Lookout Hill (9781101606735) (27 page)

“Throw the doors open and climb on,” Sam said down to him.

“In a moment, Ranger,” Lupo said with calm deliberation. “First, please hand me my rifle.” He reached a hand up.

Sam started to reach for the rifle to hand it down to him, but he caught himself.

“Why?” he asked pointedly.

Lupo lowered his hand and said, “Because I have something that I must say.”

“And you’ll need your rifle to say it?” Sam deftly moved all the reins to his left hand; his right hand drifted down to the Colt on his hip.

“I hope I will not need it,” said Lupo.

“I hope you won’t either.” Sam stared at him

“I’m afraid I have lied to you, Ranger,” said Lupo. Then he corrected himself quickly. “Well, not exactly
lied.
But not exactly been
honest
either.”

“Out with it, Easy John,” Sam said. “We don’t have all night, if you want to get down the hidden back trail.”

From the front wall the gun battle raged.

“There is no hidden back trail, Ranger,” Lupo said, spilling it all at once as if spitting something foul from his mouth. “That is what I lied about.”

“All right….” Sam nodded slightly. He raised his hand from his Colt and took the reins in both hands. “I was wondering when you were going to tell me.”

“You—you knew there’s no hidden trail down the back of the hillside?” said Lupo.

“I had a pretty good hunch there wasn’t,” Sam said, “leastwise not one built by the Spaniards that you could still run a wagon on. If there was, the Pettigos would most certainly know about it.”

Lupo considered it in earnest.

“You knew, yet you climbed up here with me anyway?” Lupo said, surprised. “Even after I promised no more tricks or lies?”

“I figured if I didn’t come with you, you’d try riding the wagon down alone, as determined as you are.” Sam looked him up and down and added, “I couldn’t see letting you get yourself killed.”

“But it is for my country, Ranger,” Lupo said. “You did not have to get involved.”

“I am involved,” said Sam.

“But the Matamoros Agreement says—”

Sam cut him off.

“I know what it says, but that’s on paper, for the benefit of those in armchairs and oaken desks,” Sam said. “The fact is, anything that happens to your country or mine, either one, affects us both. Whether we like each other or not, we’re neighbors—our people better stand together if we all plan to stick here the next few hundred years.”

“I don’t know what to say, Ranger,” said Lupo.

“I’ve said enough for the both of us,” Sam replied wryly. “So, why don’t you go blow that front gate and let’s skin out of here?”

“The front gate?” said Lupo.

“That’s what you had in mind, isn’t it?” Sam asked. “Since you don’t have a back trail down?”

“Ah!” Lupo said, raising a finger. “I lied about the back trail, but there is a side trail that will be much safer to ride down, at least to the gully floor.” As he spoke the battle raged.

“Where is it?” Sam asked.

“It is a hundred yards west of the main gates.” He picked up the shoulder pack that he had dropped onto the floor before killing Tuell, and swung it up onto his shoulder. “You will have no trouble finding it. Wait for my explosion, then follow the smoke. I will jump on as you come through.” He reached his hand up again and asked, “Now, may I
please
have my rifle? There will be shooting….”

“I don’t see why not,” Sam said, picking up the rifle and pitching it down to him. “
Buena suerte,
” he said.

“
Sí
, good luck to you as well,” said Lupo, catching the rifle, heading for the rear door.

Sam hitched the reins around the long brake handle and stepped down from the wagon. Winchester in hand, he walked to the wide front doors and waited for Lupo’s explosion before he would throw the doors open.

As soon as the Lookout Hill boys had fought their way up the gully and taken cover from Pettigo’s riflemen above the wall and behind the iron gates, Bobby Hugh Bellibar turned to Hodding Siebert, who was lying on the ground beside him. Behind them they had hidden
their horses inside the rocky wall of the gully and crawled forward on their bellies.

“Stealing is never supposed to be this hard,” Bellibar commented in a serious tone, reloading his rifle. “If it was, nobody would go into it. I sure as hell wouldn’t.”

