Claude Nelson reached the rock face and stopped. He looked around puzzled. He glanced up to his left toward the ledge. He was not quite turned away from Longarm enough that he couldn’t whirl back in time, but Longarm liked his position and the distance between them just as it was. With a deft movement, he flipped a pebble over Claude Nelson’s head so that it landed toward the north, in and among the rocks. Nelson instantly whipped around, showing his whole back to Longarm. In that instant, Longarm stood up, took one step, and dove, the rock held outstretched in both of his hands.
He hit Claude Nelson with the rock first. He could feel the man’s head break. Then his chest slammed into the back of the gold miner as Nelson crumpled. There was a sound of a shot as Nelson involuntarily pulled the trigger. He was falling and Longarm was falling with him.
They lay tangled together on the desert floor. It didn’t take but a quick glance to see that Claude Nelson was dead, his head smashed in. Blood was flowing freely from the blow that Longarm had given him with the rock.
Even though it was only ten o’clock, Longarm felt there was little time to waste. When he could disentangle himself from the body, he reached down and picked up Nelson’s revolver. True enough, it was a .38-caliber. Longarm opened the gate and spun the cylinder. There had only been one shell. The gun was useless. Frantically, Longarm looked through the pockets of the dead man. Surely, he would not have come with only one round of ammunition, but perhaps that was some silly game that the brothers played depending on their skill. Perhaps because Claude got the first chance, he was only allowed one cartridge. Longarm searched the body for thirty minutes, every pocket, every crevice, even his hat band. There was not another cartridge to be found on him. Longarm sat back in disgust. He had thought if he could kill the first of them and get a weapon, it would be easy from then.
Now, he had to think of something else. He sat, contemplating. A thought came to him. On the south side of the outcrop, he had seen a series of caves about shoulder high to a tall man. Something like that might serve, he thought.
He reached down and put back on the sandal that had the notch on it. Then he shouldered Claude Nelson to his feet, leaned over, and took him over his shoulder. The man was not particularly heavy—Longarm reckoned him to be about 160 pounds—but Longarm was tired from the tension of the day. He walked as deliberately as he could, leaving as few marks in the deep sand as possible. He did not want it to appear that he was carrying a load.
He went down the south side of the horseshoe butte, and then turned around its end and came back up until he had found one of the little caves that seemed to suit his purpose. There were two together, one smaller than the other. The first was not much bigger than a big trunk. With some effort, Longarm shouldered Claude Nelson into the hole, and then using what rocks he could find, filled it in so that there was no sign that a body was buried there. The cave next to it was bigger. It was about six feet wide and six or seven feet deep, and there was room enough for a man to hide behind the face so that someone looking directly in couldn’t see the occupant. It appeared perfect, but first he had other work to do.
He clambered down the face of the rock, and then went back along his first trail, eradicating any signs of blood that might have dripped from Claude’s crushed head. He kept going until he had reached the original place where he had leapt upon the Nelson brother. There was a great deal of blood there. He didn’t want to disguise all of it. Using his hat, he scooped up enough sand so that there appeared to be just a few drops. After that, he carefully backtracked using his hat to smooth out the places where his sandals had sunk deep into the sand. He didn’t want it to appear that he had been carrying a load.
When all that was done, he circled around, using his original entrance into the rock pile, went to the spot where he had killed Claude, and then walked in and around to the cave where he had left Claude’s body. There were a few signs of blood on the rock to indicate that someone had crawled in there to hide or to hide and die. He intended for the next brother, Frank, to think that the person was him, Longarm.
He almost waited until too late to realize his mistake. Frank wouldn’t go to the cave where Longarm was waiting, hiding to ambush him. He would remove the rocks from the little cavity where Longarm had stuffed Claude’s body. And that cavity in the rock side was too far away to reach the other brother without exposing himself. It was going on one o’clock in the morning when he frantically began rectifying his error. He quickly pulled away the rocks that hid Claude, then jerked the body out, tore the big leather coat off him, and dragged him over to the bigger cave and stuffed him into the back. After that, he arranged the rocks that showed blood in a line toward the bigger cave where he had been hiding.
He took the big leather coat and let just one sleeve lay so that it could be seen from the outside. For practice, he got behind the little facing that hid him enough inside the cave so that he couldn’t be seen from outside. After that, he climbed back to the top of the ledge and worked his way around to where he had left his food, canteen, and the machete. He worked his way north to the highest point of the rock ledge so that he could see back toward the house. It was almost two o’clock, but Frank wasn’t due to come until three, when Claude’s eight hours would be up. He had been told that Frank would be led part of the way on a horse because of his heart condition.
The moon was up good now, and though it wasn’t anything like daylight, there was still enough light so that he could clearly see movement around the house and among the outbuildings.
He lay still and watched. Surprisingly, he wasn’t tired, but he supposed it was from the tension. He had almost made a very fatal error, so he could tell that the heat and the hurry and the feeling of being hunted must have been working on him. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have laid such a foolish trap. He wished, mightily, for a spyglass or a set of binoculars so that he could more clearly see what his next hunter was up to.
He didn’t, however, have long to wait. At about two o’clock, he saw a horse and rider leave the ranch and start directly toward the hills and buttes where he was hiding. No one was leading the horse. There was a rider and he was making straight along the path that Claude had taken, heading toward the north end of the rocks and ridges and little hills and buttes. One brother, or perhaps both brothers, had been watching what the other brother had done. Not only that, Frank was leaving an hour before it was his time. It was all Longarm needed to know. Oh, yes. Their word was good. About as good as fool’s gold. They might have the gold, but they damned sure took him for a fool. Well, he would see about that.
Climbing carefully so as not to create the slightest sound that would carry a long way in the still night air, he made his way down the south face of the butte until he was on the desert floor. Then he worked his way back around to the cave where he intended to conceal himself. He carefully climbed up the six or seven feet, and then worked his way inside and got behind the facing. He only had about a quart of water left and no food, but he had the machete and he had the body of Claude Nelson, and he had the sleeve of the heavy leather coat visible to anyone looking from a horse into the cave. He sat back and forced himself to wait. He didn’t know how long it was going to take, but he could be very patient when he had to be. He knew that Frank Nelson would work the outcroppings from the north to the south because that was the route that Claude had taken. The signs would not be as clear at night, especially not from horseback, though he expected that Frank would be dismounting from time to time to look at the signs. Longarm wanted it to appear that he had been bloodied and then had run around the leg of the rocky outcropping and died on the other side. At least, that was what he wanted to have Frank come around the end thinking. What he thought after he saw the cave and saw the sleeve of Claude’s overcoat could only be a guess on Longarm’s part.