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CHAPTER 26

      PURDY, BEEME, and Pike were standing among the trees at the base of the hill behind Nugent's place.

      They had left the others back at the camp, figuring that they weren't going to get into any fighting if they could avoid it. Anyway, it looked as though it was all over now. It was almost dark and the last shots had been more than half and hour ago.

      They were silent, watchful. The cold had squeezed the moisture from the mist and turned the drizzly sleet back into heavily falling snow. It was so still they could hear the crunch of someone walking downhill toward them long before they saw him. They took cover and he walked almost directly into them.

      Purdy said softly, "Drop your gun and raise your arms."

      Travis dropped his rifle and reached for the sky. "I mean no harm!" he said.

      "Nor do we," Purdy said stepped from behind the trees with the others. "What are you doing here?"

      "Just passing through, that's all."

      "Yes, this is a well-traveled road, isn't it?" Purdy said sarcastically, but it was lost on Travis. "Since you aren't a Chinaman, you must be one of Amhearst's gunman."

      "What's that to you?" Travis said.

      Purdy smiled. "Why, if you are, we're on the same side."

      "Then you're a friend of Amhearst's?"

      "Hardly. I hate him," Purdy said. "But I hate Nugent even more.

      Beeme said, "We're miners, and we're tired of Nugent and his gang sucking our blood and taking our claims. I hope you got him."

      "No, he got us instead," Travis said tiredly. "We've shot each other to pieces. I may be the only one left, except those we were told to kill, and, believe me, I don't want no trouble now."

      They lowered their guns and Travis put his hands down. "That sonofabitch Amhearst said there wasn't anybody up there but Nugent and his wife and some half-wit. Then we found out he's got a whole battalion of Chinks protectin' him."

      "What are you going to do now?" Purdy asked.

      "I'm going to get the hell away from this place, Mister. Are you sure you're no friend of Amhearst?"

      "We're mortal enemies," Beeme assured him.

      "Well, that's what I like. Truth is, I'm going back to gut shoot him so it hurts a lot before he dies."

      Purdy and the others exchanged glances. "Well, if you want to do that, I guess it's all right with us," Purdy said.

      Travis scooped up a handful of snow and ate it for the moisture. "You boys haven't got anything to eat, by any chance?"

      Pike reached into his coat and came out with a piece of cheese wrapped in a page from an old newspaper. Travis took it eagerly, smiling and bobbing his head to the big man. Like a hungry dog who's fed, Travis became Pike's friend.

      "Who are you?" Purdy asked.

      "Name's Travis. I work for Colonel Fraser in Denver. Who are you?"

      "Kenneth Feeney, U.S. Deputy Marshal from Nebraska. I just happened onto this mess."

      Travis was taken aback. "I shouldn't have told you I was gonna gut shoot him." Then, thoughtfully, "But that's all right, you've got no call to bother me. 'cause it ain't a federal offense. Okay if I go?"

      Purdy nodded. "Go on, but be careful. There may be miners coming up here. Shoot one of them — or one of us — and you'll be dead."

      Travis shook his head. He picked up his rifle and started down the hill past them. He looked pathetic, a lost soldier without his army — a general without troops.

      After Travis was out of hearing, Beeme said, "Think he'll get Amhearst?"

      "I fear it will be the other way around." Purdy answered.

      Staring up at the darkening sky, Pike muttered, "I guess we should get on up there. If they're all dead except Nugent, it should be easier to get him."

      "Nugent had some of the best cigars I ever smoked," Purdy said. "I'd dearly love a good cigar now. The Chinese are either dead or think the battle's over by now, and Travis has left us a nice set of tracks that most certainly have avoided them. We could follow them up there."

      "Suits me," Pike agreed, and Beeme nodded.

      "Then come on. We've only got a few minutes of light left," Purdy said, leading the way.

      At that moment Nugent was smoking one of his cigars while he paced back and forth in the sitting room. The bodies of Chang and Che'en Po still lay where they had fallen. Luna sat tensely in the rocking chair holding the shotgun gingerly, while Clay sprawled unconcerned on the horsehair sofa eating some apple cobbler he'd found in the kitchen. He was sorry Che'en Po was dead because he had been a good cook.

      Nugent went to the window and looked out. In the fading dusk he could see several Chinese, still holding their positions, waiting for Chang to come down and release them. Soon they would grow restive and come to the house, and they'd see Chang was dead.

      Nugent stopped pacing in front of Luna. "How'd you like to leave Tres Marias for someplace better. New York, maybe, or even over in Europe — they're civilized over there and know how to take care of Americans with money."