“You’re speaking for me too,” said Siebert. “What kind of rotten son of a bitch kills a man to keep him from stealing his money?”

“Only the very worst kind,” said Bellibar, shaking his lowered head.

The two outlaws had fired along with the other gunmen until both of their rifles turned hot to the touch. A cloud of gray smoke loomed above them. As gunfire from the mining compound lulled for a moment and the Cady brothers signaled the Lookout Hill boys forward, Siebert let out a breath.

“Here we go….” He sighed heavily. He started forward on his belly. But Bellibar stopped him, grabbing the back of his belt.

“What the hell are you doing?” Siebert said, looking around at Bellibar as he stopped. “Everybody’s moving in. I don’t want us to miss our cut.”

“Settle down, Aces,” said Bellibar. “The only cut we’re apt to get from the Cadys is one across our throats. Now that we got them past Copper Gully, they’re through with us, don’t you know?”

“Oh? What are you saying?” said Siebert, looking at him in the darkness as the others moved forward taking new positions.

“What am I
saying
? Jesus, Aces, I just said it,”
Bellibar said, sounding a little put out with him. “They’re going to let us fight as long as we can hold a gun. But the minute the smoke clears and it’s time to split the take, they’ll kill us deader than hell. Wouldn’t
you
if you were the Cadys?” He stared away at the fighting a hundred yards in front of them.

Siebert shrugged and said, “Sure, why not?” after giving minimal thought to the matter.

Bellibar stared at him. All right, he decided, that was as much of an answer as he’d likely get.

“I think there’s more to this than a payroll robbery,” he said to Siebert. “I’ve thought it ever since Bert Cady mentioned gold.”

“I wondered that myself,” said Siebert. “Fletcher tried too hard to cover it up.”

“Yes, right, exactly,” said Bellibar, impressed that Siebert had read everything the same as he had. “So, here’s what I think. While these men are rushing the place, getting shot to pieces for a damn payroll, you and I need to see if there’s gold hidden somewhere—”

His words stopped short as they heard someone crawling toward them across the rough, rocky ground.

The two turned their guns toward the sound.

“Do not shoot at me,” Cherzi whispered hoarsely, coming into sight.

“Damn it, Cherzi, where have you been?” Bellibar whispered. “We thought you’d gotten yourself killed back there!”

“No, not me,” Cherzi said. “You said stick close to you, so I am doing that.”

“I was getting ready to tell Aces here about the
wagon you said the Pettigos keep in a building beside their house.”

“Yes, it is full of Indian things,” said the Russian. Renewed gunfire arose at the iron gates and below the stone front wall.

“Right,
Indian things
,” Bellibar repeated to Siebert with a sly grin. “I expect everybody far and wide these days is looking for
Indian things.
” It didn’t hurt to be friendly, he thought. He knew he would still most likely kill Siebert before all this was over—the Russian too for that matter. But for now he needed all the help he could get. If there was a wagonload of gold in there, he wanted it. If it turned out there was no gold…well, adios,
compañeros…. Estos tontos,
he told himself, looking back and forth between the two of them, still grinning.

“Then I say let’s go get ourselves some
Indian things
,” said Siebert. He rolled up onto his knees as gunfire streaked back and forth at the front wall of Pettigo-American Mining.

“Wait. Listen to me, Aces,” said Bellibar. “We are going to get closer to the wall and lie low until the Cadys and their Lookout Hill boys blow open the gates. Once they do, we’ll slip inside and go into business for ourselves.”

“Sounds good,” said Siebert.

“Me too,” said the Russian.

The three of them rose, turning away from the fighting and moving at a crouch. They hurried to where their nervous horses stood waiting. Unhitching the animals, the three mounted and rode west of the fighting to lie
low. But as they started diagonally toward the wall of the compound, a blast of dynamite lifted and twisted the large iron front gates off their hinges and sent metal and chunks of stone flying in every direction. They felt the heat of the blast and the sting of dirt and chipped stone from a hundred yards awy. Their horses reared in panic. But the three held them in check.

