Ralph Compton Slaughter Canyon (9781101559499) Read online

  Now a murmur of doubt buzzed through the men, and Warful smiled and raised his hands for silence.

  “Listen to me,” he said. “The entire gold shipment was purchased by an Indian prince and—”

  “What tribe?” O’Day said.

  “Not a redskin, a prince who lives in the distant land of India,” Warful said, his scowling face revealing little patience for O’Day’s lack of intelligence.

  “Now, this prince—his name escapes me but it doesn’t matter—chartered Captain Yates’s bark to carry the gold from San Francisco to his home in Bangalore, India.” Warful smiled. “That was his big mistake. Oh, Captain Yates will transport the gold all right, but not to India.”

  O’Day, half drunk, clapped his hands and grinned.

  “Now I get it,” he said. “We gun the crew, take over the ship, and land the gold somewhere, and nobody the wiser.”

  O’Day looked around for the approval that he felt his shrewdness merited, but Warful stopped him.

  “That is not the plan, Mr. O’Day,” he said. “It could be, if you’re willing to clutch at thousands, but I can show you a way to make millions.” He looked at Ben Lane. “Enough, Mr. Lane, for an’undred lifetimes.”

  “What’s the play, boss?” Lane said.

  “That will be revealed when we’re safely aboard ship and out at sea with a fair wind at our backs,” Warful said.

  Battles asked a question that must have been on a few minds, because several of the gunmen nodded their approval.

  “Boss,” he said, trying to flatter Warful into candidness, “aren’t you taking a lot on trust? How do you know the gold will leave the Comstock on time, and that the ship will even be there?”

  “Good questions, Marshal Battles,” Warful said. “Thoughtful questions, I’ll be bound.” His face did not change expression. “Through a shipping agent in San Francisco, the prince chartered Captain Yates’s bark a full six months ago, when myself and my lady wife were still residents of that fair city.”

  He looked around his audience, then talked directly at Battles.

  “San Francisco was largely built with Comstock silver,” he said, “so shipments into the city usually went unnoticed. But the gold generated a deal of interest because it was said to be the last that would ever leave the mines and had been purchased by an eastern potentate. Its time of arrival at the docks is therefore not a secret.”

  Warful managed a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, the good ship Lila will be there, and so will the gold.”

  Lane took a step forward. “If you arranged all this with the captain, what do you need us for? We’re guns for hire, not sailors.”

  “I’ll tell you what for, Mr. Lane,” Warful said. “You men will be aboard the Lila to guard against black-hearted treachery. Poke Yates long ago took a set as an honest seaman, but in truth he’s a pirate rogue who has sent many a fine craft to the bottom, aye, and their crews with them. Captain Yates is not above slitting a throat or two if it suits his purposes, and that’s why his Lila carries a crew of twenty-five, twice the normal complement.”

  Warful waved a hand, taking in the entire crowd. “The captain claims he’s an honest seaman. Well, you men are here to make damned sure he stays that way.”

  Chapter 13

  Teetering on a Knife-Edge

  Matt Battles considered that so far Warful’s speech had been plausible, but the man was holding something back. He had other plans for the gold, and an equal division of the spoils was clearly not one of them.

  Then Warful’s voice rose to what was almost a scream, and Battles heard the man plumb the depths of his madness.

  “Before you men leave,” he said, “listen to a tale of treachery that has already happened and that you should all know about. My lady wife and I once had a thriving business in that part of San Francisco they call the Barbary Coast. We rented out young Chinese girls by the hour, day, week, and considered them nonhumans, disposable commodities. But then, when the paying customers murdered too many of the sluts, we were forced out.”

  Spittle formed at the corners of his mouth. He lifted his head and clutched convulsively at his chest.

  “By the Jews!” he shrieked.

  Tears welled in Warful’s eyes and he tore at his shirt. “The San Francisco police ran me out of town. But who owns the police department? The Jews! Who controls the finances of the city? The Jews! Who were jealous of my success and wanted my business for their own? The Jews!”