      "I'd like anyplace better than here, Frank." She sounded numb, as though all the spirit had left her.

      Nugent looked down at Clay and said, "Give me your gun, Clay."

      Clay obligingly gave it to him, and Nugent put it down. Then Nugent said, "Clay, you've got food stains all over your shirt," and he wiped at Clay's chest with a handkerchief. "Get up and take that shirt off."

      Clay nodded and took off his shirt, his jaws still working on the cobbler crust.

      Luna stared at him puzzled. "What are up to, Frank?"

      "Now you just take it easy, Luna," he said. Turning back to Clay he said, "What a mess you are. You've got blood spattered on your pants. Take everything off, your boots and socks and your pants and longhandles."

      Suddenly uneasy, afraid of what was going to happen, Luna came out of her lethargy. "Frank . . ."

      "Go upstairs," he snapped. "And don't come back until I call you — understand?"

      "Frank, whatever you're thinking of — " She started toward him, but Nugent backhanded her so hard she was knocked back in the chair. He took her neck with one hand and stood her up so her face was inches from his. "Must I really hurt you? Go upstairs! Pack your jewelry and a change of clothes for both of us. Now!" He flung her in the direction of the stairs, and as she ran up them to get away from him she slipped on the blood and almost fell.

      "What's the matter with Mrs. Nugent?" Clay asked.

      "She's just a little nervous. Take off the rest of your clothes Clay, and put mine on, I want to see how they fit you."

      Nugent took off all of his own clothes and gave them to Clay, and they each dressed in the other's clothes.

      "Why, since we fattened you up, my clothes fit you fine," Nugent said.

      Clay didn't answer. He was admiring the linen shirt, suede leather trousers, and beautiful half-top boots that just came up a little distance above his ankles.

      When they were dressed, Nugent gave Clay his watch and showed him how to fasten the chain. He tucked a couple of cigars in Clay's pocket. "Now let's see if you look like me, Clay. You have everything that was in my pockets?

      Clay put his hand in his pockets and said, "I guess so, Mr. Nugent."

      Nugent put his gunbelt around Clay's waist and fastened it. "Now turn around, so I can to see how good you look from the back."

      And as Clay obeyed, Nugent said, "Ah, you're a handsome young man, Clay. Just stay that way a minute."

      As he spoke, Nugent picked up the shotgun where Luna had left it by the chair, swung the barrel in an easy arc from ten feet away, so the buckshot would have time to spread, and shot Clay in the back of the head.

      The room was spattered with blood as Clay fell dead on the floor. Then Nugent calmly emptied the other barrel into Clay's head, reloaded and fired twice again, until there wasn't a head there any more at all.

      The shots had been deafening. Afterward it was so quiet, Nugent could hear his own heartbeat. He thought it a reassuring sound.

      He looked out the window at the Chinese. It was so dark he could barely make them out. A couple of them were staring at the window because of the sound of the shots, and he raised his hand and waved.

      Luna had been watching from the staircase. Her face was ashen with fear and horror. "Oh my God, you'll kill me next!" she cried.

      "No, my love, not at all," Nugent said blandly. "Did you get the things you want to take, and my clothes?"

      She shook head, crying.

      "Then I'll help you. We must hurry."

      He went upstairs and helped her pack a carpetbag with a change of clothes for each of them. She took a cameo broach that had been her mother's, and her rings. Nugent took a loaded Derringer from a drawer and dropped it in his pocket. He checked Clay's gun and stuck it in his belt, then took a short-barreled Peacemaker with fancy engraving on the frame from the case and slid it into Clay's holster. He took his coat off the peg and filled the pockets with ammunition, including extra shells for the shotgun.

      When Luna came downstairs with him she began sobbing again when she looked at Clay. Nugent told her to shut up and slapped her hard across the face.

      Then he went into his office and opened the safe. From it, he took a thick envelope with codes for bank accounts he had stashed around the country and scrawled grubstake agreements that could someday be worth a lot, even though Luna would have to collect on those, since, so far as the world would ever know, Frank Nugent now lay dead.

      He took most of a big wad of bills out of the safe, but left some of them with a couple of pouches of gold, and other papers for somebody to find, and he relocked the safe. Then he took a double handful of cigars from his desk and stuffed them in a coat pocket, and several in his shirt pocket, and a bunch of matches. He put the papers and the rest of the cigars in the carpetbag.

