Adam could not be sure. “You ain't just tellin' me that to send me off on a wild-goose chase, are you?”
“Misterâ” O'Grady looked up at the formidable figure towering above him and answered frankly, “I'm afraid to lie to you, and that's the God's honest truth. Cruz's been gone since this afternoon.”
“Much obliged,” Adam said, then promptly left the saloon. Outside, he replaced his rifle in the scabbard and stepped up in the saddle. Turning Bucky's head toward the road to Bannack, he decided not to take the shortcut, as he did the last time, still remembering Brownie's untimely demise caused by a badger hole. There was a three-quarter moon hanging over the hills surrounding the gulch, so he figured he wouldn't wait for daylight to get started.
Chapter 14
Close to the time Adam started out along the moonlit road to Bannack, a lone rider thirty miles west of Virginia City guided his horse cautiously up a wooded ravine toward a soft glow near the top of a bald ridge. When within about fifty yards of the campfire, Joe French dismounted and tied his horse to a pine limb, planning to go the rest of the way on foot. The trees that lined the ravine provided ample cover, although the darkness might have been protection enough, but French was not inclined to take any chances on being seen. Never one to complicate things, he sought only a clear line of sight where he could let his rifle take care of the business he was about. Cruz would be scratched off the list. He had no particularly hard feelings toward Cruz. The man was an especially crude brute, but French had never had any trouble getting along with him. He'd even spent a few nights drinking with Cruz and his late companion, Tom Seeger. French was just carrying out his boss's orders.
It had been a stroke of pure luck that he had noticed the small glow of a campfire far up on a ridge; otherwise he would have passed Cruz by. It was well off the road, but since he did see it, his job might be finished a whole lot sooner, and he could start back to Virginia City in the morning.
I wonder if ol' Cruz has anything to eat
, he thought as he moved to within forty yards. The trees ended about five yards in front of him, so he crept up to the last of them and knelt on one knee. Pulling a pine branch aside, he now had a clear view of the camp. He saw the fire, and Cruz's horse, as well as his saddle and blanket on the ground, but there was no sign of Cruz.
Now, where the hell can he be?
he wondered.
“You lookin' for me?”
“Jesus!” French yelped in alarm. “You scared the hell outta me!”
“Is that so?” Cruz replied. He was kneeling beside a wagon-sized rock, his rifle cradled before him. “I was wonderin' what would cause a man to come sneakin' up on another man's camp.”
French tried to think fast. “Oh, hell,” he blustered, hoping to convey a feeling of relief. “Is that you, Cruz? I thought I'd run up on a miner or somethin'; thought I'd best be sure before I went ridin' in on who knows what. I reckon it's a lucky thing for me it's just you.”
“Yeah,” Cruz replied drily, “it's your lucky day. It's just me. How'd you know there was a camp up this far on the ridge?”
“What?” French stumbled. “Uh, I didn't. I was lookin' for a place to camp myself. I didn't have no idea there was anybody up here. Boy, I'm glad it's you.”
“What are you doin' out this way?” Cruz asked, still very deliberate in his speech, and still holding his rifle in position to fire in an instant. He was enjoying the position he had French in.
“On my way to Bannack,” French said. “Runnin' an errand for Plummer.”
“You coulda told me this mornin', and we coulda rode together.”
“I didn't know this mornin',” French said, “else I sure woulda rode with you. I reckon we can ride on in the rest of the way.”
Cruz casually shifted his rifle around to point at French. “Nah,” he said, “I don't think so. I don't much like to ride with no lying, back-shootin' son of a bitch.”
“Now, wait a minute, Cruz!” French pleaded frantically. “You got no call to talk thataway. I'm your friend! Ain't I the one that warned you this mornin' that you oughta get outta Virginia City? Didn't I tell you you need to be careful?”
“Yeah, you did,” Cruz allowed. “You surely did tell me I'd better be careful. That's why I'm settin' here by this rock with a rifle aimed at your head, knowin' Plummer was gonna send some low-down bastard after me.”