  Warful bent his head, and his shoulders heaved and he fell into a sobbing silence.

  Battles looked around him and saw a mix of bafflement and disbelief on the faces of the gunmen.

  Talk to them of range wars, nesters, train and stage robberies, the business of killing men for a price, and they would listen. But Warful’s mad tirade was something beyond their experience and they didn’t know what to make of it.

  And the man was mad, Battles had no doubt of that. And now he feared that the demons that possessed Warful could drag all of them into a hell of his own making.

  Now the man began to talk—no, not talk, scream—again, spittle flying from his lips.

  “I will have my revenge on the Jew, and every man jack of you will help me,” he said. “We will destroy them with fire and sword wherever they may be found, take what is theirs, and make sport with their wives and daughters.”

  “Heehaw!” O’Day yelled. “Now you’re talkin’, boss. For a share of the gold, we’ll shoot anybody you want, an’ . . . an’ do their daughters.”

  A few men laughed, but most were as perplexed as before and said nothing. Even Durango, a conscienceless killer if ever there was one, seemed doubtful, as though Warful’s apparent madness could send this whole crooked enterprise cartwheeling out of control.

  But Warful lifted his head and seemed to have regained his composure, studying the men before him with dry eyes.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “at first light we leave for Pecos City, where we’ll take the train for San Francisco.” He paused a moment, then yelled, throwing his arms wide: “And then on to untold riches!”

  His words had the desired effect. Men cheered and Durango drew his revolver and fired into the air. Soon he was joined by others, and Warful stepped down from his box, grinning like a skull, to the racket of gunfire and a haze of powder smoke.

  Battles stopped the man before he reached his tent.

  “I robbed a bank in Pecos and killed a teller,” he said.

  Warful smiled. “Ah yes, so you did.”

  “The law will be looking for me.”

  “Then I suggest you keep your head down and lose yourself in the crowd.”

  “It’s a risk.”

  “Yes, one you’ll have to take, I’m afraid,” Warful said. He moved toward his tent. “Now, Marshal, if you’ll excuse me.”

  Battles watched the man go, knowing he was teetering on a knife-edge. Warful didn’t trust him, and few of the others did.

  He smiled to himself.

  His promising career as a lawman could come to a sudden end if he put down one foot wrong—like trying to contact Colonel Sinclair.

  Well, San Francisco was a big city and there he’d surely find a way to end this and bring Warful to justice, even if it meant sending a telegraph to Washington for help.

  The darkness was drawing close and the night birds were pecking at the first stars. A rising wind sighed through the canyon, tugging at his shirt.

  Matt Battles shivered.

  Irritated, he realized it might be from fear.

  Chapter 14

  An Ace in the Hole

  The gunmen’s horses were saddled and ready to ride before dawn.

  Mosey packed up after breakfast. He rode a scrawny mule and led an even scrawnier one, loaded up with pots and pans, the tools of the range cook’s trade.

  “Bye, boys,” he yelled, waving, as he rode out, heading south, the pack mule clanking behind him. “And good luck to all of you.”

  A few men bade the
black man farewell and a couple of others waved.

  “Durango,” Warful said. He nodded in Mosey’s direction.

  The gunman returned the nod.

  A couple of minutes later he followed Mosey’s back trail and a few minutes after that the slam of two shots echoed through the canyon.

  The gunmen stood by their horses and a few exchanged glances, but not a voice was raised in protest, the death of a black cook being considered of little account.

  Battles watched Durango ride in, horse and rider silhouetted against a bloodred sky, and he gritted his teeth in impotent rage.

  He’d witnessed two cold-blooded murders by Durango and had been unable to prevent either.

  Standing there in the scarlet-stained morning, the wind cool on his face, Battles vowed that, no matter what happened, he’d make sure Durango didn’t live through this affair, even if he had to match his draw against the breed’s lightning gun.

  A wagon drawn by a pair of mules was parked outside Warful’s tent.

