Hell's Gate Read online

  * * *

  “The body was here,” O’Hara said. “Right here in the brush.”

  “Then what the hell happened to it?” Flintlock said.

  “I don’t know. Maybe a bear carried it off somewhere.”

  “Well, if it isn’t here, it’s buried as far as I’m concerned,” Flintlock said. “You shouldn’t have let Lucy Cully talk you into burying the body in the first place.”

  “Talk me into it? You’re the one who said—”

  “Somebody coming,” Flintlock said. He reached inside his slicker and put his hand on his Colt. Then, after a while, “Hell, it’s that albino feller.”

  The rain had stopped but the sky was still black, as though it had forgotten all about the sun. A brisk wind whipped through the trees and the air smelled of moldy vegetation, an acrid odor like shoaling fish.

  Jeptha Spunner let his white mule pick its way toward Flintlock and O’Hara and when he was a few yards off he drew rein, looked over Rory O’Neill, then touched his hat brim and said, “Howdy, boys, we meet again. Earlier I heard shooting this way. Thought I’d come see who got shot.”

  “We did the shooting, Spunner,” Flintlock said. “Well, me and O’Hara and the feller who bushwhacked us.”

  “And he’s not with us anymore, huh?” the albino said. Because of the gloom he’d dispensed with his dark glasses and his eyes were pink and unblinking.

  “We cut his suspenders, all right, well, us and the dead kid. He was gut-shot and killed himself,” Flintlock said. “A man with a bullet in his belly doesn’t have much choice in the matter.”

  O’Hara said to Spunner, “He killed himself right here. We came back to bury him but his body is gone. We reckon maybe a bear took it.”

  “And if that ain’t enough, we think another man was killed under the tree over yonder,” Flintlock said. “All we found of him was his blood and his field glasses.”

  “Field glasses?” Spunner said.

  “Yeah, these,” Flintlock said.

  Spunner examined the glasses, nodded and said, “Good-quality German work. The best binoculars I’ve seen since I left the sea. I’d say they belonged to a bounty hunter after the reward for Jasper Orlov. There’s been a few of them killed around here. Whoever he is, I’d guess that he’s supper by now.”

  Flintlock and O’Hara exchanged glances as the albino explained, “Some say that if a man tastes human flesh he’ll never want to eat any other kind of meat. Jasper Orlov made that choice a long time ago.”

  “Damn that man. He’s a low person and a monster who needs killing,” Flintlock said.

  “Easy to say, hard to do,” Spunner said.

  “That might be the case, but I won’t leave the Arizona Territory until I put a bullet in him,” Flintlock said.

  “Many have tried and all have failed,” the albino said. “Perhaps you will succeed.” Then, “My cabin is close and I have coffee on the stove if you gents would care for a cup.” Then, again studying O’Neill, “I haven’t met this gentleman before.”

  “My name’s Rory O’Neill.”

  “By the look of you, I’d say you are a prizefighter, or were,” Spunner said.

  “If I can get a match with John L. Sullivan I’ll fight again,” O’Neill said.

  Spunner nodded and said, “I’m told that when John L. Sullivan shakes hands he says, ‘Shake the hand that shook the world.’ Is that true?”

  “I don’t know, I’ve never met the gent,” O’Neill said. “But he’s one to go on the brag. I know that.”

  “Oh well, let’s hope you meet him in the ring. I’d like to see that scrap. Now, about the coffee, do you all care for a cup?”

  “Much obliged,” Flintlock said. “I could use some.”

  O’Hara said, “Suits me. I’d like to see that flying machine you’re building, Spunner.”

  “Not much to see yet, I’m afraid,” the albino said. “I’m still trying to refine the steam engine.” He gathered up the reins of his mule. “Step right this way, gentlemen.”

  * * *

  Jeptha Spunner’s cabin stood on the bank of a small stream lined by several tall cottonwoods. Behind the shack rose a thirty-foot wall of red sandstone notched by a narrow arroyo. A walking path worn in the grass between the dwelling and the canyon mouth was evidence that Spunner visited it often, and Flintlock guessed that was where he was building his steam-powered flying machine. It was all tomfoolery, of course, but for now Flintlock decided to keep his opinion to himself. You can’t make fun of a man whose hospitality you’d just accepted.