French knew his ticket to hell was all but punched. No amount of talking was going to get him out of the fix he was in. He had no choice but to make a move. It was a useless attempt, for as soon as he tried to raise his rifle, Cruz pulled the trigger, sending a bullet into the side of his head. “Glad you could come to call,” Cruz said. There was no need to check to make sure French was dead. There was only a small black hole in his temple, but a sizable part of his brain was protruding from the other side of his head. “I ain't as dumb as you thought I was,” he said to the corpse. “I knew Plummer would send somebody after me, either you or that damn ghost, Briscoe. It's your tough luck he sent you.” He tried not to admit that it was his good luck that Briscoe had not been sent, at the same time wondering if that would be next. He made up his mind that he was going to hole up in Bannack, in the midst of plenty of witnesses, until he felt sure no one was waiting for him to leave town. Then he was heading for Salt Lake City, or maybe beyond. That decided, he emptied French's pockets, took his watch and chain, a pocketknife, a hand-tooled belt with a silver buckle, and the little bit of money he found. Then he walked back down the ravine to fetch his horse. It was there in French's saddlebags that he found a small sack that he estimated to contain at least a pound of gold dust. That would be the equivalent of over three hundred dollars. “Looks like ol' Plummer was payin' some of you boys better'n the rest of us,” he said with a smirk. “Yessir, glad you could come to call.” French's saddle would bring a fair price to boot. When he had taken all from the late Joe French that he would have use for, he sent the corpse rolling over and over for a few yards down the slope of the ravine with a kick of his foot.
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Down at the end of the bar, Big John Tyson, the owner of the Miner's Friend Saloon, was involved in a serious conversation with his bartender, Fred Smith. The topic of their conversation was at the moment seated at the last table in the far corner of the barroom, a half-empty whiskey bottle and one glass on the table before him. “How long's he been there?” Tyson asked.
“He came in this mornin' about ten o'clock and he's been there ever since,” Fred replied. “He don't even leave to go eatâhas Loretta bring him his food right where he's settin'. The only time he leaves that table is to go out back to the outhouse. Then he's right back there in the corner.”
“Well, we can't have him settin' up camp at one of my tables,” Tyson said. “I'm payin' that damn worthless sheriff to keep control of his gang of riffraff. I'll go see Ainsworth and tell him to get the brute outta here.”
“Are you sure you wanna do that?” Fred asked. “It ain't like he's runnin' up a bill. He's payin' all along. He's even paid in advance for a room upstairs, and it looks like he ain't fixin' to run outta money no time soon. He don't say nothin' to nobody, just sets there starin' like he's expectin' somebody to walk in the door. So he ain't really causin' no trouble, just maybe makin' the other customers a little nervous.”
This caused Tyson to look at the problem from a different perspective. He had assumed that Cruz intended to drink all the whiskey he wanted, eat food from the kitchen, sleep upstairs for as long as it suited him, then walk out without paying for any of it. It was typical of the band of robbers and murderers that had taken over the town, free of concern for their lawlessness. He had seen Cruz before. The man had a reputation for violence, but he had never experienced Cruz as a paying customer. “Well, I guess he ain't doin' much harm just sittin' in the corner. As long as he doesn't start causin' trouble, let him be, at least till his money runs out. Then we'll go get Ainsworth to throw him out.”
Cruz's gold dust was not even close to running out when he finally got up from his corner table and, with another full bottle of whiskey, went upstairs to the room he had rented for the night. His plan was to leave for Salt Lake City in the morning, but when morning came, it found him sick in the stomach and head, the result of the previous day and night's ingestion of food and spirits while waiting for the next assassin that he was certain Plummer would send.
Knowing he had to pull himself together, lest he be taken by surprise, he staggered to his feet after emptying the contents of his stomach in the slop jar beside the bed. Feeling drained then, as if part of what he had just vomited was supposed to be a permanent part of his insides, he decided that he needed to put food in his belly again, as well as a glass of the “dog that bit him.” On unsteady feet, he strapped on his gun belt, picked up his rifle, and headed for the stairs. Halfway down the steps, he stopped to look the barroom over before descending the rest of the way. He was relieved to see no one who could possibly be a threat, only a couple of the saloon's usual early-morning drunks. From the foot of the stairs, the kitchen door was only a few feet away, so he stuck his head in and yelled to Loretta to cook him some breakfast.
Johnny Pitt sat at the back corner table eating his breakfast of ham and biscuits smothered with sawmill gravy, with a steaming hot cup of Loretta's coffee. It was a morning ritual that had endured for over a year, before going to his blacksmith shop at the stable. He always sat at the back corner table, facing the door, so anyone needing some early work at his forge could easily find him. He glanced up when Cruz yelled in the kitchen door for Loretta, but paid him no further mind. That is, until he looked up again to find the notorious bully standing before him, glaring at him through dark bloodshot eyes, causing him to stop chewing.
