He waited and he waited. He didn’t bother to look at his watch. He could tell the time by how near the sounds were that Frank Nelson was making in his coming. He could tell how near the clink of a hoof on a rock was, or the creak of a saddle. He wondered if Frank was armed the same way that Claude had been, one gun, one cartridge. He didn’t think so. As a matter of fact, it appeared to him from the brief view he had gotten that Frank was carrying a long gun of some kind, either a shotgun or a rifle. It appeared what the Nelsons said and what they did were two different matters.
The time passed. Two hours. His greatest fear was that Frank would conclude that something had gone amiss with Claude, and that he would go back to fetch Asher and Longarm would have the two brothers to fight. But he doubted that. There was a streak in each of them, he thought, that made each one want to outdo that other. He didn’t believe that Frank would be willing to go back and tell Asher that he didn’t think he could take Longarm alone. Frank might be having his worries and doubts about what had happened to Claude by now since he hadn’t come back to the house, but Longarm didn’t think Frank would seek help himself. Besides, he was on horseback and he had no reason to conclude that Claude would have returned to the house from the same direction he had come. For all Frank knew, Claude had claimed the prize and had Longarm staked out somewhere. No, Longarm thought, Frank would come on.
Then he heard, much closer than before, a creak of a saddle. Frank had turned the corner of the southern leg. There was no rock blocking the sound of him and his horse. In a moment, Longarm heard the sound of an iron shoe on a rock. It sounded as if it was almost on top of him.
And then, unbelievably, he heard a whisper in the night air. It said, “Claude, Claude. Are you around here? This is Frank. Where are you?
Claude.”
Longarm waited. He was on his knees with his left shoulder pressed against the side of the cave entrance. He had the machete drawn back with both hands, ready to chop with it.
He heard the saddle creak loudly and heard the man step to the ground before he heard the whisper again. “Claude. This is Frank. Claude, where are you? It’s me. Is that you in there? I see your leather coat. Are you all right?”
Longarm tensed himself.
He could hear the sound of boots scrambling over rocks. He could hear the sound of a man climbing. It was coming very near.
“Claude, is that you in there? Why don’t you answer me? What’s the matter?”
There was the sound of more climbing, and then suddenly Frank’s head and shoulders appeared in the opening of the cave. Longarm swung the machete with both hands, swinging it with every ounce of strength he had, the dull edge first. He caught Frank Nelson right between the nose and the forehead.
Chapter 8
His intention had been to cut the top half of the man’s head off, and he damned near had done just that. Even though it was with the dull side of the machete, the blow had gashed into Nelson’s head and killed him instantly. The man had sort of just slumped down right in the entrance of the cave. It took some effort for Longarm to work the blade loose from the bone in Nelson’s head. When he had done that, he reached out, grabbed the man by his belt, and dragged him up into the cave. He pushed him back over to where Claude was huddled in death, and then began covering them both with rocks.
Just outside the door of the cave, he saw the weapon that Frank Nelson had been carrying. It was a short, sawed-off, double-barrel shotgun. It looked to be a 12-gauge. It was, Longarm reckoned, about as deadly a weapon for close work as you could get. He wasn’t even sure that it wasn’t a 10-gauge. He cracked it open and saw the two enormous shell heads in the breech. Longarm snapped it shut, and then crawled out of the cave and began laboriously throwing more rocks up and into the mouth of the opening until it looked like a rock slide from above had covered it up.
Frank Nelson’s horse was standing right where it had been left. The horse looked around as Longarm walked up and gathered up the reins.
Longarm threw the reins over the pony’s neck and then stepped into the saddle. He shoved the shotgun down into the boot, and discovered a .44-caliber revolver in a saddle holster. The man had come well prepared, Longarm thought, but it hadn’t done him any good. Now there was just Asher Nelson.
For a time Longarm sat on Frank Nelson’s horse, staring in the moonlit shadow of the rock outcropping across at the lit-up ranch house, wondering what Asher was thinking. It was very close to five o’clock in the morning and by all accounts, Asher must have reckoned that Claude, who had gone first, would have returned had something not happened to him. Asher must have heard the shot that the first brother had fired as Longarm had dropped on him. Then Frank had left and almost three hours had passed, but there still hadn’t been a sound. Longarm visualized Asher walking back and forth in the house, wondering, confused, maybe not concerned yet, but starting to have a doubt nibble at his mind. Longarm debated his options. He could slip up on the house and take Asher inside the dwelling. He didn’t think that would be a very difficult task since he had the shotgun and the revolver.
But Longarm didn’t want Nelson that way. He wanted Asher to discover for himself what had happened to his brothers. He wanted Asher to have the pleasure of tracking the movements of his brothers and seeing what had happened to them. Perhaps he wasn’t as good a tracker as he’d let on to be. Perhaps he wouldn’t find them in their tomb that had once been a cave. But by any rights, Longarm wanted Asher out looking. He wanted Asher to get the taste of a fruitless search.
There was only about an hour and a half left till daylight. He turned Frank Nelson’s horse south, and walked him slowly but steadily until he came to the first depression in the ground. Then he led the horse down until he couldn’t be seen, and started a southwestern movement. He wanted to get completely on the other side of the ranch house, but he wanted to be able to stop on occasion and watch to see if Asher left the ranch house. He didn’t think that Asher was going to be able to hold on until eleven o’clock, when it was his turn, but then, Longarm couldn’t be sure. He thought of firing one barrel of the shotgun just to give Asher something more to think about, but even that seemed as if it would make it easier on Nelson.
By six, he had worked his way completely around the ranch house and was approaching it from the west. He saw no workmen up and moving around but just to be on the safe side, he stopped well short of the outbuildings and tied the horse to a stunted cedar tree. He took the shotgun in his hand and stuck the .44 revolver in his belt, and began to sneak from one outbuilding to the next. He knew that the hired hands would be getting up very soon. He could already see lights in some of the little houses. The worst part was the open space between the first big barn and the ranch house. He came at it from an angle, trying to avoid a view from as many windows as he could. He covered the distance in a kind of lumbering run, hunched over and taking advantage of every bit of cover he could. The moon was down now and it was about as black as it was going to get. He got to the southwest corner of the house, and then began moving slowly from window to window until he was able to see into the big sunken living room. He edged up and peeked around the corner, and saw Asher walking back and forth. He was wearing rough khaki outdoor clothes, and had on knee-high hunting boots that were flat-heeled and looked as if they would be ideal for walking. Asher had a glass in his hand, but whether it was weak whiskey or tea or coffee, Longarm couldn’t be sure. Every few moments, Asher would go over to the window and stare toward the east, toward the buttes and the rough rocky country, the direction his brothers had last been seen taking.