Gut-Shot Read online

  “Who hired them?” Flintlock’s eyes hardened.

  “I can’t tell you,” O’Hara said. “My treachery toward a paying client only goes so far.”

  “Who were they?” Flintlock said.

  “The one you gut-shot went by the name Horn Tate and—”

  “The other is Willie Litton. I’ve heard of them, a couple of dark alley back shooters. Why does your client want me dead?”

  “He don’t really give a damn about you, Flintlock. It’s McPhee’s scalp he wants. You’re just in the way, that’s all.”

  “You gonna try and give McPhee to him, O’Hara?” Flintlock said. His Colt was still in his gun hand and he had the kill glitter in his eyes.

  “Hell, isn’t that just like a white man,” O’Hara said. “I’ve saved your life twice and you’re still ready to throw down on me and shoot me down like a dog.”

  “Like you, I’m protecting my client.”

  “I wasn’t hired to kill McPhee, only to lead Tate and Litton here. I told them you were abed, as sick as a colicky pup. That’s why you took them boys so easy.”

  “It wasn’t easy. Tate was good with a gun and he come mighty close.”

  “So you got mad because he shaded you and shot him in the belly for spite.”

  “Something like that. Light and set and have a cup of coffee.”

  “I’ll pass. I’m not your enemy, Flintlock, but I’m not your friend.”

  “Then stay the hell away from me, O’Hara.”

  The breed smiled. “Yup, that’s all the thanks I’m going to get for saving your hide twice.”

  “The jury is still out on that,” Flintlock said. “Just remember this—”

  “I eagerly listen for the wise white man’s words,” O’Hara said.

  “After I plant these two I’ll have four men buried on this property,” Flintlock said. “But there’s always plenty of room for a fifth.”

  O’Hara’s smile was as fragile as it was fleeting. “Know your real enemy, Flintlock,” he said. “I think old Barnabas is right.”

  “About what?”

  “That you’re an idiot.”

  O’Hara turned his horse and rode into the shadowed evening.

  Flintlock watched him go, his face thoughtful.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “The trouble with you, McPhee, is that you don’t know your real enemy,” Sam Flintlock said.

  “You mean the man who hired these two,” Jamie McPhee said, nodding to the bodies that lay on the ground beside the graves he and Flintlock had almost finished.

  “Yeah, that’s what I mean. How come he wants you dead so badly?”

  “The whole town of Open Sky wants me dead,” McPhee said.

  “When a man goes to the trouble and expense of hiring two killers, he particularly wants you dead.”

  “Who could he be?” McPhee said.

  “See, you don’t know your enemies.”

  “Do you, Sam?”

  Flintlock grinned and shook his head. “Hell, no, I don’t,” he said. “That is, if you leave out everybody in Open Sky.”

  A lantern flickered between the open graves and spread a strange amber light. Night birds pecked at the first stars and heat lightning flashed to the north over distant mountains. The air smelled of burning lamp oil, damp earth and dead men.

  After Tate and Litton were in their graves and covered with earth, McPhee said, “Have you anything to say?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “Well, may they rest in peace,” McPhee said.

  Flintlock nodded. “And I’m sure sorry for the gut-shot,” he said. “I should have aimed higher. Amen.”

  “That about does it,” McPhee said, slapping his hands together. He gathered up the shovels and the lantern.

  As Flintlock reached the cabin he stopped.

  Old Barnabas sat cross-legged at the peak of the roof, juggling three bright red balls.

  “Visitors coming in, Sam,” he said. “Strange folks.”

  The old man let the three balls thud into his right hand, and then he was gone.

  “What do you see up there, Sam?” McPhee said, glancing at the roof.

  “Just looking at the sky. I don’t see any sign of rain.”

  “No rain,” McPhee said. “We’d smell it by now.”

  “We sure would,” Flintlock said. Then he tilted his head and listened into the night. “What’s that?” he said.

  From the distance among the trees, the atmosphere carried a dim clanking, tinkling, chiming, jingling sound and Flintlock’s skin crawled.

  “What the hell is that?” he said.

