Sons of Some Dear Mother Page 10

  ‘Yeah,’ the towner shrugged. ‘That there is Emilio, the powder monkey from the mine. That would be dynamite in them bags, right enough, señor.’

  ‘You drunken bums!’ Henry Lowe snarled. ‘You could have blown us to kingdom come.’ He gestured at the Mexican man. ‘You. Get that stuff out of here. Move!’

  The Mexican fumbled with the pack but his shaking hands would not cooperate. With a curse, Henry Lowe ordered him off and swung on big Newson Murdock.

  ‘Take care of it,’ he snapped. ‘And don’t drop the stuff just because you are drunk.’

  As Newson Murdock moved towards the burro, Henry Lowe began to walk away.

  In that instant, Frank Daniels came to a decision. Destiny had dealt him a joker, and if he didn’t play it, he deserved to lose the game.

  Sweeping the shotgun to his shoulder, he emptied both barrels into the bulging leather sack.

  Casey Daniels almost fell over with shock as the bellow of the explosion came rocking up the butte. They saw the fireball erupting in the heart of the outlaw town below. The brothers stared down in open-mouthed awe as houses burst into flame and gunfire began to punctuate the screams of the injured.

  They exchanged wide-eyed stares. They did not want to go down there. They had prayed that Frank would find Rinconada Falls totally empty of outlaws, but now there was no choice. Frank was down there, on foot and alone.

  That had to mean he needed his brothers.

  As they mounted and spurred downslope, Frank was fighting for his life. At the crucial moment, his leg had given out on him, slowing his retreat so badly that he had been sighted in the light of the blazing buildings.

  He didn’t think he had a chance, but he felt damn good, nonetheless. He only had to look over his shoulder to feel even better. The explosion had cut a swathe through the bad men, and many lay dead or dying in the street.

  He had had the pure joy of seeing Newson Murdock disintegrate before the eyes, and he delayed just long enough to fling a black stone into the street before taking to his heels.

  His pounding heart told him that Henry Lowe might be dead, too. That hope lent him strength as he dragged his game leg after him and ran for . . . for what? There was nothing ahead but the half mile of open country between the town and the river. Behind him, a mob of maddened outlaws were screaming his name.

  It was worth dying if he had nailed Henry Lowe, too, he was telling himself, but then he heard the voice: ‘Horses, you halfwits! Bring the horses!’

  Frank stumbled, slowed dangerously and turned around.

  Silhouetted against a blazing barn, Henry Lowe was unmistakable as he waved his muscular arms and shouted with powerful lungs.

  ‘If Daniels gets away, I will skin every mother’s son. Horses! Bring me a horse!’

  Frank turned his back and kept going, concentrating solely on what speed he could muster with his injured leg.

  How in hell had Henry Lowe survived? Had Frank played the hand wrong? Should he have passed up the temptation of the dynamite to await his chance and be sure of Lowe?

  Would his brothers finish what he had begun? The answer had to be no. They did not have the grit for it. Not like him. They did not hate the way he did, and he both despised and loved them for that.

  His head thudded against his ribcage. He could hear hoofbeats but would not look back for fear of losing a few inches of headway.

  And then his brothers were there, sweeping towards him hell for leather.

  The pain in his leg was nearly forgotten, and now he had all the time in the world. He ran and returned fire and ran again. Two outlaws stumbled as his brothers opened up, and one of the bad men went down. The flames from the town were making the river flats bright as day. Casey shouted Frank’s name and came heeling towards him, while Hugh slowed the enemy with a sweeping volley of fire from his repeating rifle.

  ‘Kill him! Kill him!’

  It was Henry Lowe’s cry, above the gunfire and roaring flames, Frank braced himself and lifted a powerful arm. Casey leaned from his saddle, right arm lowered. The two arms slammed together and held. Frank kicked high, and the kid swept him around behind him. Frank’s rump hit horsehide in the same instant that Hugh, horse and all, went down fifty yards behind him.

  The outlaws’ howling alerted Frank and Casey, but even as Casey changed direction, it was already too late. A bandit wearing a red Mexican shirt was standing over Hugh, pumping shot after shot into his body.

  ‘Hugh!’ Casey screamed, and spurred the horse towards the fallen man. ‘Hold on, Hugh!’

