Comanche Gold Page 10
“Like I’ve already said,” he waved his hand dismissively, but his fingers shook slightly, “since you have no evidence, it makes me wonder why you're here telling me all of this.” His face took on a crafty look. “Although I'm certainly not admitting anything—these accusations are patently absurd—it's also true that I'd prefer not to have anything, even lies, jeopardize my plans for the future.” He paused to see how Tucson was responding. When Tucson just stared at him, he went on, “It occurs to me that we might be able to make some kind of a deal.” His smile broadened and became suave, one businessman negotiating with another. “We're both reasonable men. There's no point in arguing when arguing is so unprofitable. Name your price, Mr. Tucson. For the convenience of having this whole issue go away, I'm prepared to be generous. Of course,” he added, “any deal we make will include your leaving Howling Wolf immediately and never coming back.”
The tricky part had finally arrived. Tucson had no way of knowing if Durant kept gunmen on the premises. He guessed Durant did because, with the play he was making with the Comanche, it was reasonable to assume that if they left the reservation they would come after him here at home.
Durant would want men here to protect him.
Tucson was gambling that he would be able to move fast enough to stay alive.
“I'll tell you how it's going to be,” he said, his voice tight. “You're going to leave the gold to the Comanche, give up your interests in the bank and the other businesses around town, forget about the governor's mansion, and get out of Howling Wolf. And you're going to get out by tomorrow night.”
Roaring with rage, Durant lurched to his feet and leaned over his desk. “Why you goddamn two-bit, chiseling, tin-horn saddle tramp! Who the hell do you think you are coming here and talking to me like that?” He raised his clenched fists. “I've broken better men than you in two with my bare hands.” His craggy face was livid. “Do you think you can threaten me and get away with it?”
The door flew open and Jessup appeared in the entrance.
“Get out!” Durant thundered and the door slammed shut.
Tucson's hand had gone to his gun when the door opened, when it closed again he took his hand away. If only Jessup showed up it must mean that Tucson had guessed wrong. Durant wasn't keeping any men on the premises after all. But Tucson didn't relax. Durant alone was still a formidable opponent. It was only the threat of Tucson’s Colt that kept the banker from lunging for his throat.
It amused him to watch Durant's veneer of polish and class crack like cheap gilding when he felt threatened, exposing the tough street brawler that lurked beneath.
“Listen to me, Durant,” Tucson said coldly. “You've already tried once to have me killed. And you've had three Comanche murdered. As far as I'm concerned I could snuff you now and it'd be no more than stepping on a bug. But I'm giving you a chance. It could be that you're just stupid. Maybe you don't know that snakes get shot. So I'm telling you again: Be out of town by tomorrow night or I'll kill you on sight.”
Durant stood frozen, leaning over his desk, measuring his chances of reaching Tucson before he pulled his gun. Then he made his decision, the lines of his face relaxed, and he sat back down. He took a pen from his desk and twirled it in his fingers while he stared pensively into space.
Then he focused again on Tucson. “Doesn't it mean anything to you,” he asked quietly, “that I said you were wrong about my involvement in any Comanche gold?”
“No.”
“Are you so certain that you'd kill a man without any proof?”
“Yes.”
“You know,” Durant said musingly. “I built this town. Before I got here, Howling Wolf was just a dusty spot in the road. I saw the potential here. It was me who got the railroad to build a rail head. I invested in the businesses the town needed to grow, and it was my money that saw the ranchers through drought and hard times, and helped them build up their herds.” He studied his hands spread out on the desktop, then looked again at Tucson. “And I can do the same thing for Texas. The state's growing by leaps and bounds, and needs men with vision—men like me. With my ability and my drive I don't have to stop at the governor's mansion. I could move on to Washington—to the White House. Are you willing,” he asked incredulously, “to cancel all that out for the sake of a few flea-bitten Comanche that don't mean jack-shit to anybody?”
Tucson’s face was stony as he listened to Durant’s speech. But even as he listened, another part of his mind ranged over the mansion, listening for any unusual sounds - creaking floorboards or softly closing doors. But he detected nothing.