  “Look!” McPhee said, his voice breathless and urgent.

  Two great, green eyes shone in the darkness, bright as stars, and relentlessly approached closer . . . and closer . . .

  Flintlock stepped into the cabin and reappeared with his Winchester. He pulled the Colt from his waistband and tossed it to McPhee. “I don’t know what that thing is, but if it comes this way just fire in its general direction,” he said. “Got it?”

  McPhee swallowed hard then nodded. “Maybe it’s another infernal machine,” he said.

  Flintlock heard the thud of his heart in his ears. “Stand fast,” he said, realizing how old-timey mountain man that sounded. He wiped his sweaty trigger hand on his pants but his mouth was as dry as mummy dust.

  The eyes drew closer . . . brighter . . . and the chiming got louder, like a vibrating stack of cheap tin trays.

  “What the hell is that?” McPhee said.

  Flintlock made no answer. He didn’t know. Slowly . . . noisily . . . the strange presence closed the distance . . .

  Then, as though the darkness had parted like a stage curtain, it appeared in a space between the pines . . . an apparition the like of which Flintlock had never seen.

  It was a wagon, vaguely Chinese in appearance, and large, round paper lanterns shimmered with green radiance on either side. The wagon seemed loaded inside and out with pots and pans and other kitchenware that clattered and clanged with every turn of the wheels.

  A big gray draft horse, its tufted hooves as large as soup plates, strained mightily in the traces and a small black-and-white dog trotted silently alongside.

  Flintlock made out the dark silhouettes of two people up on the seat and he raised the muzzle of his rifle.

  “You in the wagon, stop right there and state your purpose!” he yelled into the gloom. “There’s a passel of shooting going on around here.”

  “We’re merely passing through,” a man’s voice answered. “No need for such hostility, old chap.”

  “Then come on in, real slow,” Flintlock said.

  “That’s the only speed my horse has, I’m afraid,” the man said.

  “Deuced impertinence if you ask me.” This from a woman, the voice young, high and pleasant but obviously irritated.

  “Now, now, Ruth,” the man said. “The gentleman is within his rights to demand information from traveling strangers. For all he knows we could be desperate brigands.”

  “He should be horsewhipped,” the woman said. “Threatening his betters with violence is unforgivable.”

  Flintlock’s anger, always on a hair trigger, exploded. “Git the hell in here,” he yelled. “And keep your hands where I can see them.”

  “Do as he says, Father,” the woman called Ruth said. “We’re obviously dealing with a violent ruffian.”

  “Walk on,” the man said to the gray, and the big horse lurched into motion.

  Flintlock turned to McPhee. “Get the lantern,” he said.

  But when the wagon stopped outside the cabin with a reverberating clangor the swaying paper lanterns at the four corners of the dray splashed pools of green-tinted light that lit up the night for yards around.

  The little dog planted his feet and barked at Flintlock, not liking what he saw and obviously considering some ankle biting.

  But McPhee held his own lantern high, the forgotten Colt hanging loose at his side, and his
jaw dropped as he beheld what he would later describe as “a wonder of the age.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “My name is Sir Arthur Ward and this lovely young lady is my adopted daughter, Ruth,” the Englishman said. “I can’t tell you how nice it is to meet you, Mr. Flintlock.”

  “Call me Sam now we’re acquainted,” Flintlock said. “This feller here with his eyes popping out and his chin hitting his belt buckle is Jamie McPhee.”

  “How droll,” Ruth said, smiling. “‘Chin hitting his belt buckle.’ How exquisitely whimsical.”

  “Very pleased to meet you too,” McPhee said, blushing.

  His eyes were fixed on Ruth, like a man who’d never met a stunningly beautiful, eighteen-year-old Chinese girl before in his life.

  “May we come inside?” Sir Arthur said. “The night grows cool.”

  Before Flintlock could speak, McPhee said, “Yes, yes, please do.”

  “More tea, Sam,” Sir Arthur said, lifting the pot from the table.