  The cabin was typical of its time and place, a single room with a dirt floor and wood shingle roof. Its furnishings were few, a stove, a bed, a dresser, a rough wooden table and a few rickety chairs. Several animal skins covered the log walls, and an old Hawken rifle, not unlike his own, hung on the stone fireplace with its powder horn. On the dresser there was a four-masted sailing ship in a bottle that showed exquisite workmanship. The place was clean, the floor swept and strewn with fragrant herbs, and more grew in small clay pots along the sill of the only window. Flintlock guessed, rightly, that Spunner had not built the cabin but had occupied a place abandoned by a settler or prospector years before.

  As though reading Flintlock’s mind, Spunner said, “The original owner of the cabin lies buried on the other side of the creek. Until recently there was a wooden marker on his grave with the name Les Howie and it said that he was killed by Apaches in 1879. I don’t know what happened to it. Either the Indians took it or it blew away in a big wind.”

  Spunner hung up his guests’ dripping slickers on pegs driven into the wall and then ushered them into chairs set around the table. Perhaps to reassure Flintlock that he had no evil intent, the albino hung his holstered Colt and cartridge belt on a hook behind the door. The gutta-percha handle of the revolver was smooth from much use and that stirred something in Flintlock’s memory . . . a name . . . a story he’d heard . . . As Spunner laid a scalding-hot cup of coffee in front of him Flintlock tried to bring what he half remembered to mind, but the recollection remained elusive, tantalizingly just out of reach.

  Spunner was talking again. “How is Miss Cully settling in?” he said. “Is she still worried about ghosts?”

  “Not so long as we three are there,” Flintlock said.

  “You’re staying with her for a full week?” Spunner said.

  “Few more days and then she’ll decide if she wants to stay in the house or not,” Flintlock said. Then, a mean little spike in his belly, “Hell, I’ve got five hundred dollars at stake and you didn’t help none by telling her the place was haunted.”

  Spunner sipped his coffee and then smiled, “All old houses have some kind of ghost in them, whatever that may be. A lingering bad memory perhaps or the imprint of a strong emotion that hasn’t faded with time. They’re usually harmless.” The albino waved a hand. “Old Les Howie is still here. I feel his presence sometimes, even smell his pipe smoke. But is he a ghost? No, I don’t think so. The memory of the man still lingers within these four walls, that’s all.”

  “Well, next time you visit the Cully mansion, tell Lucy that,” Flintlock said.

  “Yes. Good idea. I most certainly will.” Spunner smiled at O’Hara. “Once you finish your coffee I’ll show you my creation.”

  * * *

  In a fine drizzle, Jeptha Spunner led Flintlock, O’Hara and O’Neill along the worn path to the arroyo. O’Hara didn’t know what to expect but he couldn’t hide his disappointment when he saw what was lying within the walls of the narrow canyon. What looked like an ordinary rowboat about fifteen feet long lay on its side, and Spunner seemed to be working on patches of its bottom where the wood had rotted. Leaning against one wall was a four-foot wooden object that the albino called a propeller and beyond the boat stood an engine of some sort that looked like a rusty iron barrel surrounded by a mass of copper and brass tubes and an attached cylinder.

  Spunner pointed to the barrel-shaped object, beaming with pride.
“The heat needed for the engine comes from fuel burned in the firebox and it boils water in the pressurized boiler here,” he said, touching the barrel-shaped object, “turning it into saturated steam. The steam transfers to the motor, which uses it to push on a piston sliding inside the cylinder, powering the machinery that spins the propeller. The engine is simplicity itself, steam power at its finest.”

  “The engine goes in the rowboat?” Flintlock said.

  “Yes, indeed,” Spunner said.

  Flintlock shook his head. “It’s way too heavy. You’ll never get this thing off the ground. Hell, you won’t even get it out of the arroyo without an ox team.”

  “If an ox team is what it takes, then so be it,” Spunner said. “But it will fly, and fly well.”

  O’Hara looked puzzled and was obviously trying to come up with something encouraging to say, but he was spared the effort when a tick . . . tick . . . tick . . . sound came from just outside the mouth of the arroyo.

