Savage Hellfire Read online

  Eva’s eyes sparked with a sudden flare of rage and she wheeled to face her mother.

  “Respect for my father?” she said. “What he was doing to that poor girl was what he was trying to do with me, Ma. I’m glad he’s dead. I’m glad he won’t come sneakin’ around at night when I’m in bed. I’m glad—”

  Emma rose from her chair, walked over to her daughter, and slapped Eva across the face. Eva’s neck bent from the force of the blow and she looked as if she would fall down. John half rose from his chair and put his arm around Eva’s waist, holding her.

  “That’s enough,” Emma said, her voice low and controlled, the words slipping through tight lips. “I won’t have you profane a dead man, my husband and your own father. Do you hear?”

  Whit got up and John turned to him, stuck out his arm with his hand open to stop the young man from getting into the thick of the mother-daughter squabble.

  “Look what he did to you, Ma,” Whit said, stopping in his tracks. “He beat you. He beat all of us.”

  “You keep your mouth shut, Whit,” Emma said. “I won’t have you talking that way in front of strangers.”

  “Aw, Ma, why don’t you face up to it? You’re glad Pa’s dead, too.”

  Emma’s eyes blazed, narrowed to slits. Her lips compressed until they were bloodless. She took in a deep breath, held it, held it like the rage that was building inside her. She closed her eyes and squeezed them so tight, John thought they would never open again.

  “Ma’am,” he said. “Emmalene. Just calm down, won’t you?”

  Emma opened her eyes.

  “I think you’ve worn out your welcome here, John Savage,” she said. “Go back to where you came from. I never want to see you again.”

  John let his arm slip away from Eva’s waist. He stepped back from the table.

  Eva stared at him, a desperate look in her eyes.

  “Ma, don’t,” she said, and John saw a tenderness in the young woman’s eyes that was like a soft hand squeezing his heart.

  Emma glared at John, but her gaze softened as Eva guided her mother back to her chair and sat her down. Emma said nothing for a few seconds as she studied John’s face, as if she were trying to decide what kind of man he was.

  “Mr. Savage,” she said, “I don’t know what to think of you. You have killed a man. My husband. You say that you had to kill him. That if you had not shot him, he would have killed you. How can you be sure? Was there no other way?”

  “No, ma’am, there wasn’t. As Ben told you, he had his pistol aimed straight at me and he was cocking the hammer back.”

  “Yet, you . . . you shot him first.”

  “John’s very fast, ma’am,” Ben said. “The fastest man with a gun I’ve ever seen.”

  “How did he get that way, Mr. Russell? By shooting and killing other men?”

  “You don’t have to answer that, Ben,” John said. “It’s a question for me. And maybe you have the right to ask it, Mrs. Blanchett. So, I’ll answer.”

  “I wish you would,” she said.

  “We live in a dangerous world, ma’am. I saw my whole family slaughtered by vicious gunmen down on the creek below this valley. My mother, father, and little sister. They killed Ben’s brother and many others that day. There is no law out here. The men stole our gold and rode on. Ben and I were spared because we were up in a mine shaft and had no weapons. My father left me a pistol which those men didn’t take, and I used it to exact an eye for an eye. I didn’t want to kill them, but they wanted to kill me. And Ben.”

  “You . . . you killed them all?” Emma gasped.

  “Ben and I killed them all, yes. Each one was given the chance to surrender and go to trial. Instead, they tried to kill me.”

  “That sounds almost heartless,” Emma said.

  “Ma!” Eva said.

  “It wasn’t heartless, ma’am,” John said. “I did not like to have the power of life and death over another man. I hated killing those men. But they were bad men and they would not listen to reason. I wish I could hang up my gun and never fire it again.”

  “But you won’t,” she said.

  “No, ma’am, I won’t. This morning three men tried to kill me, Ben, and Whit there. They were claim jumpers from up the creek. They beat the tar out of your son and they wanted our claim for themselves.”

  “So, you killed them,” Emma said.

  John sighed and did not answer.

  “No, ma’am,” Ben said, “he didn’t kill them. They had the drop on us, three rifles aimed at us. John could have killed them, but he didn’t. He gave them all fair warning and when they were going to shoot us, he drew his pistol.”