  Now pushing sixty, the Englishman remained a handsome man with sky blue eyes, thick yellow hair, graying at the temples, and a clipped mustache in the British military fashion. He wore a bright red Chinese robe decorated with blue dragons and a peculiar, at least to Flintlock, round hat with a tassel in the same shade as the robe.

  “Yeah, please. It’s good,” Flintlock said.

  “It’s Chinese green tea,” Ruth said. “Excellent for the health of your heart.”

  Flintlock smiled. “You don’t think me a violent ruffian any longer, Miss Ward, huh?” he said.

  The girl had the good grace to blush. “First impressions are often misleading,” Ruth said. “I took you for a typical frontier tough. But now I think you have a little more breeding than that.”

  “I was raised by mountain men,” Flintlock said. “They didn’t have any breeding, at least none that showed.”

  “How interesting for you, Sam,” Sir Arthur said. “You must have learned a great deal. Those lads were an intrepid, well-traveled bunch, and very brave.”

  “I learned that a mountain is always farther away than it looks. It’s always higher than it looks and it’s always harder to climb than it looks.”

  The Englishman laughed. “Is that all?”

  “No, I learned other things, but the man who taught me most of what I know was only slightly less stupid than myself.”

  Another laugh, then Sir Arthur said, “I’m sure you sell yourself short, Sam. And your teacher.”

  They sat in the luxurious cabin where the Englishman and his daughter made themselves quite at home after supplying tea, a teapot and tiny porcelain cups that all but vanished in Flintlock’s big hand.

  “Forgive me for asking this, Sir Arthur, but why are you so oddly dressed?” McPhee said, his face guileless.

  The Englishman smiled. “It’s quite a boring story, I’m afraid.”

  “We’d still like to hear it,” Flintlock said, shifting in his chair as he glanced at Sir Arthur’s gaudy robe.

  “Well, let me start by saying that I’ve always had a keen interest in the culinary arts and when the British army posted me to China at the end of the Second Opium War I fell madly in love with Oriental cooking,” the Englishman said. He poured more tea, then continued, “I was ordered to Kowloon as the adjutant of the 45th of Foot and there, insofar as my duties would allow, continued my studies: rice, soy and noodles mostly, but also herbs and seasonings.”

  “It was during Sir Arthur’s time in Kowloon that he adopted me from the Moonlight Camellia Blossom,” Ruth said.

  Entranced, McPhee said, “How beautiful. That was the name of the orphanage?”

  “No,” the girl said. “That was the name of the whorehouse.”

  “Indeed,” Sir Arthur said. “Well, shortly after I adopted Ruth my regiment received orders to ship out for India. Now, though Indian cuisine has its charms, it lacks the delicacy of flavor one finds in the Chinese, so I resigned my commission at once and went on with my exploration of Oriental culinary arts.”

  The Englishman glanced down at his robe. “This was given to me by the famous Chinese chef Wang Qiang after he sampled my winter melon soup. There was a rumor current in Hong Kong that when Wang realized he could never match my artistry he committed suicide.”

  “We don’t know if that’s true or not,” Ruth said. “Certainly, after he tasted Sir Arthur’s soup Wang Qiang was never heard of again.”

  Jamie McPhee was fascinated. His fixed gaze caressed every delicate feature of Ruth’s face and lingered on her beautiful almond eyes.

  Sam Flintlock, however, whose culinary taste ran all the way from fried steak to salt pork and beans, was less than enthralled. “So how come you’re here . . . um . . .”

  “Arthur is just fine, Sam. I inherited my knighthood, you know. And I’ve done nothing much to deserve it since.”

  “Not much call for Chinese grub around these parts,” Flintlock said.

  “Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, Mr. Flintlock,” Ruth said.

  Sir Arthur smiled. “After I thought I’d learned all I could in Cathay, Ruth and I decided to travel to the United States, where people are much more adventurous about food than they are in England.”

  “Are they?” McPhee said, eager as a boy.

  “That has been my experience, dear chap,” Sir Arthur said. “I worked as a chef in New York—”

  “And did very well, I must say” Ruth said.

  “In a modest way, you understand,” the Englishman said, nonetheless nodding as though his daughter had more fairly stated the case. “But I never lost my sense of adventure and the lure of the wide-open Western territories beckoned.”