All was silent.
“You're right, Durant,” he said finally. “Texas is growing—the whole country's growing. It's growing into the kind of place where carpetbaggers like you are taking charge, amassing power and making decisions.” He shrugged. “I don't have any doubt that you, or someone like you, could make it to the White House. But unlike you, I think the way things are going is sad—maybe even a catastrophe.
“You're building a society based on greed, control, money and machines,” he continued. “It'll be a society without any roots sunk into real values, because men like you have sold us the idea of progress—the need to buy more, own more, to be more comfortable. You'll make sure everything's fenced in with more laws then we know what to do with telling us what we can and can't do. Eventually,” he pointed out, “those who come after you will pass laws protecting us from ourselves, and putting policemen on every street corner so we'll believe we're safe.
“And you're right.” He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. “There isn't a place in that world for the Comanche, or for anyone else who still remembers what freedom was like before men like you turned us into a society of sheep.”
As he continued to speak, Tucson’s voice was edged with nostalgia. “The Comanche were born into the wide open spaces where they could ride their ponies with their faces in the wind. Where there were no fences, no towns and no one telling them where they could camp and where they could hunt. But people who remember how things used to be threaten the world you're creating,” he added accusingly. “It's not just the Comanche and other Indians that you want to destroy, it's men like me—men who don't have a price tag attached to them. If you can't buy us or control us, you kill us—one way or another.”
“So you’re nothing but a god-damned romantic!” Durant sneered. “You look back to the ‘good old days.’” He shook his head. “I expected more than that from the Tucson Kid.”
“What you think means less than nothing to me,” Tucson responded. “Still,” he returned to his subject, “I'm not fool enough to think that men like you can be stopped. You answer a need in people themselves, or you wouldn't be able to succeed so well. Now that the west is getting tamed, the signs are all around us. The country's going the way it's going and it won't stop until all freedom's been snuffed out in the name of freedom. But it's the way people themselves want it, because deep down all we really want is to be taken care of. We're only as tough as we have to be.” He sat back in his chair. “If someone like you comes along and promises to protect us, we follow you like a herd of sheep.”
“If you find the way things are going so inevitable,” the banker asked, genuinely curious, “why bother to stand in the way?”
Tucson shifted his gaze to the curtain-draped window behind Durant’s head as he thought about his reply. “I represent a very ancient tradition,” he said finally. “The path that I follow, the Warrior’s Way, isn’t identical to the Way that the Indian Tribes follow, but it has a lot of similarities. They both stem from the same spirit and carry the same ethos. So when I see that tradition being trampled on by people like you, I consider it a sacred duty to do something about it.
“Taking you out may not stop things,” Tucson said. “But you never know, maybe it'll slow them down a little. Besides,” his voice hardened, “you've had Indians murdered who can't protect themselves. And as far as I'm concerned that's the ac
t of a coward and a snake. So what I told you still stands.” His voice took on the ring of doom. “You either get out of Howling Wolf by tomorrow night, or you're a dead man.”
Durant had listened silently to what Tucson had to say and seemed to be more than a little impressed. Then he replied quietly, “Until tomorrow night, then.”
Reading the banker’s mind, Tucson grinned wolfishly. “I know. That gives you plenty of time to get your riders in from the Lazy T and have me assassinated.” He leaned forward and stared into Durant’s face, but kept his hand close to his Colt. “Let me give you a warning. If you try to have me taken out, after I’ve taken care of the assassins I'll come back here and kill you real slow. I'm giving you the chance to get out of Howling Wolf with your life. If you blow it, you'll get no mercy.”
* * * *
It was close to midnight when Tucson let himself into his room. He had stopped off at the livery stable to put the stallion into its stall, feed it and rub it down. It was an inflexible habit with Tucson never to neglect his horse. He had been through many tight spots where his life hung in the balance and where a weak horse could have gotten him killed. Besides, there was a deep bond between Tucson and the stallion—they were partners.