  ‘Don’t be a fool, kid!’ Frank yelled, grabbing for the reins. ‘He’s dead, and so will we be if we go closer. Right, hard right, kid!’

  But Casey, tears streaming down his face, kept the horse running straight ahead until a fist crashed against the side of his jaw and almost knocked him from the saddle. But Frank held on to his youngest brother with one hand and jerked viciously on the right rein with the other. The horse veered sharply, and they lurched away with hot lead following.

  Outlined against the yellow fires, dark horsemen followed.

  CHAPTER 15

  THE AFTERMATH

  Casey Daniels winced as Frank put the cold compress against his swollen jaw.

  ‘Hold it there,’ Frank growled, and then he abruptly swung away to peer over the rimrock.

  Horsemen!

  Frank sleeved his sweating face – so Henry Lowe was not quitting. He was following hard with what was left of his outlaw army, leaving the Daniels no time to do anything but run, as they had run for almost twenty-four hours non-stop.

  They were headed home.

  There was no place else for them, with their hunters herding them away from the towns and main trails, with Frank’s leg bleeding and the double-burdened horse almost on its last legs. And the rain kept coming down, as it had been for the past twelve hours, like somebody had busted a pipe in the sky.

  ‘I can hear ’em, Frank,’ Casey panted, wide-eyed as Frank swung back to him. ‘They are goin’ to get us, aren’t they? We’ll never see home again, and Lucy won’t. . . .’

  ‘Stop the bawlin’, kid,’ Frank ordered.

  Casey looked resentful.

  ‘Goin’ to die tough? Is that what you aim to do, Frank? You been tough all your life, and now that is all you got. Not a word about poor Hugh or. . . .’

  ‘Mount up, kid,’ Frank said flatly. ‘We are goin’ to make it.’

  When they reached the Blue Springs Creek waterway that night, they were barely able to ford it. When the outlaws made to follow them, Frank opened up and sent two of them to a watery grave before Henry Lowe called the rest of his men back.

  Frank was able to hold them back for nearly an hour. By then, the creek was up another two feet and plainly impassable.

  It was only as they dragged themselves wearily on to the horse for the short ride into town that Casey made a revelation to Frank.

  ‘Frank, I’m hit.’

  Frank’s face turned pale and his heart sank. ‘Hold on, kid.’

  On the rain-sodden street, Frank smoked a cigar and leaned on his rifle.

  He was all alone.

  He stood outside the Bella Union Saloon, where his lone surviving brother lay dying in Marlene Welch’s feathered bed.

  The wound that had looked so innocent to the naked eye had proven just the opposite. There was nothing more they could do for young Casey. Even though his younger brother kept calling for him, Frank remained on the street in the cold, the wind and the rain. Waiting. Clicking black pebbles in this hand. Watching with the eyes of a hunter while the eyes of Blue Springs Creek watched him.

  They could not understand him. Frank knew. None of them. The sheriff had wired for marshals to search for the outlaw gang, though the old-timers were quite insistent that nobody could cross the creek at its present level.

  But Frank Daniels continued to wait for Henry Lowe.

  Marlene accused him of hoping the outlaw might find his way across, but Frank
denied this. He was a good judge of men, he told himself, and he judged that Henry Lowe could hate every bit as hard as Frank Daniels.

  A door creaked open in the wind. Frank turned his head. Marlene stared down at him.

  ‘He’s goin’ fast, Frank.’

  ‘I can’t leave the street,’ was all Frank said in response.

  Her eyes brimmed with tears.

  ‘Haven’t you had enough, Frank? You lost your mother, and now you have sent your four brothers after her! Isn’t that enough, even for a man like you?’

  They did not understand. No one ever really understood him, or men like him.

  As he made to reply, some sixth sense sent him diving low. The bullet whistled overhead and buried itself in the saloon wall.

  ‘Got him!’ croaked Henry Lowe as he staggered forwards on rubbery legs.

  Blinking through the rain and deceived by his own exhaustion, the outlaw leader was seeing what he wanted to see – Frank Daniels lying dead.

  But Frank was playing possum, and the possum suddenly came back to life. Frank’s rifle roared again and again. Henry fell first, and then a hawk-faced gang member after him.

