Hell's Gate Page 5

  Flintlock was stunned. “Tell me that again,” he said. “Slower this time.”

  O’Hara did, and then summed things up when he said, “They were cut to the bone, Sam. Just about all their flesh was gone.”

  Flintlock said, “A bear? There’s black bear in these parts and maybe a big grizz or two wandered off the Mogollon Rim. Or a hungry cougar? Plenty of those around.”

  “It was dark but the mist was gone and I swear there were no animal prints,” O’Hara said. “But I did see human tracks, hard-soled moccasin tracks and a lot of them. Only the Apache make moccasins with a rawhide sole.”

  “The Apaches are long gone, O’Hara, penned up in Florida,” Flintlock said. “You must be mistaken about the meat cleaver. It was some kind of animal tore into those four men.”

  “No mistake, Sam,” O’Hara said. “I saw what I saw.”

  Flintlock thought things through and said, “We’ll scout the switchback come morning. I want to see those bodies for my ownself.”

  O’Hara nodded. “Then we’ll leave at first light, Sam, before the supplies get here. Only there are no bodies, just skulls and skeletons with scraps of meat clinging to them.” He looked around him. “Where is Miss Lucy?”

  “Sleeping like a baby upstairs in her room,” Flintlock said.

  A moment later a woman’s terrified scream echoed around the mansion and shattered the tranquility of the breathless night.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Still hurting from his fall, Sam Flintlock let O’Hara sprint up the stairs while he followed at a limping pace. He heard Lucy Cully’s voiced raised to an almost hysterical pitch and then O’Hara’s reassuring drone.

  “What happened?” Flintlock yelled, his voice hollow on the stairway.

  “Miss Lucy saw a ghost,” O’Hara answered.

  “What kind of ghost?”

  “The scary kind.”

  “Damn it,” Flintlock said, hobbling to the bedroom. “I knew she shouldn’t have eaten them peaches so close to bedtime.”

  “There, in the corner, Sam,” Lucy said, pointing. O’Hara had lit a candle and she sat bolt upright in bed, wearing a white satin nightgown that had more frills and froufrou than a wedding cake and left her shapely shoulders and the upper swell of her breasts bare. Flintlock thought the revealing gown odd in such a prim young lady and he decided to study on it later, but right then he had a specter to contend with.

  “What did it look like—the ghost, Miss Lucy?” O’Hara said. He had his Colt in his hand.

  “An old man with long gray hair falling over his shoulders,” the girl said. “He wore a coat . . . it looked like leather and it had fringes all over. And he held a mask in front of his face, a hideous, grotesque kind of mask. And he said, ‘Boo!’ And then something else.”

  “Boo?” O’Hara said.

  “Boo,” Flintlock said. “It was Barnabas.”

  O’Hara stared hard at him. “You think?”

  “I don’t think, I know,” Flintlock said. “The old coot is around. I can smell him.”

  Lucy was shocked. “Sam, you . . . you know the ghost?”

  Flintlock quickly backtracked. “He wasn’t a ghost, Lucy. I saw an old man hanging around the place and figured he was looking for a place to bed down so I didn’t run him off. He must have found his way into the house and sneaked into your bedroom by mistake.”

  “But he disappeared like a puff of smoke,” Lucy said.

  Without any success, Flintlock searched his mind for a logical explanation but O’Hara came to his rescue.

  “Miss Lucy, this room was very dark,” he said. “I bet the old man slunk out and—”

  “But you would have passed him on the stairs,” Lucy said.

  “Yeah, that’s right, O’Hara,” Flintlock said. “How come the old man didn’t pass us on the stairs?”

  O’Hara gave Flintlock a sidelong look, then said, “There are doors opening onto balconies and widow’s walks all over the front of the house. In the darkness he could have easily made his escape that way.”

  Flintlock nodded as though O’Hara had fairly stated the case. “That’s what happened, all right,” he said, looking wise.

  “But, Sam, how did he get down?” Lucy said. “Did he jump?”

  “How did he get down, O’Hara?” Flintlock said. “Did he jump?”

  That question was met with yet another withering look, but O’Hara rose to the occasion. “In his panic the old man probably did,” he said. “Come morning, we might find him out there nursing a broken ankle or leg.”