He opened the door softly and pushed it back against the wall as he scanned the room. There was an unfamiliar lump lying in the bed and his right hand whipped down and came up holding the Colt.
The shape sat up and whispered, “It's only me, Tucson. Don't shoot!”
Recognizing Catherine's voice, he grinned and slid the gun back into its holster. “What're you doing here at this time of night?” he asked, as he crossed the room to the stand that held the pitcher of water and the washbowl.
Covered to the chin with the blanket, Catherine drew her legs up and clasped her arms around her shins. Her face was a pale oval in the darkness, and her auburn hair cascaded in a fiery aureole over her slender shoulders.
“I missed you,” she replied shyly. “After today at the pool, I realized that I've gone without what a man can give for too long.” Her full lips parted in a smile. “I'd like some more before you leave.”
Tucson unbuckled his gun-belt and draped it over the back of the chair, then slipped out of the leather jacket and shrugged off the shoulder rig. He paused after Catherine finished talking to look back over his shoulder at her, feeling himself already responding to the heat of her desire.
“Wait while I clean up a little.” he said, “Then I'll see what I can do.”
Catherine giggled expectantly as he poured water into the basin.
He stripped the rest of the way down and washed himself with the cloth all over. The cold water made his body tingle. That and the nervous energy he had built up during his conversation with Charles Durant made him feel more than ready for Catherine.
When he had toweled off, he picked up the gun-belt, walked around the right side of the bed and looped the belt over the bedpost and positioned it so that the Colt's butt was pointed forward. Then he leaned over, gripped the bedspread and whipped it down to the end of the bed. Catherine gasped with surprise, then grinned happily and slid down on the sheet, holding her arms up to him.
Tucson's hungry gaze raked down the length of her beautiful body. It shimmered in the darkness like molded ivory and threw mysterious shadows that toyed with his imagination. Then, grinning with anticipation, he lowered himself into her waiting arms.
Chapter Nine
Tucson reached the Twin Trees Comanche Reservation late the next morning. He rode easy in the saddle, his right hand close to his gun, his grey eyes scanning the country. He wasn't fool enough to think Charles Durant would take the notice he had given him lying down. Durant had one day to kill Tucson off before he came after him. It would be stupid of him not to try, and one thing the banker wasn't was stupid.
Given the number of gunmen who were riding for Ed Thompson, Tucson knew that the odds were stacked against him. In a way, he was a fool for giving Durant first warning. He probably should have gunned him down on the spot like a rabid dog. But Tucson's personal code wouldn't allow him to move against a man without first letting him know that he was coming.
Whatever it cost Tucson in the long run, he had to give Durant a chance to get out. If the banker didn't take it, then it was open season.
His gaze moved ceaselessly over the chaparral, searching for rising dust or any unusual movement, and he kept glancing at the ears of the stallion, knowing that it could catch sounds too faint for Tucson.
He reached the small rise above the Comanche village without spotting any riders, not even the Comanche patrol. He kept well back this time and didn't see the village, but he smelled it. The stallion shook its head furiously and danced sideways; it didn't like the stench any more than Tucson did.
Skirting wide, Tucson approached the lodge of Soaring Eagle from the east. A grey wisp of smoke rose straight up into the clear blue sky from the hole in the top, and there were two mustangs standing ground hitched outside. One of them was the decrepit pinto of the boy, Cuchillo.
As Tucson dismounted, the entrance flap of the teepee was thrown aside and Soaring Eagle stepped out, followed by Cuchillo. Wrapped in a buffalo robe in spite of the heat, the old chief couldn’t have stood more than a few inches above five feet.
Cuchillo was dressed in a buckskin shirt, breech clout, leather leggings, and moccasins. His black hair was held back with a leather cord.
Soaring Eagle spoke in Shoshone dialect, and Tucson looked to Cuchillo for a translation.
“Soaring Eagle knew you would come this morning, Storm Rider,” Cuchillo said. “He welcomes you, and invites you into his lodge.”
Tucson followed them back into the teepee. The old woman he had seen before was squatting over a pot simmering above the fire in the center. At sight of Tucson she got up without a word and left.
