Ralph Compton Slaughter Canyon (9781101559499) Read online

  “What was his name?”

  “The day he died, he was going by Tom Riley.”

  “And you killed him?”

  “He gave me no choice.”

  “In the line of duty?”

  “Yeah, I was still a marshal at the time.”

  Battles decided now was the time to spin the big windy. “After I read your letter, well, that’s when I decided to rob the Pecos City Bank and head directly for Slaughter Canyon,” he said, blinking.

  Warful nodded. “Not directly, it seems. Durango tells me you took time to hide ten thousand dollars in a cave.”

  “He told you right.”

  “There’s a cave right here in the canyon. You could have hidden it there.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Pah,” Warful said, spreading his hands, “we stand here talking about pennies when millions are at stake.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Battles said, knowing he was pushing it.

  The giant looked down at him from his great height. “When the time is right, I’ll tell you. Let me just say that a great enterprise is unfolding and I may allow you to become part of it.”

  He beckoned to Durango. “Take the marshal’s gun.”

  It had been only a four-word speech, but it contained two implied threats Battles didn’t like. The first was obvious; the second was the use of the word “marshal.”

  Did that last mean that Warful was wary of trusting him?

  Grinning, Durango held out a hand. “The iron ... Marshal.”

  Warful noted Battles’s growing irritation and smiled. “Don’t be alarmed, Mr. Battles. It’s only a temporary measure.” This time he laid emphasis on the “mister.” He laid a hand on Battles’s shoulder. “Soon, once I get to know you better, we will become perfect friends and your revolver will be returned to you.”

  But Matt Battles was a stubborn man and could only be prodded so far and no further.

  He worked it out in his mind.

  Durango first because he was the fastest with the iron. Then Warful. And the whole damned thing would be over with. He’d be killed himself, of that he had no doubt. The men flanking their boss would see to it. But better that than die of shame by surrendering his gun to a lowlife like Durango.

  Battles took a step back and turned slightly so he had Durango in his line of vision.

  “I’m not giving my gun to that piece of dung,” he said to Warful. “Or to any like him.”

  Chapter 9

  Blacks and Jews

  Durango was mad clean through. His killing rage made him look like a man possessed. His right hand was clawed above the handle of his gun.

  “I’ll take the iron off your damned corpse,” he said.

  “Enough!” Warful said.

  He glared at Durango. “If Mr. Battles wishes to keep his sidearm, then let him. Keep a closer eye on him, though. Until he proves his loyalty.”

  “I hung one just like you, Matt,” Durango said. “A damned turncoat who planned to sell us out.”

  “I saw him, Durango,” Battles said, his own anger rising. “He was just a boy. About your style, I reckon.”

  “Durango, let it go,” Warful said. “Go get yourself a drink and a cigar at the commissary and calm down.” He tensed, and the gunmen flanking him did the same. “That’s an order, mister.”

  Durango’s face stiffened as he fought a battle with himself. Then, breathing noisily through his beak of a nose, he visibly relaxed.

  Finally he said, his eyes blazing, “This is over for now, Matt. You won’t be so lucky the next time.”

  He spun on his heel and strode away.

  Warful smiled. “Durango is emotional and highly strung. The greaser half of him is to blame, I fear.”

  “He really did hang the boy?” Battles said.

  “On my orders, yes. Does it trouble you?”

  “I don’t like seeing any man hung.”

  “The boy knew too much, that we are gathered here for a great and noble venture. I could not let him leave and risk him reporting us to the authorities.”

  A silence stretched between the two men; then Warful said: “How did you feel about Durango gunning Charlie, Mr. Battles?”

  “It was cold-blooded murder.”

  “Perhaps so, but Charlie should’ve remembered to keep a civil tongue in his head around white men.”

  “Durango is only half white,” Battles said. “He’s a breed.”

  He couldn’t believe he’d just said that. It was as though all his dormant prejudices had suddenly bubbled to the surface of his conscience.