  “Oh, the poor man,” Lucy said. “We must search for him at once.”

  As the girl swung her slim legs over the side of the bed, Flintlock said quickly, “Better we wait until first light, Lucy. If the intruder has an injury and crawled into the brush like a wounded animal we’ll never find him.”

  “Sam’s right. Wait until daybreak,” O’Hara said.

  “You mean at cockcrow?” Lucy said. “Isn’t that what they always say in the ghost stories?” Her left eyebrow was raised and a shadow of a smile played around her pretty mouth.

  “Yeah, that’s what we mean,” Flintlock said. “Now you get back to sleep, Miss Lucy. And don’t you worry about a thing, we’ll find that trespasser and let the law deal with him.”

  “Good night, Miss Lucy,” O’Hara said. He blew out the candle and stepped out of the bedroom.

  Flintlock followed but Lucy’s voice from the darkness stopped him.

  “Sam, I think the intruder might be related to you,” she said.

  Flintlock heard the smile in her voice and became alarmed. “How come?”

  “I told you he said, ‘Boo!’ and then something else, didn’t I?”

  Wary now, Flintlock said, “Yeah . . . you did. What did the old man say?”

  “He said, ‘Tell my grandson he’s an idiot.’”

  Flintlock swallowed hard and then said, “Nah, it sounds like he’s one of O’Hara’s kin, the Irish side.”

  “Perhaps that’s the case,” Lucy said. She lay back, adjusted her pillow, then said in a quiet voice, “I saw a ghost tonight, Sam, but it didn’t scare me, not really.” Then, turning on her side, “Sweet dreams.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  The hoarse croak of ravens quarreling around the upper levels of the mansion woke Sam Flintlock from sleep. He’d drifted off at the kitchen table, his head resting on his arms, Colt within reach. When he sat up his neck hurt, his shoulders hurt, his leg hurt and the sight of Barnabas sitting opposite hurt worst of all.

  Irritated beyond measure, Flintlock said, “You played hob, old man. Why are you haunting a haunted house?”

  “You mean that thing with the pretty young lady?” Barnabas said.

  “Yeah,” Flintlock said. “That thing with the pretty young lady.”

  “I was just having some fun.”

  “You said ‘Boo,’ and be damned to you for a crazy old coot.”

  “Well, isn’t that what ghosts say? Boo?”

  “You’re a ghost and I never heard you say it until last night.”

  “I’m not a ghost, Sammy. I’m more what you’d call an ambassador from the infernal regions.” Barnabas grinned and held up an ugly, snarling painted mask. “I scared her with this. It belonged to a cannibal chief from the South Seas who had a taste for young virgins. He’s now an honored guest of You-know-who and I got his mask. Scary enough to raise the hair on a bearskin rug, ain’t it?”

  “Why are you here, Barnabas?” Flintlock said. “Apart from scaring young women?”

  “Got something for you, what detectives call a clue, Sam. Your ma is west of the Painted Desert, doing fer an old farmer and his wife.”

  “West of the Painted Desert takes in a lot of country,” Flintlock said.

  “Maybe so, but it’s the only clue I’m allowed to give. You-know-who says you should use the girl for your own villainous pleasure and then kill and rob her and go after your ma. Sound advice from the master of suggestion, Sam.”
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  “That kind of advice I can do without. O’Hara and me will be here for a week and prove to Lucy that this house isn’t haunted. Then we’ll move on. I don’t want to see you or your cannibal mask around here again, Barnabas. You are not welcome here, or any other place, come to that.”

  The old mountain man shook his head, his gray locks brushing his buckskinned shoulders. “I raised an idiot. Boy, do you know how boring it is to haunt a house? No? Well, it’s pretty damned boring. That’s why the restless dead don’t do it. Tried it myself once, haunted a hotel in Denver and boogered a few folks but I gave it up. There’s just no future in it.”

  “You have no future, old man,” Flintlock said. “You’re dead and damned, remember?”

  For a moment Barnabas’s eyes glowed red and then he said, “You’re impertinent, Sam. I blame myself. I should’ve taken a stick to you more often.”

  “You did, until the day I was man-grown and took the stick from you and broke it over your hard head,” Flintlock said. “Now get away from me and this house.”