  “He didn’t kill ’em, Ma,” Whit said. “He shot to wound them, and he took their rifles away and sent them back up the creek like dogs with their tails tucked between their legs. He didn’t kill ’em, Ma.”

  She looked at Whit, reading his face.

  “I believe you, Whit,” she said. “And I believe Mr. Russell. I—I didn’t know any of this. Why didn’t you kill them, Mr. Savage?”

  “I don’t honestly know. I’m tired of killing. It’s a terrible thing to kill a man. But I think your husband would have killed me and I’m almost certain he would have killed that young gal, too. When he was finished with her, I mean.”

  “Pa might have, Ma,” Eva said. “I mean, he might have killed that poor girl. You know he was capable of it.”

  Emma hung her head. Then she began to sob, quietly, softly.

  “I’m sorry, Emma,” John said. “Sorry to cause you such grief.”

  Eva drew a small kerchief from her pocket and began dabbing at her mother’s cheeks. Emma lifted her head and took the handkerchief from Eva and made small semicircles under her eyes, wiping away the tears.

  “Thank you for saying that, Mister . . . ah, John. It means a lot to me. Argus was a mean man. But he was my man, and I did love him at one time, and for some time after we were married. But after Whit was born and as Evangeline was growing into a young woman, he changed. He became cruel and demanding. Nothing suited him. Nothing about me, that is. I couldn’t keep the house clean enough for him. I couldn’t cook his meals good enough. He treated Whit like a slave, and paid too much attention to Eva. But I thought he would change after we came up here. I truly did.

  “He went to Denver to get some cattle, said we could make a fresh start up here. We had a little money saved up, but Argus was fond of corn likker and I was worried he’d spend it all down in that sinful town. I never thought he’d . . . he’d do what you say he did.”

  John and Ben looked at each other, but neither said a word. Eva started to tear up, and Whit bowed his head and seemed to be shaking inside, whether from memories or grief, John couldn’t be sure.

  “People sometimes change, Emma,” John said, and knew when he said it that it was too weak. Men like Argus Blanchett didn’t change. They just became meaner and crueler as they got away with more and more. If no one stood up to such men, they just got worse.

  “Can you tell me what that girl looked like, John?” Emma said.

  John was surprised at the question.

  “Was she pretty? Did she look like Eva?”

  “I don’t know,” John said.

  “She was pretty badly beaten, ma’am, but I saw her before your man got a holt of her,” Ben said. “She was mighty purty, and I reckon she did bear some resemblance to your daughter, now that I think of it.”

  “Then, that explains it,” Emma said. “Argus was obsessed with Eva, but I didn’t know he lusted after her. I just thought he was, well, overly protective.”

  Eva’s face changed expressions three or four times, and John could see that she was fighting her feelings. She looked like a trapped rabbit with half its foot sawed off, struggling and in pain.

  “Now is not the time for you to pack up your family and leave the mountains, Emma,” John said. “Feel that mountain breeze floating through the windows? Smell that fresh spring grass growing? There is perf
ume floating in here from the flowers. Deer and elk are bedded down in the cool shade of the pines and spruce. Partridges are fluffing their feathers in the dust. It’s peaceful up here and the high peaks are your guardians, watching over you.

  “In a few days, maybe a couple of weeks,” he went on, “my drovers will come up here with three dozen head of whiteface cattle. They’re going to build corrals, cabins, a barn. They’ll need help, and I can pay you and your family in gold or greenbacks, provide you with food. You’re not only welcome to stay, but I want you to stay. I’m trying to build a small ranch here, something to rely on when the gold in the creek runs out. Give it a try, Emma.”

  “Can we stay, Ma?” Eva pleaded. “Please, oh, please.”

  “Ma, I want to stay, too,” said Whit. “Ben and John are good friends.”

  Emma looked over at Pacheco, who had not said a word.

  “Manolo? What do you think?”

  Pacheco walked over to the table and stood next to John.

  “You would hire me?” he said.

  “Yes. My drovers are Mexicans. You would be able to speak the tongue.”