  “Yes, yes, he is,” Warful said. “And that is a state of affairs I will address at a later date.”

  Before Battles could respond, Warful said: “How do you feel about blacks and Jews in general, the subhuman races?”

  Battles shrugged and treaded warily. “I never really thought about them much.”

  “Do you know any Jews?”

  “Only one, I guess, Sam Glattstein, owns a saloon and poolroom down Austin way.”

  “What do you think of him?”

  “Sam? Well, his beer is cold and he pours an honest drink. He’s also been known to spot a down-on-his-luck cowboy a beer and a meal if he’s riding the grub line.”

  “Where you find one Jew, there are many more,” Warful said. “Down Austin way, I’m willing to bet there’s a major infestation.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” Battles said.

  “Ah, but you will, never fear, because I’ll educate you in such matters,” Warful said.

  Battles now pegged the man and for the first time realized the enormity of what he was facing.

  Warful was a crackpot and that made him all the more dangerous.

  Did he plan to use his outlaw gunmen to kill blacks and Jews, people he obviously hated?

  If that was the case, Battles was all that stood between those folks and a massacre.

  The giant was talking again.

  “I grow weary, Mr. Battles.” He gestured toward a man at his side. “Mr. Lon Stuart here will show you to your quarters.”

  Stuart was a tall, loose-limbed man with reptilian eyes and a bullet scar on his left cheek.

  “Mr. Stuart will also show you our commissary,” Warful said. “It’s stocked with the finest liquors and cordials and a range of excellent cigars.” He smiled. “Free of charge, of course.”

  Warful pulled back his tent flap and Battles was hit by a stinking wave that hit him like a fist.

  “My lady wife is taking her beauty nap,” Warful said. “But you will meet her later.”

  Battles decided to play the game and said with a straight face. “It will be the pleasure of my day.”

  Lon Stuart stopped outside a tent in the middle of a row of others. “You’ll bunk here with Dee O’Day,” he said. He nodded to a larger tent opposite, a couple of wagons parked behind it. “That there’s the commissary. Help yourself.”

  The man turned to walk away, but Battles said: “Are you the Lon Stuart out of Brewster County?”

  The man smiled, his eyes holding all the warmth of a Louisiana swamp alligator.

  “Mister,” he said, “I’m the Lon Stuart out of hell.”

  Chapter 10

  The Question

  “What do you think of him?”

  “I can use him.”

  The enormously obese woman on the oversized cot bit into an expensive Belgian bonbon, then studied its pink center.

  Without looking at Warful, she said: “Do you believe him?”

  “I haven’t yet made up my mind, my dear.”

  “I don’t.”

  “A leopard can’t change its spots, huh?”

  “A federal lawman can’t.”

  Warful made a resigned face. “We’ll see. I can always dispose of him after the conquest.”

  “What’s his opinion of the Jewish question?”

  “He knows a good Jew.”

  “There are no good Jews.”

&
nbsp; “I will educate him to that fact, my dear.”

  The woman popped the bonbon into her scarlet mouth.

  “I’m tired of this awful place, Hatfield,” she said, chewing. “When can I wear silk again and get rid of this cotton shift?”

  “We’ll leave soon, Hattie. I assure you.”

  “When do the wagons leave the Comstock?”

  Warful smiled. “You know that as well as I do, dear one. We’ll embark on a westbound train in three days.”

  “And the sailing ship?”

  “It will be there.”

  “Do you trust that captain... what’s his name?”

  “Poke Yates. Yes, I trust him. He’s a damned pirate, but his ship will be at the dock. He thinks as we do, my love, and he’s just as anxious for plunder as the rest of the scum I have around me.”

  The woman rooted around in her chocolate box like a great she-bear ransacking a beehive.

  “I dread a long train journey, Hatfield,” she said without looking up. “It’s so very tedious.”

  Warful reached out and squeezed the vast pillow of his wife’s breast.

  “Very soon now you’ll ride in your own private train,” he said. “In a land that is ours.”