“Find yourself another table,” Cruz ordered.
Without thinking, Johnny glanced around the empty tables and asked, “Why?”
“'Cause this'un's mine,” Cruz replied, his heavy brows glowering menacingly.
Johnny looked down at his half-eaten breakfast, then back at Cruz. “Hell,” he said, trying to show some measure of backbone. “All the other tables are empty. Why don't you just take one of them?”
“'Cause I'm fixin' to put a hole right through that dumb skull of yours if you ain't outta my chair by the time I count to three.” He leveled his rifle, with the muzzle about four inches from Johnny's forehead, and started counting. “One . . .” Johnny was on his feet before hearing the word
two
, knocking his chair over backward in the process.
Seeing the disturbance in the back corner, Fred hurried from the bar to try to prevent bloodshed. “Here, Johnny, let me help you move your stuff over to another table.” He grabbed Johnny's plate and cup as quickly as he could and removed them. “Cruz
has
been using this table, and one's just as good as another.” Cruz said nothing, but continued to glower while Fred picked up Johnny's knife and fork.
When the table was cleared to his satisfaction, and Johnny was settled quietly at a table close to the bar, Cruz yelled, “Bring me a bottle.” He sat down at the table then, laid his rifle on it before him, and waited for his breakfast while trying to calm his uneasy stomach, still with a notion to shoot the blacksmith. He had a strong desire to punish someone for the rotten way he was feeling.
Or maybe
, he thought,
I ought to shoot Fred for selling me that damn rotgut whiskey.
It occurred to him that the whiskey had to be bad to make him feel that sick. His condition was worsened, however, when Loretta brought his breakfast and placed it before him. The greasy odor that wafted up from the plate of ham and potatoes, drowning under a blanket of thick gravy, triggered a response from Cruz's gut that would not be denied. He jumped to his feet, grabbed his rifle, and headed out the back door to the outhouse.
No more than a second or two had elapsed when the front door of the saloon was filled by a tall, broad-shouldered man carrying a Henry rifle in one hand. Fred remembered the stranger. He would be hard to forget. No one spoke for a moment while Adam looked around the almost empty saloon. Turning to Fred then, he said, “I'm lookin' for Bailey Cruz. Somebody told me I might find him here.”
Not certain if he should say anything, Fred hesitated. Johnny Pitt, struck dumb for a few moments, his fork suspended halfway between plate and mouth, eagerly volunteered. “He just stepped out to the outhouse.” Then he pointed toward the back door with his fork, still with a wad of ham speared on it.
Without hesitation, Adam went deliberately to the door and stepped outside. About sixty feet behind the building stood the five-by-eight-foot privy. Adam halted to stand squarely facing the board structure, his rifle raised to fire. The thought flashed through his mind that he should make sure that Cruz was in there, and not someone else. “Cruz!” he called out. “It's time for you to settle up for your murderin' ways. If it ain't Cruz in there, you'd best step out right now, so I can see you.” There was no reply from the little shack, so Adam was about to repeat the demand when the door of the outhouse opened slightly and a rifle barrel protruded several inches. Adam saw it in time to jump to the side and kneel to avoid the bullet that whistled wildly by the side of the saloon. From his position at the corner of the building, Adam laid down a continuous wave of fire, intent upon shooting the outhouse to pieces.
Inside the besieged outhouse, a snarling Bailey Cruz sat on one hole of the two-seater toilet, trying to see something through the boards to shoot at. With the flimsy structure coming to pieces, as the hail of .44 slugs continued to tear holes all around him, it was only a matter of time before one of them found him. When a bullet finally tore into his arm, he yelped with pain, and all thoughts of his upset stomach were completely forgotten, replaced by the realization that the next bullet might be the fatal one. There was no thought of surrendering, for he was certain that this was an execution, pure and simple. In a panic to find cover from the relentless blistering that was knocking huge chunks from the walls, he found only one possible escape. Howling in agony when a second bullet found purchase in his shoulder, he gripped the back of the box that formed the seats of the toilet and jerked it free of its base. Without hesitating, he then dropped down into the pit of the toilet to find refuge amid the putrid mess on the bottom. Short in stature, Cruz found that he could just barely see over the top of the foul hole he had been forced to occupy. At least it afforded protection from the constant rifle fire that now went over his head.