  “Not the Oklahoma Territory,” Flintlock said. “Folks around here don’t cotton to Chinese grub.”

  “But that’s where you’re wrong, Mr. Flintlock,” Ruth said. “As soon as the tracks arrive, Sir Arthur will prosper.”

  Flintlock’s face showed his puzzlement. “I’m not catching your drift, young lady,” he said.

  “New railroads are being built all over the West, Sam,” Sir Arthur said.

  “And for the past few years we’ve followed the tracks,” Ruth said.

  The Englishman read Flintlock’s face and said, “My dear sir, who lays the railroad tracks? Why, the Chinese of course. And the Paddies too, certainly, and believe it or not your typical Irishman has a strong liking for Oriental cuisine.”

  “I heard a rumor about a railroad being built way out here,” Flintlock said. “But it’s only a big story. You took a long trip for nothing.”

  “I can assure you that the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe plans to lay tracks in a month, if the Union Pacific doesn’t beat them to it,” Sir Arthur said.

  An alarm bell started ringing at the edge of Flintlock’s consciousness.

  “Who told you this?” he said.

  “My father has shares in both companies and they keep him well informed,” the Englishman said. He smiled. “My aged parent does not approve of my lifestyle, so in answer to your question, my younger brother told me. As well he might. He runs the family estate in Kent and fervently desires to keep me well away.”

  “Through the rather miserable stipend he allows father and me,” Ruth said.

  “Five hundred pounds a year is nothing to be sneezed at, my dear,” Sir Arthur said.

  “You should have ten times that, Father,” Ruth said. “The estate prospers.”

  “You will stay in Open Sky until the railroad crews arrive, Sir Arthur?” McPhee said.

  “I’ve heard of that particular town,” the Englishman said. “But no. I heartily dislike the confinement of hotel rooms so we’ll find a pleasant place to camp and there we will wait.”

  “Around here?” McPhee said, hope shining in his eyes.

  “Yes, if we can find a peaceful place near water,” Sir Arthur said.

  Flintlock hadn’t been listening until that last. Now he laid down his cup, his face solemn.

 
“Arthur, you’ve told me what someone else has already told me, and if what you and him say about the railroads is true, and now I got no reason to believe it isn’t, there won’t be a peaceful place around these parts,” he said.

  “And why not, for heaven’s sake?” the Englishman said.

  “Because I believe somebody is trying to start a range war, and we’ll be right in the middle of it,” Flintlock said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “Nobody knows better than me that we took a big loss when the barn went up, boss,” Frisco Maddox said. “But nobody in town blames it on Brendan O’Rourke.”

  “Of course they don’t,” Trace McCord said. “Hell, O’Rourke’s cook got shot. I’ve threatened to plug a trail cook plenty of times, but I never actually did it.”

  “I reckon whoever burned our barn also shot the Circle-O cook,” Maddox said.

  “Jeez, Frisco, I could never have worked that out by myself,” McCord said. “For God’s sake, don’t state the obvious.”

  “Sorry, boss. But try as I might, I can’t get a handle on who it could be.”

  “O’Rourke’s just mean enough to shoot his own cook,” McCord said. “The man burned the biscuits or something.”

  Maddox smiled. “But you don’t really believe that, do you?”

  McCord shook his head. “No, I guess I don’t.”

  The rancher stood in the stirrups and studied the land around him.

  “The range still looks good on account of the rain we’ve had. If we don’t get a bad drought we’ll have calves on the ground.”

  “Seems like,” Maddox said, the corners of his eyes wrinkling as he stared against the glare of the sun into distant shaggy acres where placid Herefords grazed.

  Then after a few moments, “You should have brought the boy, boss.”

  “He’s worthless, Frisco. I know it, you know it and he knows it. Sometimes I think I should’ve drowned him at birth or after he killed his mother with worry and grief.”

  “Harsh words, boss,” Maddox said. “You can’t blame Steve for what happened to Martha. She was very sick.”

  “You’ve told me that before, Frisco. Don’t tell it to me again.”