  The men waited, their horses restless, for Mrs. Hattie Warful to grace the assembled company with her presence.

  She didn’t disappoint.

  Her husband drew back the tent flap with all the grinning flourish of a master of ceremonies introducing the top banana at a burlesque show.

  The lady made her appearance.

  She wore heavy makeup, her cheeks and lips the same shade of crimson, and she wore a rustling dress of shimmering green silk.

  That the dress covered a filthy, unwashed body did not seem to faze either Mr. or Mrs. Warful in the least. The fat woman scarred the aborning morning by her very presence and polluted the air with her stench.

  Warful led his wife to the back of the wagon, looked around for help, met the eyes of no volunteers, and helped her into the bed himself. The springs squealed in protest as Hattie settled her vast bulk, perched on the edge, and kicked her fat legs.

  “Are you quite comfy, my love?” Warful said.

  The woman frowned. “No, I’m not, Hatfield. I so dread this journey.”

  “I’ll do everything I can to make you comfortable, my dear.”

  “On the voyage, Hatfield. Will I get seasick?”

  “Not at all, my dearest. I’m told a bark of seven hundred tons is an exceptionally smooth-sailing craft.”

  Hattie pouted, an expression so grotesque, Battles wanted to turn away, but couldn’t. He stared at the woman like a rabbit mesmerized by a cobra.

  “I don’t believe you, Hatfield,” she said. “I bet she wallows in the waves like a pig in a trough and makes me sick.”

  “We’ll see, my love,” Warful said, even his patience apparently wearing thin.

  He tied his horse to the back of the wagon and then climbed into the seat.

  “Forward!” he yelled, waving on his gunmen.

  Battles mounted with the rest and followed the wagon, one of nineteen expert gunmen who had been lost and then found again.

  The marshal glanced around him, at the hard, belligerent faces of the men. Alone, any one of them was a handful. Together, they could stand against an infantry regiment and he wouldn’t bet on the outcome.

  Could Warful control them once they got to San Francisco, knowing that a fortune in gold was theirs for the taking?

  The man must have another ace in the hole that made him so confident.

  Battles wished he knew what it was.

  Chapter 15

  Of Blackjacks and Brass Knuckles

  Warful had the men sell their horses in Pecos City, telling them that they’d have no need for them in San Francisco.

  A few men who were riding blood horses demurred, including Battles, but Warful soothed their misgivings by pointing out that when they returned to American soil they’d all be riding in carriages.

  Battles had to let it go. Now was not the time to make a stand, and not over a horse.

  Only Lon Stuart, the dour Texas gunfighter, refused.

  “I want my sorrel here, waiting for me, when this business is done,” he said. “And I’ll kill any man who tries to make me sell him.”

  Even Warful, crazy as he was, seemed to realize the danger of pushing a man like Stuart. But it was Durango who made up his mind for him. The breed drifted away when the Texan’s hard talk started. He didn’t want any part of what Stuart could give him.

  “Then leave your horse at the livery, Mr. Stuart,” Warful said, smiling, smoothing it out. “But, should you need one, you’ll find better horseflesh in San Francisco, I assure you.”

  Stuart shook his head. “There is no better hoss than the sorrel.”

  “Then do as you please, Mr. Stuart,” Warful said. He turned on his heel and walked away, his back stiff.

  Stuart looked at Battles. “I don’t like that man,” he said.

  The marshal smiled. “Seems to me, Lon, that men you don’t like have a habit of ending up dead.”

  “Something to bear in mind,” the Texan said. His eyes were hard and direct. “Since I don’t like lawmen much either.”

  Battles and the others had Mrs. Warful to thank for the railroad car they had to themselves.

  The woman’s stench drove the other passengers to seek the less pungent confines of the remaining carriages, while Hattie spread out her bulk over an entire bench.

  The restaurant Pullman, with its cushioned seats, was out of bounds for Mrs. Warful because of her great size and odor, and her husband brought her food, an activity that occupied most of his waking hours.