  Henry could not believe it. He raised his Colt with a bloodied hand and fired.

  But soon the guns fell silent. The outlaws lay side by side, face down in the mud. Frank crossed to them, and his eyes were blazing as he took two black pebbles from his pocket and dropped them in the street.

  It was finally over.

  Now he was ready for other things: he was now free.

  He saw Lucy Keller and Marlene Welch in the saloon doorway as he crossed the street. He could not disguise the spring in his step – but their faces sobered him as he drew closer. As he made to speak, Lucy got in ahead of him.

  ‘It is too late, Frank. Casey is dead.’

  The girl turned inside, and Marlene followed her.

  ‘It was always too late, Frank,’ she said, and then she was gone, gone in a way she would never have gone from him before. Gone, he knew with sudden searing clarity, she was gone forever from him.

  Frank Daniels stepped back into the rain. He did not want to see the face of another dead brother. He was feeling already what his hatred had not allowed him to feel before.

  There was no sign now of the people who had cheered him in the past. Frank and two dead men had the street to themselves.

  The doors of the town were closed, its windows empty. Frank Daniels had what he wanted. Now he had to learn to live with it.

  Forever.

  Now he knew he should have married Marlene Welch when he had had the chance.

  But Frank Daniels would have to continue to be who he was.

  CHAPTER 16

  THE COURT OF COMMON SENSE

  Six months later. . .

  ‘They’ve caught the fellow who stole Ben Allridge’s horse!’

  The cry carried from claim to claim, and sweating miners tossed aside shovel and pan, stopped a moment to consider the news, and drifted toward the main camp.

  Frank Daniels stirred. His massive frame stretched comfortably in the shade of his tent, a favorite position in the later afternoon while other men labored.

  ‘Ben Allridge’s a fool and his horse is an ass,’ Frank said indignantly, and the saying of it made him feel better – not really, as nothing made him forget the pain of the deaths of his brothers – but it helped greatly to break the spell cast over him by the memories of his lost love, too: Marlene Welch.

  Frank had hoped that once he had eliminated Henry Lowe and his gang, he and Marlene would wed, and he would settle down. But that had not been the case.

  Frank sighed. He got to his feet, stretched more, and brushed aimlessly at his clothing. He then bent to flick at the dust layering his tightly tailored boot. Big and sun-whipped from his recent journeys, Frank still held the touch of pallor across his features which hinted at the time he had spent recovering from the bullet wound in his leg.

  He had never admitted how much he loved Marlene Welch – though that no longer mattered, as his hunt of Henry Lowe and the Murdock Gang had cost him all.

  Inside his patchwork shanty of canvas and board, Frank donned a ruffled shirt and cravat, a waistcoat of calfskin, and a frock coat cut high in the back with fine buttons and wide silk lapels. It was not his usual style. The coat alone had cost him fifty dollars. On his head he cocked his dirty and worn old hat.

  He had acted like a crazed fool after the deaths of his brothers. In six months he had gotten drunk, gambled and spent like a madman with nothing to lose.

  Maybe he didn’t have anything to lose.

  Forty men milled like nervous cattle in the opening before the circular tent saloon. Tied soundly to the trunk of a tree was a young miner known to Frank as John Bishop.

  Upon Frank’s approach, the talk and milling came to a stop. Had Judge Glenn Conley, on his bench back in New York or wherever he was from back East, viewed the scene, he might well have experienced a momentary lessening of hostility toward a man like Frank. On the other occasion that Judge Conley had held ‘court’ in this Colorado mining camp, belligerent crowds had sensed the edge of calm reason in his rulings and noted favorably his judicial bearing. Conley nodded to the many around and stood silent. The assemblage must act of its own accord, in the terms and traditions of the ancient folkmoot that ruled in the gold camp.

  Ben Allridge finally spoke up in a shrill voice that betrayed his emotion. ‘I want this horse thief declared guilty, so I can string him up.’ His declaration was promptly followed by sufficient eyes to make the comment popular amongst the crowd.

  Frank, acting as a sort of bailiff, cleared his throat portentously. ‘The court,’ he said, ‘is in order.’