  Flintlock turned to see a small rock bounce on the ground, followed by another and then another. “Spunner, is this arroyo going to collapse in on us?” he said.

  “No, it won’t. This is very strange,” Spunner said. He stepped outside, looked up at the rock face and then quickly leaped to the side as a fist-sized rock missed his head by inches.

  Flintlock drew his Colt and rushed to the path leading into the arroyo, O’Hara, levering his rifle, on his heels. O’Neill followed but at a slower pace. They immediately came under a bombardment of rocks of all shapes and sizes. A few of the smaller ones, better aimed, hit Flintlock on the shoulders and others thudded into the ground close to O’Neill’s feet. He and O’Hara beat a hasty retreat to the jeers and catcalls of the two dozen women and children who lined the top of the rock wall on either side of the arroyo. Flintlock, limping from his hurting leg, was hit by another rock before he scampered out of range.

  O’Hara, who’d been hit above his left eye and was bleeding, was not a forgiving man when others did him harm. He threw the Winchester to his shoulder and dusted half a dozen quick shots just under the rim of the wall to his right, and then did the same to the other side. His fire threw up chips of sandstone and a few rounds whined off the rock like angry hornets, and the ferocious fusillade had the desired effect. After a few more jeers and taunts the women shepherded the children back from the edge and then disappeared from view.

  Flintlock shoved his gun back in his waistband and said to Spunner, “What was all that about?”

  The albino’s pale face appeared even whiter. “It was a warning,” he said. “It’s one of Jasper Orlov’s little jokes, but its message is deadly serious.”

  “What message?” Flintlock said, irritated.

  “That you killed one of his and now he will kill you. Didn’t you see that all those woman and children bore Orlov’s serpent on their foreheads?”

  “No, I was too busy dodging rocks,” Flintlock said. His smile was thin, without humor. “He aims to kill me and I aim to kill him, so we break even on that score.”

  “Orlov’s disciples are not gunmen, Flintlock,” Spunner said. “They’ll shoot you in the back if they can.”

  “I guard his back,” O’Hara said.

  “Now he knows I was with you today, I wonder who will guard mine,” Spunner said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Nathan Poteet was done with hiding out in the badlands eating salt pork and beans as he waited for Hogan Lord’s summons to ride into town. Dave Sutherland and the others, a restless breed, had quit days before and were probably already back in Texas raising a hundred different kinds of hell.

  Poteet threw his saddle on his horse and grinned. It was high time he raised some hell of his own.

  “Just put up your hands and step away from the hoss, mister.”

  Poteet froze as he heard the voice behind him and then slowly raised his hands.

  Then a second man spoke. “There’s a nice gentleman, now step away from the hoss like Deke here said. It won’t bother me none to kill you but I’d surely be sorry to put a bullet in that big American stud.”

  “You boys are making a big mistake,” Poteet said.

  “No mistake, mister,” Deke said. “We’re just going to kill you, take your hoss and traps and then ride on. Where’s the mistake in that? Huh? Well, let me tell you there isn’t one. Now, move away from the stud like Les told you in the first place.”

  Poteet moved away from the horse and the man called Deke said, “Don’t turn around. Stay right where you’re at.” Then, “Les, get his gun.”

  Poteet heard footsteps behind him . . . directly behind him, proving that Les wasn’t too smart. For the moment at least the man screened him from Deke’s gun. When Les was close enough that Poteet heard his nervous breathing, he turned, drawing from a shoulder holster. Les’s eyes opened wide as he suddenly saw himself face-to-face with the muzzle of Poteet’s .450 caliber Webley Bulldog revolver. But his horrified surprise lasted only a split second before Poteet’s bullet crashed between his eyes and ended his life in an instant. Poteet, a big man and strong, didn’t allow Les to drop. He held the thin body in front of him as a shield and Deke’s hastily fired bullet thudded into the dead man’s back. At a distance of seven feet Poteet fired, a belly shot that made Deke gasp in pain and stagger back, his face stricken. Poteet held his fire as the man threw his gun away and dropped to his knees. “Don’t shoot me again, mister, I’m done,” he said.

  “Damn right, you’re done,” Poteet said. He crossed the ground and picked up the man’s revolver, a rusty cap-and-ball that had seen better days. He looked at the gun and shook his head. “You boys should’ve chosen another line of work, maybe in the millinery business. You surely don’t have a talent for bushwhacking folks.”

