al,” Corny said. “Then we could all go
down there and give him what for.”

  “Thatcher’s due back any time,” Pete said, looking off to the east. Nothing but trees, but he knew where Denver lay.

  “Probably today, I reckon,” Harry said, tying a knot in his bandage.

  “Thatcher will know what to do, all right,” Pete said, adjusting his injured arm inside his shirt, between two buttons. A makeshift sling.

  “Yeah, Lem Thatcher’s just as fast as that jasper,” Harry said. “Maybe faster, I think.”

  “We won’t catch that man off guard again,” Krieger said. “There was something in his eyes.” He paused, lifted his hand out of the water, and let it drip as it hung there above the bucket. “Something unholy.”

  “You mean a devil,” Corny said.

  “I mean seven kinds of devil.”

  “I say leave him alone,” Harry said, sitting down on a flat rock. The rock teetered under his buttocks and he lifted one cheek, slid the rock an inch to the side, and it steadied. “What the hell do we need his digs for, anyway?”

  “You’re so damned dumb, Harry,” Krieger said. “Haven’t you figured it out yet?”

  “Figured out what?”

  Krieger raised his arm and pointed downstream with his left hand.

  “See all them riffles? Just below our claims. Well, the creek makes a run there and drops off maybe a foot or two beyond it, then hurries like a sumbitch right where those guys have their claim. There’s probably a mother lode somewhere near here, underground or up in them rocks. All the dust and nuggets are washing down on their claim while we’re lucky to pan out five or ten bucks a day.”

  “You figure that, do you, Al?”

  “Damned right I do. And I’ll bet Thatcher will see it that way, too. We ain’t been here a month and I been studying that creek. It’s taking from us and giving to that gunslick down there.”

  “Shit,” Corny said.

  “Shit is right,” Pete said. “That sure looked like a good stretch of creek down there. Water rushin’ past a good long stretch, diggin’ out high banks. Them boys got them a payin’ claim and we got nothin’ here but back-breakin’ work.”

  Only Corny did any panning, while the other three men lolled in the shade. The sun reached its zenith, and then began the slow descent toward the high, snowcapped peaks to the west. It was mid-afternoon when Walt Ferguson and Lemuel Thatcher rode into camp, their clothes and faces soaked with sweat, their boots dulled by dust. Their horses’ hides were streaked. The pack mule, lugging a full pannier of supplies, clomped into the creek after them and came to a dead stop in the middle of it.