      Nugent went back into the sitting room and poured coal oil from lamps on Clay's body until it was soaked. He threw a lit match on it, and in a moment the flames spread and took hold.

      "Now let's get out of here," he said to Luna. He reloaded the shotgun and led her down the back stairs.

      The night was so dark he couldn't see twenty feet in front of him. A Chinese approached him and Nugent said, "Good job! You've got 'em on the run." He handed the Chinese a cigar. "You speak English?"

      The Chinese said nothing, but he took the cigar and held it under his nose and inhaled its fragrance.

      "Help me with the horses," Nugent said to the Chinese, and together they went into the horsebarn and Nugent lit a lamp and they saddled up his and Luna's favorite mounts. No sidesaddle for Luna tonight. Under her coat and dress she was wearing a pair of Nugent's pants, much too big for her, but at least she would be warm. Nugent took a last look at the horses, in which he had taken such pride.

      As he held the lamp up higher, they could see the frozen bodies of Gaines and Watson. Luna saw them and gasped.

      The Chinese, who admired good horses, was staring at a fine-looking gray, wondering if he could get away with it after they left. He grinned at Nugent, who gave him another cigar.

      As he and Luna mounted up, while the Chinese was reaching in his pocket for a match, Nugent said conversationally, "You Chinks let me down, do you know that."

      The Chinese, who knew no English, continued lighting the cigar as Nugent lifted the shotgun and shot him dead.

      They galloped out of the horsebarn around front and then raced down the road. As they passed the house the flames could be clearly seen through the windows.

      "Did you have to kill that man, too!" Luna shouted over the wind and the hoofbeats.

      "Now how would it look if that Chink told people we rode out of there alive after everybody knew I had my head blowed off?" Nugent answered reasonably.

      Purdy was some distance ahead of Beeme and Pike, winding through the trees as silently as he could. It had gotten too dark to follow Travis' trail while they were still halfway up. Then they heard four blasts from a shotgun, and they waited a while to see if there were any more. The shots sounded particularly ominous to Purdy, who knew their measured cadence meant they had been fired at a target that couldn't shoot back.

      When he got close enough to the house to see it through the trees, he saw it was on fire. Through the windows, he could see Chinese ransacking the place, carrying clothes and furniture and everything movable outside, then running in for more.

      Beeme and Pike came up, puffing, and the three of them ducked into the horsebarn, almost stepping on a dead Chinese with a cigar stuck in his mouth. Purdy lifted up the lamp and saw the frozen bodies of Watson and Gains. He extinguished it and they went outside, walking trough the flame-flickering shadows up the side steps to the porch and looked through the front window.

      "They got him," Beeme said, staring at the burning body. "He's the only man I know who wears them half-boots."

      "Somebody made damn sure's he's dead." Pike said.

      Purdy stepped aside as another Chinese came out with an armload of clothes and threw them off the porch, then turned and went back inside. The corpse was still burning and the fire was beginning to spread. "We've got to get out of here before those Chinamen decide we're part of Travis' gang," Beeme said.

      "You go on down there and wait for me." Purdy said. "There's something I got to do."

      They left the porch and Purdy, his face covered by a handkerchief to conceal it and to protect himself from the smoke, went into the burning room. He bent over the corpse and turned it over, looked at the badly burned hands, opened up its shirt, which was smoldering. The smell of burning flesh made him sick.

      He saw the old Roman coin and Nugent's pocket knife lying where they had fallen out of a burned-through pocket.

      He picked the coin up, juggled it in his hands so it wouldn't burn him, and put it in his pocket. One of the Chinese had already taken Nugent's wallet out of the coat, and stripped it of money. Purdy put the discarded wallet in his pocket. There was no doubt the wallet was Nugent's. It had a big F.N. tooled into the leather.

      Purdy stood up and started to go into the office, but saw two Chinese trying to smash open the safe. One of them wore Nugent's gunbelt and gun. The chain from Nugent's watch dangled from the pocket of the other. Purdy turned away and went back outside and hopped off the porch.

      "What were you doin' in there," Beeme demanded. "We thought you'd be killed."

      "The Chinese know it's all over. They were supposed to get Nugent, and they got him good. I thought I could get some of Nugent's cigars, but I changed my mind," Purdy said.

      "Let's go to Hopper's place to see if Travis managed to shoot Amhearst."

      "Want to go back and get our horses, or just go down the hill?" Pike asked.

      "Let's just walk down the road," Purdy said. "I want to clear my head from the stink of a burning dead man."

      "If it was burning dead Nugent," Pike said. "I'd think it'd smell good."

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