Arroyo de la Muerte Page 18

  Emma gestured with her left gloved hand. “The church! The treasure! All of it. An Apache witch cursed it after the earthquake that killed her people. They were enslaved by the Jesuits. They died mining that gold for the Jesuit priests. They died in the mines, in vain, all of them wiped out. The witch placed a hex on all of that gold…all of the treasure…so that if the fruits of her people’s labor was ever exploited for personal gain…”

  She let her words fade when Hopkins only laughed at her, glancing over his shoulder at his well-dressed partners walking up behind him, smoking and sipping. “Did you hear that, gentleman? The treasure is cursed? An old Apache witch placed a hex on it!”

  “I don’t put much stock in curses,” said one of his partners, a small, dapper man with a very thin mustache and thick, bushy side whiskers. A silver-framed manacle dangled from the lapel of his dark-green frock coat. “But I’ve observed that you know some very beautiful women, John. I’ll give you that, you old rascal!”

  The man’s eyes were fairly burning holes in Emma’s dusty shirt.

  “Where’ve you been hiding this one, John?” asked one of the others, poking a cigar between his thickly mustached, bright pink lips. He wore a long, broadcloth duster and wore a red silk sash around his potbellied waist. “She’d be a real corker…with a bath.”

  Ignoring the goatish fool, Emma turned back to Hopkins. “How did you find it? Was it the Kid’s map? The treasure map from his Bible?”

  Hopkins scowled uncertainly, furling his trimmed brows. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. More of your nonsense. For years, I’ve had professional investigators perusing the Jesuit mining archives in Mexico City. One of them found the plat for the old gold mine in this canyon, and sent it to me. This canyon, this church, is why I came to Apache Springs. I’ve been making arrangements with my brother and our associates”—he glanced at the men standing behind him—"to appropriate the gold and jewels in the church for months now. There are no laws against it. The treasure has been here for over a hundred years, for anyone’s taking, including ours. Everything came together when the railroad reached Apache Springs and I had a way to ship the treasure to buyers back East.” He shrugged. “It’s a simple as that.”

  “You’ve been out here before today.”

  “Of course. I led a small, preliminary, investigatory contingent. We were careful to cover our tracks to makes sure no one followed us down here.”

  Which is exactly what Emma had done, so no one had followed her down here, either. But all of her efforts had been in vain. Hopkins had a map.

  He glowered at her again, holding his cigar by his chin. “How did you find out about the treasure?”

  “Never mind about that. It’s not as simple as you think, Hopkins,” Emma said, nearly cross-eyed with frustration. “I know it’s hard for you to believe. But you’d better believe it. That treasure is cursed. You have to take your men and leave here now!”

  “Leave all that gold?” laughed Hopkins’s brother, whom Emma had never been formally introduced to but whose name she believed was Ferrell or something like it. “Why, you must be crazy!” He narrowed his hazel eyes skeptically. “How long have you known about this church, young lady?”

  “For several years.” Emma glanced once more in horror at the burly men smashing the adobe walls with reckless abandon while others plundered the church’s innards for the treasure heaped atop the altar.

  “And you’ve never taken a thing out of it?” asked Ferrell Hopkins, narrowing a disbelieving eye at her.

  “No, I never have. I wouldn’t. Not knowing what I know about it.”

  John Clare Hopkins himself said, “Well, what you know about it is going to have remain a secret. At least until we’ve finished plundering it.” He glanced at the gunman who’d spoken before. “Grab her. Tie her up!”

  “You killed the Bundrens to keep them quiet!” Emma coldly accused him, pointing a finger at the dapper Brit. “You tried to kill me and Yakima! You killed one of Julia’s whores in the Conquistador. You’re a cold-blooded killer, John Clare!”

  “For chrissakes, grab her!” Hopkins shouted with exasperation at the guard.

  “Don’t you dare touch me!” Emma screamed.

  The gunman lowered his rifle and lunged at Emma.

  Emma kicked him in the chest and tried to turn her horse. One of the other gunmen grabbed the buckskin’s bridle strap, laughing and ogling the pretty girl. The first gunman cursed angrily, grabbed Emma’s arm, and jerked her violently out of the saddle.

  Emma screamed and hit the ground with a thud and a shrill cry, the wind knocked out of her.