  Hattie smiled. “Hasten the day, my love.”

  “Indeed,” Warful said.

  “The Afrikaners will come?”

  “I’ve been assured of a force of five hundred mounted rifles,” Warful said. “More than enough for our purposes.”

  “And the British and French? I don’t trust the British.”

  “The Boers bloodied British noses at Mujaba Hill a couple of months ago and now all their problems lie in the south. They won’t interfere. Nor will the French as long as we don’t intrude on one of their colonies.”

  The woman sighed. “Politics, politics. It’s all so complicated.”

  Warful shook his head. “It’s really not. You’ll see.”

  Hattie turned in the bed to face Warful. The cloying stench of her body was a palpable thing. “Will the Jews fight?”

  “They’ve never done so before and there have been many pogroms in many nations.”

  “I want you to get me a Jewish wedding ring, Hatfield.”

  The man’s skull face broke into a grin. “Never fear, Hattie. After this is done I’ll have hundreds for you.”

  Chapter 11

  The South Will Rise Again

  Dee O’Day was a killer and a talking man.

  “Damn, I’ll be glad to get away from this place,” he said. “I used to think the world was a big place, but it’s shrunk to the walls of this canyon.”

  “You’re an open-range man, Dee, huh?” Battles said.

  “Yeah, except when I’m on the scout.”

  O’Day, stripped to his long johns, lay on his back on his cot, a bottle of whiskey balanced on his lean belly.

  “You take towns, now,” he said. “I like towns if they’ve got snap.”

  He turned his head and looked at Battles. “You ever been in Denver?”

  “Can’t say as I have,” Battles said.

  “Denver has snap,” O’Day said.

  “I must ride up there one day,” Battles said.

  “Nah,” O’Day said, “you ain’t the kind for Denver. With that long face of your’n you look too much like a preacher. Put folks off their sinnin’.” He smiled. “No offense, mind.”

  “None taken.”

  The tent was stifling hot and smelled of booze and man sweat.

  Outside, the hammering sun made sure that nothing moved in the heat but the insects that droned or chirped in the brush.

  Battles sat on the edge of his cot and built a cigarette. He lit the smoke and accepted the bottle proffered by O’Day. He took a swig and passed it back.

  “What’s Warful up to, Dee?” he said.

  The young gunman’s head moved on his sodden pillow. “How the hell should I know? He doesn’t confide in me. He hasn’t even told Durango, and for some reason he sets store by that breed.”

  O’Day looked at Battles, his face serious. “I’ll tell you what I think. I think he plans to take Richmond, then raise the flag of the Confederacy.”

  “Start another civil war?”

  “That’s what I think. Whatever Warful has in mind, it’s big. Mighty big.”

  O’Day took a slug from the bottle, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then said: “You’re a lawman, Battles. What’s your opinion?”

  “You mean I was a lawman.”

  “Maybe you are, maybe you ain’t. Anyhow, let me hear it. What’s Warful’s plan?”

  “I’ve no idea. Maybe it’s what you said”—he poked a hole in the air with a forefinger—“the South will rise again.”

  O’Day grinned. “Sure way to get all our heads blowed off. The damned Yankees killed my daddy and my three older brothers at Gettysburg. Me, I don’t want anything to do with any civil war junk.”

  “He says he’ll make us rich, Dee,” Battles said. “That much I do know.”

  “Yeah, and it’s the reason why I’m still here. He better tell us soon how he plans to do that or I’m hauling my freight.”

  “Somebody already tried,” Battles said. “Last night I found him hanging from a cottonwood.”

  “He was him, he wasn’t Dee O’Day or a patch on me. Warful knows that if he comes after me with a rope he’ll be the first to die and his damned breed of his’n will be the second.”

  The gunman looked at Battles again. “You seen his wife? Her name’s Hattie.”

  “Smelled her. That was enough.”

  “Would you do her?”

  “Hell no. You?”