  His teeth gritted as he fought back against the pain in his belly, Deke said, “We were poor folks, Les and me. Born poor, raised poor and stayed poor. We never could catch a break.”

  “Times are hard all over,” Poteet said. He pitched the old revolver into the brush and then cinched up his saddle. The big outlaw stepped into the leather, looked down at the wounded man and said, “How old are you, Deke?”

  “Twenty-six, near as I can tell.”

  “Old enough to know better, huh? Better make your peace with God. Your time is short.”

  “Mister, I need a doctor,” Deke said, his face ashen. “My belly is hurting awful bad, like my guts are on fire.”

  “Then I got some medicine for you, Deke,” Poteet said. “It comes all the way from the British Isles.” He raised the Bulldog and fired, abruptly cutting off Deke’s scream of terror as a red rose blossomed in the middle of his forehead.

  Without another glance at the two dead men Poteet kneed his horse into a walk and rode in the direction of Mansion Creek.

  * * *

  “Right now I have nothing for you, Nathan,” Tobias Fynes said. “But something might come up in the next few days.”

  “Fill me in,” Poteet said. He glanced outside at the street, busy now that the rain had ended. “I’m ready for some gun work. Hell, any kind of work.”

  “I don’t have much to tell you at this time, but as you say, there may be gun work to be done a few days down the road,” Fynes said. Then, as though the thought had just occurred to him, “Can you take Sam Flintlock? The man is a thorn in my side.”

  Poteet nodded. “Sure, I can take him, any day of the week.”

  Hogan Lord looked at the gunman with half-amused eyes but said nothing.

  Fynes smiled. “That’s exactly what I needed to hear. In the meantime, set yourself up at the hotel and tell them Mr. Fynes said to send the bill to him. Do the same at the saloon, but if you want a woman you’re on your own.”

  “Right now I need some grub,” Poteet said. “I killed two men this morning and it gave me an appetite.”

  Lord was alarmed. A double killing could draw some unwelcome attention to him and Fynes.

  Poteet read Lord’s face and said, “A
couple of rubes in the wrong line of work tried to steal my horse. I done for both of them.” Then, to put Lord’s mind at rest, “It was a ways out of town, Hogan.”

  “There’s all kinds of poor white trash in this part of the territory,” Fynes said. “They won’t be missed.”

  “I reckon not,” Poteet said. “They were real raggedy-assed.”

  Fynes shuffled some papers on his desk and said, “Well, gentlemen, I have work to do. Hogan, perhaps you could accompany Nathan to the restaurant and see that he gets fed. By the way, Nathan, I’m officiating at a wedding tomorrow if you’d care to attend.”

  “Sure, I like weddings,” Poteet said. “I get to kiss the bride, if she ain’t ugly.”

  Fynes smiled at that. “This bride is very pretty. You won’t be disappointed.”

  * * *

  Hogan Lord was acutely aware that Nathan Poteet was a powder keg with a very short fuse, ready to blow at any second. The outlaw enjoyed killing and he’d once told Lord that shooting a man was better than lying with a woman, better than the finest whiskey, better than anything.

  Although Poteet gave his total attention to the steak and eggs on his plate, Lord was on edge. Three noisy cowboys in from one of the neighboring ranches sat at another table and one of them was a redheaded youngster who called himself the Pima Kid, having been born and raised in the territory’s Pima County. The Kid had once sought out Hogan Lord to sit with him in the saloon so he could be seen with a named shootist. At first Lord was flattered by the youngster’s adoring attention, but then things took a serious turn when the Kid outdrew and shot down Morgan Fanning, a profane loudmouthed teamster who boasted that he had killed three men in gunfights. That had been a year ago and ever since then the Kid fancied himself a draw fighter to be reckoned with, telling everyone who would listen that he’d killed a named man.

  But Lord knew Morgan Fanning to be a coward and a braggart, a bully who picked on the timid, sick or elderly. To the best of his knowledge the man had never been in a gunfight, and old Jamie MacDonald, the mountain man killed by Poteet and his boys, had once put the crawl on him right out there in the street.