  Hopkins walked up to her. He’d drawn a pepperbox revolver from a shoulder holster inside his frock coat. Now he stood over Emma, raised the stubby pistol, and clicked the hammer back. He narrowed one eye as he aimed down at Emma’s head. “I do apologize, my dear. But I’m afraid you’ve--”

  “Hold it!”

  Sitting up, her head spinning from the fall, Emma glanced around her horse, which had turned full around during the melee, and saw the Rio Grande Kid walk up out of the brush, cacti, and rocks that littered the arroyo that ran down the middle of the canyon. The stout old man held a double-barrel shotgun straight out from his right shoulder. He narrowed one eye as he stared down the large double bores at John Clare Hopkins.

  He clicked both heavy hammers back with solid, ratcheting clicks.

  “Get away from her, you infernal horse’s ass, or I’ll shred that hundred-dollar suit with you in it!”

  Hopkins had whipped his startled eyes to the so-called Kid, who had little Kid left in him. No, that wasn’t true, Emma saw now. She thought she glimpsed in his eyes the glitter of a much younger man, a young firebrand who still felt the thrill of throwing caution to the wind and playing out a hand even when the odds were stacked against him.

  “You fat old dog!” Hopkins barked. “How dare you confront me like this! Are you too stupid to not only have no respect for your betters but to not know when you are severely outgunned?”

  The Kid stopped about ten feet away from Hopkins and the gunmen flanking him, their rifles now trained on the old man himself. The Kid kept his hard, defiant gaze on John Clare, wrinkling his broad nose with disdain. “You can put a hat on a mule, but that don’t make him a man. If these gun rats of yours don’t lower their weapons, I’m gonna blow a hole through you big enough to drive the Southern Pacific through. On the count of three!”

  He squeezed the shotgun in his hands as he aimed at Hopkins belly and drew his index finger taut against one of the Greener’s triggers.

  “Lower your weapons!” Hopkins shouted, throwing a hand up to emphasize the order. “Lower them now!” When a couple of the gunman, not used to giving quarter, especially to old men, were slow to lower their Winchesters, Hopkins barked hoarsely and more loudly, “Lower them now, for chrissakes! Did you hear what I said? He means it!”

  The men quickly albeit reluctantly lowered their rifles.

  Glancing at Emma, the Kid said, “On your feet, girl. Climb atop your horse an’ split the wind outta here.”

  Wincing against the pain in her head and in her hip, which took the brunt of the hard tumble, Emma gained a knee and then her feet. She’d lost her hat, and now she swept her flaxen hair out of her eyes. “Where’s your horse, Kid?”

  Talking to Emma but keeping his hard gaze on Hopkins, the Kid said, “Up the trail apiece. I’ll be along shortly.”

  Emma walked up to her horse, keeping her own worried eyes on the Kid. “You won’t make it.”

  “I ain’t that old. Hop aboard!”

  “I mean they’ll close in on you before you can make it to your horse, Kid. As soon as you’re out of range with your Greener, they’ll cut you down with their rifles.”

  “Hop aboard, dammit, girl!”

  Emma leaped up onto the buckskin’s back. She looked at Hopkins and the gunmen. They stood with their guns lowered, but they regarded the Rio Grande Kid with shrewd, savage cu
rls to their mouths and wolfish glitters in their eyes. Emma whipped the horse around to face the Kid.

  She patted the buckskin’s rump. “Come on, Kid! Hop aboard! We’ll ride double!”

  The Kid, keeping his Greener aimed at Hopkins’s belly, shook his head. “I gotta keep this gut-shredder aimed at this overdressed magpie here, or they’ll cut us both down for sure.”

  “You’re smarter than you look,” said the mustached rifleman with a leering grin.

  “Ride out, Emma!”

  “No!”

  “Goddammit!” The Kid was red-faced mad.

  That changed her mind. If she didn’t do what he’d told her to do, what he’d just done to save her life would be in vain.

  “All right!” she screamed then neck-reined the buckskin back around and ground her spurs into its flanks. She let out a strangled sob. “Goddamnit, Kid!”

  ***

  The Kid turned his entire body partly, so he could keep the girl and the buckskin in the corner of his left eye while maintaining his focus, as well as the twelve-gauge shotgun, on John Clare Hopkins’s belly.

