“Do what?” Shorty inquired.
“Why sneak up and shoot you in the back, that’s what. Course, don’t expect someone like you to know that, but it’s the gospel.”
“What are you implying, ‘someone like me’?” Shorty was starting to boil and several of the men stepped back to give him room.
“Why look at you, boy! You’re not much bigger than a child. Couldn’t put up much of a fight against a real man now, could you?”
LaRue saw what was coming and put his hand on Shorty’s shoulder. “He’s half out of his head, Shorty. Doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Better you go over and have some beans while you cool off.” Shorty eyed his friend for a moment, then turned his back and ambled off.
“You shouldn’t talk to him like that. He can kill you before you can slap leather any day of the year.”
“That pip-squeak? Who says-him?” O’Neill said with a sneer.
“No, the men he killed and there have been plenty of them. So, for your own safety, keep a civil tongue in your head when you’re around him. Now tell us the rest of your story,” LaRue demanded angrily.
“I finally got the best of him and was able to grab his gun and put a couple bullets in him before the other one could get behind me. Diving for cover I was just in time to see the other one ride out. I cut the women loose and buried the men, only decent thing to do. After I was done, one of the women came up to me and gave me something.”
O’Neill reached into his pocket and retrieved a little gold figurine. The men gasped as they saw it. “She told me that her tribe had thousands of these and I could have as many as I wanted of them. Only one problem. An enemy tribe had captured her people and now held them and the gold captive. She begged me to help her, but I being only one man could do nothing against so many. I was on my way to get help when the man that got away ambushed me last night. I escaped in the dark. You know the rest of the story.”
LaRue studied the man for a moment. “Did you get a look at the man who shot you?”
“No, everything happened so fast, but I can tell you who it was!”
“If you didn’t get a look at him, how can you know who it was?” LaRue inquired.
“Easy. He had a Sharps and there’s only one man that uses one of them these days.”
“Who might that be?” LaRue was finding this conversation very interesting.
“His name’s Madigan!”
“Madigan, the army scout?” LaRue found it hard to believe that the man they called the man hunter would be any party to rape and murder.
“That’s the one. You hear of him?”
“I’ve heard people talk of him. Don’t know him myself though. How can you be sure that it’s really him? Just ‘cause a man carries a Sharps doesn’t mean he’s this Madigan.”
“Oh, it was him all right. I’d know him anywhere. You can take my word for it!”
How’s that, if he didn’t see him, LaRue wondered to himself. He was not about to take this stranger’s word for anything right now.
.“Eat up! There’s more if you want it,” LaRue said as he moved away from the man. O’Neill eyed him suspiciously.
LaRue found Shorty over by the horses. “Come with me, Shorty. I feel like a walk.” Shorty put his plate of beans down and came up beside LaRue.
“What’s up?” he asked the big man. “That stranger making you a little nervous too?”
“The stranger is a fake. You know it and I know it, but I’m afraid our men may think he’s telling the truth. That might lead to problems for us.”
“You think we should send him away? Might avoid trouble if we do.”
LaRue thought for a minute. “It’s not as easy as that. If we get rid of him now, the others will start asking questions, questions that could only lead to trouble. So you see, no matter what we do right now, we got trouble.”
“I see what you mean. Can’t do anything without stirring up a little manure. What do you suggest?”
“Don’t rightly know. Just wait for him to make his move first, I guess. Keep an eye on him if you will. Maybe if he sees we’re watching, he’ll take it on his own to pack up and leave.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll push me a little too hard. My friend here can end any trouble real quick.” Shorty raised his Colt slowly out in front of him, then in a flash holstered it again.
“Let’s hope we’ll not need that,” LaRue commented.
For the next two days as LaRue’s band traveled steadily westward, O’Neill gained followers. It wasn’t hard to understand why. LaRue’s group had been brought together for the purpose of finding the very gold that O’Neill now promised he could find. LaRue was losing his hold on his men again, and he knew this time he would not get it back, for the lust for gold was strong and these men that LaRue had assembled for his expedition were an illiterate bunch at best. They lived for the moment and were ready to follow anyone able to lead them the sooner to riches. Shorty agreed with LaRue that a showdown was imminent.
On the third day it came. LaRue had been scouting ahead when he saw a rider coming. As the rider approached he saw that it was his friend Shorty and that he was in a hurry. A packhorse trailed behind him. LaRue put his rifle back in its scabbard and greeted the small gunman as he came closer.
“I’m up here, Shorty. What’s with the packhorse?”
Shorty drew up abreast of Pete. “It’s that O’Neill fellow. He’s talked the rest of the men into setting an ambush for you when you come back to camp. With all the talk he’s been doing about knowing where the gold is, the men agreed to follow him.”
“Then why the ambush? If they all agreed by their own choice, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“He says you’re in cahoots with Madigan and that if they don’t kill you first, you’ll set a trap for them after they have the gold. You know there’s not a smart one in that lot, so they believed him to the letter.”
“How’d they plan to get me?”
Shorty smiled at his friend’s question. “In the back, of course! Someone convinced O’Neill that you were too fast to take straight on, so he devised a plan to get your attention, then shoot you in the back while you were helpless to do anything about it.”
“They knew we were friends. How’d you manage to get out with your body in one piece?”
“Real easy. At first they thought I was out of camp with you. When they realized that I was back and had heard what they were planning, they offered to cut me in for a big share if I’d kill you.”
“Why didn’t you? May make you a rich man.”
“Or a dead one! Just be a matter of time before someone took a rifle shot at me. From the rear, of course!”
“Why did they let you leave? You were outnumbered and they still let you go?”
Shorty grinned at his friend. “Anybody tell you that you ask a lot of questions?”
“You’re the first. But how did you get away?”
“Simple. I told O’Neill if he gave me any trouble I’d kill him first, then kill as many others as I could before they got me.”
“And O’Neill believed you?”
“Not at first, but the others made him believe it. None of them wanted to join him in the ground.”
“So they just stood by while you packed up and left?”
“Not exactly. I made several of them pack up for me while I watched them and the rest of the bunch,” he said with a grin. “Now I have a question for you. What the heck do we do now? O’Neill’s got the men and most of the supplies. If he really does know where the gold is, which I doubt very much, he’ll have it before we can do anything about it. We’re only two against all of them. And another thing that’s been on my mind: what do you think he’ll do to any of those poor Indians that get in his way?”
“You mean Indian war parties?”
Shorty pulled his horse to a stop. “No, not war parties. I’ve heard rumors of a peaceful tribe of fair-skinned Indians that used to live in cliff dwellings. Then they moved one night to a valley that only they knew about. Maybe O’Neill found that valley. If he did, I wouldn’t give a snowball’s chance in hell for those people.”