  “I could never get drunk enough for that,” O’Day said.

  Battles dropped his cigarette butt and ground it under his heel.

  “Yeah, that’s right, Marshal,” O’Day said. “Mess up the place.”

  Battles smiled. “What’s that salute everybody gives, the clenched-fist thing?”

  “It’s Warful’s idea, says it’s a white man’s salute that them ancient Romans invented. He’s got some pretty strange notions, about Jews an’ sich.”

  “What about Jews?”

  “He’s agin them. Says...” The gunman thought for a few moments to get it right. “Says all the woes of mankind have been caused by Jews, all the wars and plagues an’ stuff.”

  “You know any Jews, Dee?”

  “Nary a one. But I’ll tell you this much, pay me fifty dollars an’ I’ll shoot a Jew as quick as I would any other man, or woman come to that.”

  “You’re true blue, Dee,” Battles said, making no attempt to disguise the irony of his tone.

  “Damn right I am,” Dee O’Day said, nodding.

  Chapter 12

  Two Tons of Gold

  Matt Battles kicked his heels around camp for the next couple of days. He explored the canyon, looking for old Indian sign, but found nothing.

  The reaction of the gunmen to his presence varied from wary sociability to indifference to downright hostility.

  By nature, men who lived by the gun tended to be short on talk and long on watching, O’Day and Durango being notable exceptions. Most had careful eyes that looked at nothing directly but saw everything.

  Battles knew well that he was under constant scrutiny, his comings and goings noted, distrust following him like his own shadow.

  Bored, he even found himself looking forward to the meals prepared by Mosey, Warful’s black cook and water hauler. The food was filling, if monotonous because the menu never varied—bacon and beans for breakfast, steak and beans for dinner. But Mosey’s coffee was good and his biscuits, when he was in the mood, sublime.

  A drinking man by times, Battles took a bottle from the commissary but drank from it rarely, unlike O’Day, who cheerfully downed a quart of rye a day.

  Of Warful he saw little and the lanky giant largely ignored him. He seemed preoccupied, totally absorbed in his thoughts.

  Battles had still no hint of th
e man’s plans, though O’Day’s suggestion that he aimed to start a second civil war seemed as logical as any.

  Then, on the evening of Battles’s third day in camp, everything changed.

  Warful ordered his men to gather around the commissary tent. He stood on an Arbuckle coffee box and waited until all had gathered before speaking.

  “We all know that the Comstock mines pretty much played out a couple of years ago, but our interest is not in silver,” he said. He hesitated a moment before adding: “It’s gold.”

  A murmur of appreciation rose from the assembled gunmen. Silver, at two thousand dollars a ton, might make a man rich, but slowly. Gold they understood and appreciated.

  “The last gold shipment to leave the Comstock will arrive in San Francisco by train in a week, there to be loaded into the hold of the bark Lila, Captain Poke Yates commanding.”

  “How much gold, boss?”

  This from Ben Lane, the Texas fast-draw artist and a questioning man by nature.

  “Two tons, packed in small kegs bound with iron hoops,” Warful said.

  “How much is that worth in American money?” another man said.

  “One and a half million dollars, give or take,” Warful said.

  A few men broke into cheers and Dee O’Day yelled: “Hell, if we split it ... what? ... nineteen ways ... that’s ... that’s...” His mind grappled with the figures. “A lot.”

  “It’s enough money for a man to live like a king for ten lifetimes,” Lane said.

  Battles decided to play up his badman role.

  “What do we do, boss?” he said. “Rob the train?”

  Warful shook his head. The dying sun gleamed on his bald head, and his eyes held a prophet’s fire.

  “Too risky,” he said. “The train will be well guarded and even if we overcame the opposition, we’d need wagons and mules to transport the load. Slowed by wagons like that, we’d be caught before we put a dozen miles between us and the rails.”

  “Then how do we play it?” Battles said.

  “Why, we walk on board the good ship Lila as honored guests and put to sea.”