  “I’ll be seein’ you later,” the Kid told Hopkins, “about the murder of Candace Jo at the Conquistador.”

  The younger Hopkins turned to his brother, frowning. “Candace Jo…?”

  “Soiled dove,” the Kid said. “Your brother cut her throat from ear to ear.”

  Ferrell Hopkins’s scowl grew more intense. The rest of Hopkins’s moneyed partners looked at John Clare, as well.

  “Oh, you didn’t know your brother was a cold-blood killer,” the Kid told the younger brother.

  John Clare smiled smugly at the lawman. “He’s lying, I assure all of you. I would never do such a thing—especially to such a pretty young woman. And one with so many talents.”

  “Yeah, well, like I said,” the Kid said, starting to back away in the direction Emma had gone, “I’ll be talkin’ to you about that later.”

  Hopkins’s oily, arrogant smile broadened. “Oh, I don’t think there’s going to be any later for you, old man.” He slid his glance to the nearly dozen gimlet-eyed gunmen holding their rifles down low by their sides. None said anything, but the Kid could tell they’d gotten the message.

  As soon as he’d taken a few more steps up the trail, and his Greener was out of effective range, they were to go to work with the Winchesters and Henrys. The thought formed a lump at the far south end of the Kid’s throat.

  He’d gotten himself into a good one, hadn’t he? Well, he’d been bound to sooner or later. Besides, there was no point in growing much older. What did he have to look forward to? He’d had a good long life. Old men on the frontier weren’t treated much better than old, useless dogs.

  He’d had a good run—the high points being his defeat of the Chiricahuas who’d attacked the stage and when Yakima Henry had shown enough confidence in him to pin the five-pointed, silver-washed star on his vest. He might have been a windy old bag of suet and several other unfortunate things, but at least he had those notches on the proverbial gun handle.

  He continued walking backward, keeping the heavy Greener aimed at Hopkins and the others. As Hopkins and his business partners slowly shuffled back behind the rifle-wielding hardcases, all of whom had their stony eyes riveted on the Kid, that lump in the Kid’s throat grew a tad larger and tighter.

  One more step, his spurs chinging.

  Two more steps.

  Three…

  Standing behind the riflemen, Hopkins smiled at the Kid, and winked. “Sleep tight, you old scoundrel. Don’t let the diamondbacks bite!”

  All at once, the riflemen raised their Winchesters and Henrys, loudly pumping cartridges into the rifles’ actions and pressing the rear stocks against their shoulders. Hopkins raised his arm, as though he were about to flag the start of a horserace, then whipped that arm down, shouting, “Kill the old fool!”

  A rifle thundered, causing the Kid to give a violent start.

  He hesitated, then continued shuffling backward, frowning at the gunmen. But he saw no smoke nor any other indication that any of them had fired his rifle. What he did see was John Clare’s head snap back, as though he’d been punched. When the dapper Englishman’s head wobbled forward again, the Kid saw a dark round spot in the man’s pale forehead about the size of a silver dollar.

  John Clare’s eyes crossed then rolled back in his head as his head tipped back again. His knees buckled, and he piled up on the ground like the empty suit he’d always been.

  The men around the man turned to him in shock.

  The Kid swung his own head to look behind him, up the trail that ran along the base of the canyon’s high north wall. A black-hatted man was on one knee atop a low outcropping about forty yards behind the kid, near the canyon wall. Now Yakima Henry cupped a hand to his mouth and shouted, “Turn around an’ run, Kid. Run like you was twenty again. I’ll try to hold them off, but no guarantees!”

  The Kid’s old ticker kicked in his chest.

  “Oh, boy. Oh, boy!”

  He swung around, stumbling over his own clumsy feet. He dropped to a knee, scrambled to his feet again, and began lumbering up the trail, icy spiders of dread crawling up and down his back when he heard Ferrell Hopkins scream behind him, “Kill them! Goddamnit, kill them all!”

  Chapter 24

  Careful to aim over the Rio Grande Kid running toward him, Yakima cut loose on Hopkins’s hired guns. He was perched atop an escarpment of broken boulders, and the Kid was running toward him, below him on his right, following the trail that hugged the north side of the canyon.