  “I have no place to go,” Pacheco said. “I have no family. I will stay, but not because you hire me, Mr. Savage. I stay because I have heard of you and I have heard of the gun you carry.”

  Emma’s face brightened with surprise.

  “Manolo, you have heard of this man?”

  “Oh, yes. We have heard of how his family was killed and how he and his friend, Mr. Ben, tracked them down. And his gun, his pistola, that is very famous, too. Because there is something written on it that everyone in my country and all the mejicanos know, and we believe that Mr. Savage honors what is written on his six-gun.”

  “May I see your pistol, John?” Emma said.

  “I don’t know,” John said. “I don’t show it off much.”

  “I want to see it, too,” Eva said.

  “I’ve seen it,” Whit said. “It’s a beauty.”

  John drew his pistol, his hand moving slow. He laid it on the table next to his cup. The sunlight glanced off the silver legend engraved on the barrel.

  Emma and Eva walked over and bent down to look at it. Whit came over, too, and stood there, a smug look of satisfaction on his face.

  “What does it say, Manolo?” Emma asked.

  “It says, ‘No me saques sin razón, ni me guardes sin honor.’ That is what it says.”

  Emma shook her head and looked at John.

  “What does it mean?”

  “Manolo can tell you, Emma,” John said.

  “It says, ‘Do not draw me without reason, nor keep me without honor.’ That is what it means in English.”

  “Why, that’s beautiful, John.”

  “My father meant it when he engraved those words on the barrel,” John said.

  “My compadres call it la pistola salvaje,” Pacheco said. “The gringos call it the Savage Gun. They said it has much power.”

  Emma let out a long sigh. She looked at Whit and then at Eva. Her eyes softened and sparkled with leftover tears.

  “We will stay, John Savage. I thank you for your kind offer. Now put that gun away before I faint.”

  Everyone laughed.

  But John holstered the pistol just before Emma wrapped her arms around him and hugged him close for just a fraction of a second.

  That was enough. John felt her energy and knew that he had made a friend of a very strong woman.

  8

  BEN WAS NOT A MAN TO HIDE HIS GRUMPINESS. ON THE RIDE BACK down to the creek, he let John have it with both barrels.

  “I ain’t goin’ to nursemaid no kid who’s still wet behind the ears, John.”

  “No, you’re not going to nursemaid Whit,” John said. “You’re going to teach him to build dry rockers, sluice boxes, and how to pan that creek for gold.”

  “Big mistake hirin’ those folks back there. ’Specially that kid.”

  “Whit’s not much younger than I was when we all came up here, Ben.”

  “He’s not half as smart.”

  “We’re all dumb about some things until someone teaches us. He’ll learn.”

  “And that Mex and them wimmin’. Holy Jehosephat, John, you’re buyin’ into nothin’ but trouble. I would have sent the whole bunch packin’.”

  “Grumble, grumble, grumble,” John said.

  “I ain’t grumblin’, I just think we got enough on our plates ’thout takin’ on a family what can’t rub two nickels together.”

  “We’re going to need hands once we get cattle up here. You just don’t look far enough ahead, Ben.”

  “Well, I ain’t payin’ them nothin’ out of my poke.”

  The wind that was sleeping in the high country awakened and blew down on their backs, drying the sweat on their shirts. It carried the tang of snow in its teeth, and gathered the scent of wildflowers and young grasses, the fragrances of pines, spruce, and juniper. The high fluffy clouds blew across the blue sky like sailing ships, and pulled shadows across the trail in blue-gray smudges from the ghostly hand of an invisible painter. The land seemed to shift and rise through sunlight and shadow tilting under them like a restless sea.

  “Is that the way it’s going to be, Ben? You living on your homestead, me on mine?”

  “I didn’t mean no such thing, Johnny. I just don’t want the responsibility of that orphaned family. You killed Argus Blanchett, not me.”

  “Would you have killed him if you were in my shoes, Ben?”

  Ben worried that bone over in his mind for several seconds.

  “I reckon. But I didn’t. It’s your guilt you have to live with. I don’t have none.”