  He walked to the tree and gazed solemnly at John Bishop. John was a young, fiery-eyed man of bullish strength and a reputation for sudden violence. In his youthful appearance he reminded Frank of Casey. John spat contemptuously at Frank’s ruffled shirt front, but Frank craftily side-stepped without losing his composure. Turning away, he nodded to Judge Conley.

  The judge then said, ‘All right, Mr Allridge. What’s the story?’

  ‘I caught him in the very act, Judge,’ Ben Allridge said heatedly. ‘Got a touch of the sun, so I rode in early from the claim. Left the horse saddled and tied while I went into the tent to rest. Came out later to find John Bishop riding off on my horse.’

  There was an angry murmur from the others. ‘Go on, Mr Allridge,’ Judge Conley said, ‘when it gets quiet, that is.’

  ‘I hollered and John started kicking the horse to get him going,’ said Ben. ‘Then the Wilson brothers ran up and caught him and brought him back and we tied him up after some fancy scufflin’.’

  Frank’s gaze found the Wilson brothers – Donovan and Daniel – in the crowd. They both nodded vigorously in agreement, and the older of the two, Donovan, said, ‘It’s what happened, Judge . . . Frank.’

  ‘I wouldn’t take three hundred dollars for that horse,’ Ben Allridge declared. ‘A good mount’s scarce in these parts, and there’s none I’ve seen as good as that one.’

  Frank took a visual cue from Judge Conley and acted as his voice, looking at John Bishop. ‘If you’ve got any defense, John, you’d best tell the court.’

  ‘I’ve been associating with polecats so long I got lonesome for a horse,’ John Bishop fired back.

  Looking to the judge again and receiving the nod, Frank said, ‘Maybe you were drunk?’

  ‘I was sober,’ protested John.

  As Frank went to speak, Judge Conley decided to finally speak up first. ‘Maybe you were just claim-happy, Mr Bishop. Sort of lost your head for a minute.’

  ‘Nah, most sensible thing I’ve done since I got to this hell-hole gold country,’ John Bishop retorted, ‘I’d have ridden that horse straight to Santa Fe and points east.’

  ‘He’s a confessed horse thief,’ Ben Allridge said, high and angry.

  ‘Seems like time for a hangin’,’ Donovan Wilson chimed in.<
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  Frank sighed and waited for the judge to make his declaration. ‘There being no defense, John Bishop is found guilty of attempting to steal a horse of Ben Allridge. Now there is the question of penalty.’

  ‘He’s guilty, he hangs,’ said Allridge.

  Frank turned on him and stared coldly. ‘The judge here is the elected presiding officer of this meeting, and he will do the fair thing according to common sense.’

  ‘You afraid to hang a horse thief, Frank?’ Ben Allridge asked.

  ‘John did a fool thing,’ Frank said, ‘which I don’t think he’ll likely repeat. And you’ve still got your horse, Ben.’

  Allridge turned to the judge. ‘Ain’t you goin’ to hang him?’

  Frank felt a wave of distaste rise in him for Ben Allridge: a man wronged but claiming compensation to the hilt – the compensation of another man’s life.

  It was then that Judge Glenn Conley declared: ‘John Bishop gets forty lashes on his back for temporarily losing his head and trying to ride off on another man’s horse.’

  ‘I’ll be shot!’ Ben Allridge yelled. ‘Of all the cowardly. . . .’

  ‘While the Wilson brothers turn John around at his tree there and deliver the sentence,’ Frank cut in, ‘I’m goin’ to ask the judge’s permission to lick Ben Allridge for calling him a coward.’

  Ben Allridge’s eyes widened. The judge nodded his head and said, ‘Court’s adjourned.’

  CHAPTER 17

  CURTAIN CALL

  The following morning was grey and cold as Frank walked north. If there was a stiffer man in the Mother Lode, he was not sober to suffer as Frank Daniels did. His arms and legs, especially the one he’d received a bullet in about six months ago, ached sorely, and his head seemed split and held together only by the bandage bound tightly over his brow. One eye was purple, puffed and closed, and his lower lip felt like some frog sat there. His nose was broken fearsomely, and he groaned as the chill air buffed it.

  When the first ray of light topped a craggy peak, Frank stopped beside a stream to bathe his face. He sat awhile to rest and cast a suspicious eye on his companion.