  “I mind that well,” Barnabas said. “It was up in the Oregon Willamette Valley country when you snuck up on me and took my stick. I always believed in spare the rod, spoil the child. And that ain’t from your precious Bible, stupid. It was written in a poem by Samuel Butler in 1664, another one of them sniveling poets you set such store by, Sammy. Ah well, let bygones be bygones, I say. I’m glad You-know-who didn’t hear me say that. He’s one to hold a grudge, is Old Scratch. Now afore I go, listen up. You’re as dumb as a snubbin’ post, Sammy, so concentrate on what I’m about to tell you: There are no ghosts in this house. The real terrors, the ones that can kill you stone dead, are all outside.”

  “What are they, Barnabas?” Flintlock said.

  The old man smiled, put the mask over his face and said, “Boo!”

  Then he vanished and only the acrid stench of brimstone remained.

  * * *

  “Barnabas is not to be trusted, Sam,” O’Hara said. “He may be lying about there being no ghosts in the house.”

  Flintlock nodded. “Barnabas lies about a lot of things. Hell, no, he lies about everything.”

  O’Hara took a while before he said, “But I don’t think he was lying about all the real terrors being outside.”

  “You mean the killing of Shade Pike’s boys?” Flintlock said.

  “Wait until you see the bodies and make that decision for yourself,” O’Hara said.

  Flintlock stared at his companion. O’Hara was not an easy man to scare, but in the dawn light as they took the switchback down the rise he seemed shaken, as though he’d seen something that had disturbed him and would take a long time to forget. As a distraction Flintlock glanced at the sky and said, “Looks like it could rain again. Clouding over to the north.”

  O’Hara, his eyes fixed on the trail ahead, made no answer.

  They were about three hundred feet below the crest of the crag when the switchback took a turn north through a stand of juniper and century plants, then widened so considerably a pair of wagons could easily pass each other. The trail here was mostly gravel and sand and heavy brush grew in every break and hollow of the rock face . . . the reason why Flintlock at first saw only dried, black pools of blood but no bodies.

  O’Hara swung out of the saddle, glanced up at the still-mounted Flintlock and said, “Over here. Looks like the dead men have been dragged into the brush.”

  Flintlock dismounted and followed O’Hara to a wide fissure in the rock, its interior hidden from view by a tangled growth of bunchgrass and greasewood. O’Hara kicked aside brush and the shock of seeing three pale, mutilated skeletons grabbed Flintlock’s breath and sweat popped out on his forehead. “My God,” he said, “they’ve been butchered.”

  “Looks like, don’t it?” O’Hara said. His face was expressionless but there was real fear in his eyes. “Let’s get them out of there.”

  It took a while until the headless, slashed and torn skeletons were laid out on the gravel. O’Hara leaned against his saddle until the dizziness that beset him had passed and then in a strange, hollow voice he expressed the horror that Flintlock felt. “The killers took heads and butcher meat, Sam. What kills like this? A man-animal? What kind of man-animal? A man-cougar? A man-bear? A man—”

  “O’Hara!” Flintlock yelled. “Damn it, that’s enough!”

  For a moment O’Hara was stunned, as though he’d just received a blow to the gut. He stood silent, blinked himself back to sanity and then said, “Sorry.” He searched his mind for something else to say that would explain his moment of madness, but Flintlock put his hand on his shoulder and said, “You’ve got no call to say sorry to me, O’Hara. This is a sight no Christian man should ever see.”

  “What do we do with them?” O’Hara said. “We can’t just leave them here.”

  “We bury those boys without telling Lucy. That’s what we do, O’Hara.”

  “Not an easy task, Sam. We’ll need shovels, maybe picks, to say nothing of when we can get it done. Day or night, it seems to me Miss Lucy is sure to notice.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Flintlock said. “I reckon she notices everything.”

  His eyes went to the fissure and then lifted higher. He rubbed his stubbled chin, thinking something through. After a while he nodded to himself. Yeah, it just might work. Might being the operative word. The V-shaped fissure in the rock was narrow but fairly deep, as though the crag had been hit by a gigantic ax back in the olden times. But what interested Flintlock most was the thick slab of limestone that tilted across the top of the fissure like an ill-fitting lid. The slab supported the weight of a haystack-shaped mound of talus that had slid from the steep slope of the crag, the accumulation of centuries. The limestone shelf looked none too secure, the massive weight of its shingle and rock burden beginning to tell. Now if he could bring that down . . .