  “Not your brother’s keeper, eh?”

  “I didn’t mean it that way, neither. I just think we ought to have got shut of them folks soon as we brought Whit back to ’em. We got enough to do, what with cattle comin’ up and them claim jumpers breathin’ down our necks.”

  “I’ll take on that worry, too, Ben. You just crawl into your little hole and shrivel up like a prune. Don’t worry about a blamed thing.”

  “If that’s the way you want it, Johnny boy.”

  The men rode in silence the rest of the way to their camp on the creek. Ben was sullen the rest of the day, until Whit rode down on a swaybacked old bay mare he called Rosie. Her moth-eaten hide was covered with dried scabs and fresh deer fly bites that ran red down her sides and legs.

  “That horse won’t last the winter, boy,” Ben said as Whit dismounted.

  “She ain’t but nine or ten years old.”

  “And way past pasturing. You keep her separate from our horses, boy. Take her yonder over the creek and hide her behind them aspen.”

  “My name’s Whit, not boy.”

  “Until you get some starch in your britches, sonny, you ain’t got no name with me.”

  Whit looked over at John, who shrugged his shoulders until his neck disappeared.

  “You’ll have to make your own way here, Whit,” John said. “Ben’s got his ways.”

  “I’m mighty glad you asked me to work for you, Mr. Savage.”

  “Call me John. There are no misters here. Can you saw wood? Handle hammer and nail?”

  “I reckon so. I helped Manolo build our cabin, nailed the winder and door frames, sawed ’em up, too.”

  “Get your horse taken care of and help Ben. He’ll teach you a few things.”

  “Like hell,” Ben gruffed, but he walked to the supply tent and started laying out lumber to build a dry rocker.

  “You want me to ride Rosie to the other side of the creek?” Whit asked John.

  “Yes, but go through the shallows right here. See those big rocks down below us, sticking up out of the water?”

  “Yes.”

  “Stay away from that stretch of creek. It’s a deep hole for a long stretch and those rocks and the rushing water make a whirlpool that will suck you down and drown you. We lost a mule in that hole. For all I know the mule’s still down there.
Its bones, anyway.”

  “I won’t go nowheres near it,” Whit said. He rode across the creek a few moments later and waded back after he had hobbled Rosie in a grassy glade. The breeze from the mountains stiffened as the day wore on.

  While Ben was showing Whit how to make a dry rocker, John carried bedrolls and foodstuffs up to the mine. He laid out three beds. Then he made two beds near the fire ring next to the creek. As the sun was falling toward the distant snowcaps, he dug out a pair of boot moccasins from his saddlebag and slipped them on his feet, leaving his boots at the foot of one of the beds.

  “What the hell are you doin’ John?” Ben stood there, a pencil stuck behind his ear. Whit was sawing up strips of lumber that had already been measured.

  “We’ll bunk up in the mine for a time. Make us a fire down here, let it burn down. We’ll take turns watching from the cave.”

  “You expectin’ trouble?”

  “Not right away, but just in case. We’ll put rocks under these horse blankets so anyone sneaking up on us at night will think we’re sleeping by the fire.”

  “Good idea,” Ben said. “And them moccasins are your night slippers?”

  “Tonight I’m going up creek, on the other side, to take a gander at the camp of those claim jumpers.”

  “What good will that do?”

  “I’m going to count heads, see if I can hear what they might be planning.”

  “Want me to go with you?”

  “No. You and Whit stay put, keep your eyes peeled until I get back.”

  “If I hear shootin’—”

  “You’ll hear shooting, that’s all. Don’t leave the cave, Ben.”

  “All right, if you say so.”

  “I say so.”

  “Johnny, I watched you grow from a gangly whippersnapper into a man with the bark on. But I’m still older’n you and a whole hell of a lot wiser.”

  “And I value your wisdom, Ben. I truly do.”

  “Well, you don’t act like it. Goin’ off on your own like this when we was always full partners.”

  “It’s a one-man job, Ben. And you know me. I got a good memory for names and faces.”

  “Yeah, you do. When them bandits raided us, you ’membered every dang one of ’em. Faces and names.”