Soaring Eagle dropped down onto his pile of skins, while Cuchillo knelt at his side. Tucson unbuckled his gun-belt, hung it up, then sat cross-legged to the right of and facing the old chief. Without speaking, Soaring Eagle reached inside a beaded leather case and brought out a long wooden tube with eagle feathers dangling from it and a stone bowl attached to the end.
As Tucson watched, he began filling the bowl with what looked like a blend of tobacco and sumac. With a forked stick, Cuchillo pulled a burning coal from the fire and lit the mixture for the old man. Once the pipe was going, Soaring Eagle lifted his arms and offered the smoke to the four corners of the universe before he drew on it himself.
Then he handed it to Tucson.
After following the same ritual, Tucson drew in on the pipe, grimacing at the bitter taste of the sumac. He and Soaring Eagle passed the pipe back and forth until the contents were consumed. The old chief tapped the bowl against his palm until it was cleared of ashes then he returned it to its case.
Only then did he speak.
“What have you found out, Storm Rider?” he asked - and Cuchillo translated.
“Nothing I could take to a white man's court,” Tucson replied, with a heavy sigh. “But I'm convinced you're right. Charles Durant is trying to steal your gold. When he found out that I'd visited you here at the reservation he tried to have me killed.”
Soaring Eagle grinned, revealing the stumps of black teeth. “We have heard of your battle with the two gunmen,” he said. As he translated, Cuchillo's dark eyes gleamed with admiration. “What do you do now?”
Tucson straightened his back and listened to his spine crack. “I told Durant to be out of Howling Wolf by tonight or I'd shoot him on sight.” He grinned back at Soaring Eagle. “Now we wait and see whether or not he does it.”
The old chief shook his head. “He has many guns. He will try to kill you first.”
“That's what I figure,” Tucson agreed. “He'll probably wall himself in with gunmen hoping I won't be able to get at him. I'll just have to take my chances.”
Soaring Eagle's black eyes grew reflective, and he stared into the fire, as i
f he were seeing shapes rising in the smoke. “Always The People have had to deal with men like the white banker.” He spoke in dialect; but even though he couldn’t precisely understand the words, Tucson felt the pathos of the old man’s speech. “Since the time of my grandfather,” Soaring Eagle went on, “they came to us with promises and demands. Always they broke their promises, while they rammed their demands down our throats.
“We watched our hunting grounds become chopped up with their fences, wars with our ancient enemies prohibited, our traditions spat upon and forbidden in the name of the Great Father in the sky.” Soaring Eagle's eyes held immense sorrow as he shifted his gaze to Tucson, who watched him fixedly. “We were told that all Comanche land was ours, and that no one would stop us from living on it. Then they made us leave the rivers and the sun and the wind and forced us to live in square houses. They say we must give up buffalo and eat beef, move to reservations and live off what they give us and what we pull from the earth.”
As he spoke, his aged hands gestured along with his words.
“Always they give a little with one hand, while they take much with the other. Our young men revolted. How could they feed their women and children without hunting, how could they gain honor without war, how could they live by cutting into the sacred earth and pulling things out of the ground - work no real man would ever agree to do?”
He raised a hand and pointed in the direction of the village. “You can see what we have come to. Our great chiefs are gone, our warriors are dead. Our women no longer respect the men, and the men lose themselves in whiskey and peyote.”
The three of them sat silently after Soaring Eagle had spoken and all stared pensively into the fire.
Then Tucson spoke. “I share your sorrow, Great Chief. The destruction of the Comanche lies heavily on the spirits of us all. Still, you have to understand that there never could have been a real peace between the Nermernuh and white men. Neither people could ever understand the other—the differences in way of life were just too great. Whatever way you cut it,” he pointed out, “the Indians would've gone down before the white storm. But, once you agreed to stop fighting, the whites could have dealt more honorably with you. They could have kept promises and allowed you to retain your dignity as human beings. That this wasn't done will live on as the great shame of the white man.”