  Yakima was a little too far away for deadly shooting, and a good bit of chaparral bristled between him and the church and the cream tent out front of it, but as he triggered and pumped the Yellowboy, the rifle roaring and leaping in his hands, he watched at least three of the riflemen go down, clutching wounds.

  He popped his last cap and sent the empty cartridge hurling over his right shoulder to clatter onto the rocks behind him. As he did, he saw several of the gunmen running into the brush flanking the tent. Ferrell Hopkins was lying belly down on the ground, where he’d dropped with his silver-spooned cohorts, taking cover, his arms crossed on his head as though to shield himself from one of Yakima’s .44 rounds.

  “Get mounted and get after him! I don’t want that shooter or anyone else leaving this canyon alive! God damn that man—whoever he is!”

  Yakima looked at the Yellowboy. He’d lowered the cocking lever, and now he stared into the open action. Smoke slithered around inside the breech, smelling like rotten eggs. He started to pinch cartridges from his cartridge belt, intending to reload and resume shooting, but reconsidered.

  He was outnumbered. Even with the high ground, he didn’t have a chance against those shooters, there being at least nine left. They’d surround the escarpment and pick him off like shooting a turkey out of a tree. Besides, he had to get the Kid and Emma clear of the killers.

  That thought foremost in his mind, he scrambled to his feet and hurried down the backside of the escarpment. A few of the riflemen were triggering lead toward him. The bullets screamed off rocks as Yakima leaped off a boulder and onto the ground beside the coyote dun gelding he’d rented at Gramps Dawson’s Livery & Feed Barn. Wolf had been spent from the long ride back to town from Kosgrove.

  He jumped onto the horse’s back, startling the mount, who was no more accustomed to him than Yakima was the horse. At such a time, he wished he had trusty, stalwart Wolf, but it was just him and the rental horse, so, hoping for the best, he put spurs to the gelding’s flanks and crouched forward.

  The horse gave an indignant whinny as it lunged off its rear hooves and lunged headfirst into a hard run. Yakima could feel the horse’s back muscles twitching nervously beneath the saddle as the bullets Hopkins’s gunslicks were firing clattered off the rocks and plunked into the ground around the trail.

  “I bet you’re wishin’ it would have been anyone but me that came lookin’ for a horse today
—eh, boy?” Yakima said as he and the horse shot up the trail. “I wouldn’t blame you a bit!”

  As he and the coyote dun followed a bend in the canyon wall, Yakima saw the Kid down on both knees just ahead.

  “Whoah, hoss!” Yakima jerked back on the dun’s reins.

  As the horse skidded to a stop beside the Kid, the older man looked up at Yakima, red-faced, shaking his head with exhaustion. “I’m spent! You go on ahead!”

  “It’s only a little ways to your horse, Kid!” He couldn’t see the Kid’s sorrel from here, but he knew the Kid had tied it only sixty or so yards down canyon, having wanted to steel up on the pillagers in silence. “Yakima flung out his left hand. “Hop on board!”

  “Ah, hell, you’ll make better time without this damn rain barrel behind you!”

  Guns were popping and hooves were thundering behind Yakima, who snapped his hand at the Kid and said, “I’m not going anywhere without you, Kid, so the sooner you take my hand and crawl aboard this rented cayuse, the better off we’ll both be!”

  The Kid snapped a wide-eyed glance behind him. The first few riders were caroming into view, dusters winging out behind them, savage fury glinting in their eyes. A couple of Hopkins’s rannies triggered carbines, and the bullets sliced the air around Yakima and the Kid, who cursed, heaved himself to his feet, and shoved his hand at Yakima.

  Yakima closed his hand around the Kid’s. He’d sidled the dun over to a rock, so the big man had a relatively easy time hopping aboard. When the Kid had settled his weight behind Yakima, Yakima nudged the dun’s flanks with his spurs and bellowed, “Go, hoss—go now!”

  The horse glanced back at him, its eyes wide and white-ringed with anxiety, not caring one bit for the bullets screeching around him and sawing into the chaparral. It turned its head forward, laid back its ears, and bolted up the trail with less speed than before, which was understandable, since the Kid added well over two hundred pounds.

  The canyon floor slanted upward.

  Bullets curled the air around Yakima and the Kid, the older man waving at one as though at a pesky fly. “That was so close I won’t need to shave that side tomorrow…if there is a tomorrow!”