  Warful had dropped the Roman salute, which only Durango and a few others used anyway, explaining that it could draw too much attention to themselves.

  Battles figured he was right about that. He and the others would look like a bunch of loons.

  In the course of the jolting, sooty, five-day journey to San Francisco, Battles had to change trains four times, a miserable experience that entailed long, tedious waits at stations where the food was bad and the whiskey barely tolerable.

  Warful assured his irritable gunmen that better accommodations awaited them in ’Frisco, and that he personally guaranteed their comfort until they took ship.

  Even the passing beauty of the Sierra Nevada did little to lift Battles’s mood as they neared their destination. Indigestible grub lay in his belly like lead sinkers, and the stink of Mrs. Warful cloyed in his nostrils.

  He vowed he would never ride the cushions again, unless it was a journey of an hour or two, and even then it would require some cussin’ and discussin’ with himself.

  The train pulled into San Francisco just before midnight. A heavy mist curled through the streets of the city, and the air was chill and smelled of wet leaves and shoaling fish out in the bay.

  “Our accommodations are on the Barbary Coast near the docks,” Warful said after he’d gathered the men around him. “I trust Captain Yates has arranged all that.”

  “Hell, so do I,” Dee O’Day said, his shoulders hunched against the cold. Like the others, he had saddlebags slung over his shoulder and carried his long gun.

  Warful smiled. “Our host is a gentleman named Shanghai Kelly. He’s a rogue and the worst runner in the business, but he keeps a clean place and his cook is a French chef, at least he was until he stuck a boning knife into the chest of a complaining diner and had to flee Boston Town.”

  “Runner?” Battles said. “Do you mean gunrunner?”

  “No, Mr. Battles, I mean there are hell ships out of New York City commanded by captains under whom no seaman in his right mind would sail.” Warful flashed his skull grin. “Shanghai Kelly and other runners provide those crews.”

  “Sounds like a model citizen,” Battles said.

  “Oh, he is. He’s rich now and apparently respectable, but I’m told Shanghai still looks back with fondness on the days when he was reckoned to be the best man with the blackjack, slingshot, and brass knuckles along the entire Barbary Coast.”

  Warful’s attention was drawn to a noise behind him, the clatter and clang of wheels on
the cobbles as a cab threaded through traffic toward them.

  He stepped into the street and waved down the driver, a man muffled to the ears in an old army greatcoat and woolen scarf, a battered top hat pulled low over his eyes.

  “My wife needs transportation to Mr. Kelly’s establishment on the coast,” he said, looking up at the driver.

  The man touched the brim of his hat with his whip.

  “Thank’ee, sir,” he said. “I’m at your service. He pulled down his muffler and smiled. “As the nun said to the bishop.”

  “My lady wife is a delicate creature,” Warful said. “I fear a walk in this fog might harm her lungs.”

  “Don’t you worry, sir,” the driver said. “I’ll take care of her gentle, like she was me own missus.”

  But when the man clapped eyes on Mrs. Warful as she moved out of the shadows, his attitude changed.

  He shook his head and said: “Sir, I’d splinter me wheels or kill me horse if I let the lady in question into my cab, beggin’ your pardon.”

  Warful was boiling mad, especially when he noticed most of the gunmen clustered around him were grinning.

  “Now, see here, you—” he began.

  But he fell silent when a cab heading away from the dock area stopped and the driver, a burly, red-faced man, yelled: “’Ere, are you all right, Charlie?”

  “I’m fine, Joe,” the first driver said. He slapped the reins and called out over his shoulder as he drove away: “Some folks have no consideration for the tools of a man’s livelihood.”

  After Hattie watched the cab’s bobbing orange sidelights disappear into distance and darkness, she let out a wail and Warful ran to his wife’s side.

  “I can’t walk all that distance to the docks, Hatfield,” she said. “You know I can’t.”

  “I understand, my love,” Warful said. “But there will be another cab by presently.”

  But none others, perhaps warned by Charlie and Joe, stopped and Mrs. Warful’s howls grew in intensity and volume.