The Copper City - Chris Scott Wilson [28]
“Jeffers? You hear me?”
Jeffers groaned. It was neither an admission nor a denial. His eyelids fluttered once. Upton asked him again. Nothing.
“No matter, boy.” He leaned forward and placed the barrel of his Winchester against Jeffers’ forehead. “Last time you go any place.”
Then he pulled the trigger.
He eyed his handiwork, then set out for where Webster lay. As he passed Dobey he made a flat-handed gesture with his left hand. “Stay here.”
Webster lay on his back, head awry. His neck was obviously broken. But his eyes were open and they flickered to Upton as he came to stand over him.
“Still with us, eh?” Upton leered. “Can you speak, you son of a bitch?”
Webster’s mouth moved but nothing came out. He tried again, with the same result.
Upton chuckled. “Suits you.” His eyes hardened and his lips tightened to a thin line. “Nobody runs out on me, boy, and don’t you forget it. You wanted to split away and take some of the silver, eh?”
Webster stared upwards, paralyzed. But he could understand what was being said to him. He watched Upton leering down at him, then felt something hard and steely being jammed into his mouth. It broke off three of his front teeth, his tongue suddenly sticky with blood. Strangely detached, he realized what it was. It was the barrel of Upton’s rifle. His mouth was full of it. He began to choke. Absurdly, he wondered why his broken teeth didn’t hurt, or why he couldn’t feel any part of his body. As his thoughts swirled aimlessly, Upton’s harsh voice broke into his mind, pulling him back towards reality. Even the mouthful of barrel didn’t seem to bother him any more.
“You bastard, Webster. You cowardly bastard. Nobody, but nobody takes my money away from me.”
When Upton pulled the trigger Webster didn’t even hear the gunshot.
His head just disintegrated.
***
“What’s bothering him?”
Quantro leaned forward to pat the buckskin’s neck. “He’s picked up the scent of water.” He settled back and gave the horse its head. Immediately, it turned off the trail into the mouth of a canyon, hooves chipping on the rocky ground. “Must be a spring down here. If it’s a good place we’ll make camp. I’ve lost the trail. Come daylight I’ll have to start casting where the ground softens out.”
Quantro sniffed for smoke and strained his eyes in the growing gloom for a glimpse of firelight. It wouldn’t do to ride blind into Upton’s camp, uninvited as they were. The buckskin snickered and stretched its neck as it walked. They were getting close. Quantro hauled back and the horse stopped reluctantly.
“Wait here, Pete. I’m going to take a look-see.” He slipped out of the saddle to stand by the buckskin’s head. He patted the animal’s neck reassuringly, then faded into the night.
Stealthily, he crept towards the pool of water that glistened faintly in the moonlight. There were fresh tracks at the water’s edge but no sign of any life there now. He stopped and passed his fingertips over some of the hoof prints. Many of them were too deep to have been made by any other horses than those carrying bullion. So they had been here and were gone, running in the night.
“They’ve been here.”
Pete jumped at the voice that came at him out of the dark. He hadn’t heard Quantro coming back down the canyon. “I hear you.”
“Come on down. We’ll make camp.”
“Sure.”
After watering the horses they unsaddled and spread their blankets on the ground. It was too dark to go hunting fuel for boiling coffee, so Quantro dug into a saddlebag and came up with some jerky.
“Pete? You want to eat? Got some jerky here.”
“I got something better,” Pete’s voice called softly out of the darkness beyond the horses. When he came within the range of Quantro’s night vision he was carrying an armload of brush.
“What’s that?”
Pete’s teeth gleamed in the dark. “Creosote.”
“What the hell do you want that for? Won’t be enough of it to make a near decent fire.”
“Enough for what we need. I’m going to do some cooking on it.”
“On creosote brush? You’re foolin’.”
Pete’s smile faded. “You shut up,