  “O’Hara, we’ll drag the bodies back where we found them,” Flintlock said.

  “Those boys will soon stink, Sam. What’s left of them,” O’Hara said. “Anyone passing this way is sure to notice.”

  “Not if they’re covered by a rockfall,” Flintlock said.

  O’Hara shook his head. “I’m not catching your drift.”

  Flintlock pointed out the slanted slab of rock and described his plan. O’Hara was skeptical and said it would never work, that it would take a squad of laborers with sledgehammers to bring down the limestone block.

  “We can try,” Flintlock said. “The land around here is three inches of topsoil on top of a thousand feet of rock. I don’t fancy digging a grave without dynamite, and even if we had any, the boom would bring Lucy running.” Flintlock pointed to an exposed corner of the limestone. “I can dab a loop on that and have my horse pull it down. The dead men will be buried under tons of rock and then we . . . you . . . can say a prayer and we’ll have done our duty.”

  “Won’t work, Sam,” O’Hara said. “The ledge up there must weigh a couple of tons at least. You’ll never budge it.”

  “I’m sure going to give it a try,” Flintlock said.

  After he and O’Hara dragged the three headless, flensed skeletons into the cleft Flintlock stepped into the saddle, shook out his rope and eyed the slab, calculating distances. He’d had never worked as a puncher but in the past he’d known one or two who’d been bored enough to teach a stick-horse cowboy the way of the thirty-foot lariat. Now he was about to put that skill to the test. He threw for the projecting corner of the slab, but the rope slipped off the smooth limestone and had no effect. A couple of more tries didn’t do any better and Flintlock cussed under his breath. Damn it all, this was going nowhere.

  Meanwhile O’Hara had been intently studying the underside of the slab where it projected from the wall of the crag. He stepped to his horse, slid his Winchester from the boot and racked a round into the chamber. Unless he was very much mistaken the slab was supported by only a thin layer of limestone rubble that in turn lay on, of all things, an ancient and ro
tted tree trunk that had fallen and wedged itself across the top of the fissure. The whole teetering shebang was ready to come down, but it needed more encouragement than Flintlock’s loop . . . an incentive that O’Hara was getting ready to provide.

  Flintlock’s noose slid off the slab again and this time he turned the air around him blue with his cussing. The limestone block remained as impassive and unmoving as the Sphinx. There is no greater irritation on earth than the perversity of an inanimate object. Ask any man who ever dropped a collar stud or woman an earring only to have it scuttle away and hide under the heaviest piece of furniture in the darkest corner of the room.

  Flintlock was frustrated, all used up. His rope dangled limp and useless from his hand and he stared at the slab with unrelenting hatred in his eyes.

  O’Hara threw his Winchester to his shoulder and said, “Sam, move your pony back. This thing is gonna come tumbling down like the walls of Jericho!”

  There was alarm in Flintlock’s voice. “O’Hara, what the—”

  O’Hara fired, fired again, fired rapidly, levering the rifle from his shoulder, aiming for the trunk. There was no uncertainty about results that were beyond O’Hara’s wildest hopes. Bullets smashed into dry, rotten wood and it disintegrated. For a moment the slab teetered and then collapsed, bringing down the talus that seemed to explode into hundreds of fist-sized rocks that blasted across the trail like shrapnel. Flintlock’s horse reared, tossed him from the saddle and then galloped out of the way of the avalanche. As a thick column of dust rose from the fissure Flintlock staggered to his feet. He was already hurting from his tumble down the stairs and now, battered and bruised by rocks, he felt as though he’d just gone ten rounds with John L. Sullivan.

  O’Hara looked from the rockfall to Flintlock, grinned and said, “Well, that was some fandango, huh?”

  Like a man in a blizzard, Flintlock’s eyebrows and mustache were white with limestone dust and his attitude was icy. “O’Hara, you’re crazy and you’re dangerous, a one-man wrecking crew. Do you want me to shoot you now or later, just out of spite, like?” he said.