“Good Lord!” Bellibar shouted as his horse touched back down beneath him. “There goes the gates!”

“What are we waiting for?” Siebert shouted. “Let’s get through them—”

His words fell short beneath another blast, this far to their west along the wall. The spooked horses reared again.

“What the hell are these Cadys doing, blowing the whole damn place up?” shouted Siebert.

“I’ve got a feeling this is not the Cadys,” said Bellibar, staring toward the second explosion as the dust and smoke loomed in a large jagged opening in the stone wall at the top of the gully.

“Then who the hell is it?” shouted Siebert as gunfire erupted at the iron gates.

Staring toward the gaping hole in the stone wall left by the second explosion, Bellibar saw a freight wagon roll out of the mining compound through flickering brush fire and settling debris and turn west sharply.

“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out,” said Bellibar, nudging his horse forward as they watched the big wagon bounce along over blown-out chunks of stone and upturned dirt. “Cherzi,” he called out to the Russian, “is that the wagon they keep under guard?”

Cherzi booted his horse up beside Bellibar and stared hard through windblown dust as the wagon rolled along, its canvas cargo cover flapping on the wind.

“I don’t know…maybe,” he said. “It’s big like that wagon. It has a canvas cover—”

“Good enough, that’s our huckleberry,” Bellibar said. “Let’s go. If it’s
not
the wagon we want, whoever’s driving will be more than happy to tell us where it is.”

The three booted their horses and rode upward onto the steep rocky side of the gully, in pursuit, while at the destroyed iron gates, the gun battle raged.

Even as Denver Jennings and the mercenaries fell back from the iron gates under heavy gunfire, they heard and saw the second explosion farther to the west. When Jennings spotted the big freight wagon going through the open wall, he looked all around for the Pettigos and cursed under his breath when he didn’t see them. Bullets sliced through the air around Jennings, who grabbed Dodge Peterson by his shoulder as the gunman hurried by.

“Where’re E.R. and Dale?” he shouted in Peterson’s face above the fray.

“Over by the mine shack,” Peterson shouted in reply. “E.R. took a bullet. They carried him there out of the fight.”

“Jesus,” said Jennings. He looked all around quickly. “Take some men. Get to the barn and get us some horses,” he demanded.

“Horses? How many?” said Peterson.

“As many as you can get saddled and ready by the
time I get back,” said Jennings. “I’m going to see about E.R. Then we’re going after that wagon.”

“After all that Indian junk?” Peterson asked, giving him a bemused look.

“E. R. Pettigo loves that
Indian junk
,” Dodge said. “He’s the boss. We’re paid to do what suits him.”

“All right,” said Peterson, “I’m gone.” The two turned and raced away in opposite directions. Dodge Peterson ran in a crouch toward the livery barn as bullets flew past him. He passed three mercenaries huddled down behind stacks of wooden ore crates and called out to them, “You three, come with me. Hurry it up.”

In the opposite direction, Denver Jennings ran across a bullet-raked yard toward the mine shack Peterson had told him about, seeing an oil lamp glowing in a single rear window. As he drew near, he saw two men step out from around a corner of the shack with rifles up and pointed.

“It’s me, Jennings. Don’t shoot,” he called out.

“Denver…?” said the familiar voice of a mercenary named Herman Waite.

“Yeah, it’s me, Herman,” Jennings called out. “I heard E. R. got shot. How’s he doing?”

“Not worth a damn,” the second man cut in, a former Wyoming regulator named Sal Tucci.

Jennings slowed to a halt and looked at them.

“Sal’s right,” said Waite. “You want to see old man Pettigo with air in his chest, you best hurry.”

Jennings turned, bounded across the low plank porch and flung open the front door. Two more gunmen moved
toward him in the light of the oil lamp, their Colts coming up cocked and pointed at his chest.

“Lower them,” Jennings demanded, hurrying on across the floor to a battered desk where Dale Pettigo had laid his father. The two mercenaries, Randall Blaine and Jake Jenner, followed suit and stepped back.