He played the light beam around more slowly, looking for a likely hiding place. None presented itself. The cold had begun to penetrate his clothing, to numb fingertips inside the fleece-lined gloves; he hurried to the far end and began his search, stamping his feet to maintain circulation.
By the time he had covered three-quarters of the space, finding nothing but ice and straw, he was chilled to the marrow. But the high good humor with which he had embarked on this nocturnal quest remained intact; so did his confidence. The Schneider brothers had committed the robbery and the stolen gold was hidden somewhere in here. Logic dictated that it couldn’t be anywhere else.
A few minutes later, his faith in his deductions was amply rewarded.
At the base of one wall not far from the entrance, he uncovered a cavelike space formed by ice blocks and a thick pile of straw. The bullion and sacks of dust were piled under the straw — the entire booty, from the look of it.
A satisfied smile creased his pirate’s beard. He pocketed one of the sacks, heaped straw over the rest of the gold. Quickly, then, he made his exit from the building, with the intention of replacing the padlock and then hastening back into town to locate Constable Teague.
The intention, however, was thwarted. No sooner had he stepped outside than something like an angry hornet whizzed past him, smacked into the wall, and dislodged a stone chip that stung his cheek.
Quincannon had been fired upon often enough in his professional career to react instantly and instinctively. All in one motion he dropped the lantern, pulled his head in, and threw himself forward and down as the crack of the shot split the night. He struck the ground flat on his belly, slid through the wet grass. He was turning onto his side, tearing the Chesterfield open and groping within to free the Navy Colt from its holster, when the second slug came humming by. Wherever it hit was nowhere near him.
This time he spied the muzzle flash. The shooter was over by the barn some forty yards away, his weapon evidently a handgun. But the absence of any kind of moonlight or starlight made it difficult to distinguish shapes among the clotted shadows; Quincannon couldn’t tell if the man had moved or was still in the same place.
One of the Schneider brothers, no doubt. Damn and damnation! What had drawn him here in the middle of the night? And the other one... was he present, too?
Quincannon had the Navy out now. With his teeth, he pulled the glove off his right hand and took a tight grip on the weapon. Then he lay motionless, the dark night his ally; Schneider couldn’t see him any better than he could see Schneider. But the man still had an advantage: the barn was closer to the road than Quincannon’s position before the icehouse. To attempt an escape in that direction would be folly.
Lie here and wait to see if Schneider came to investigate his marksmanship? No. Not without knowing if the man had a lantern of his own, or if his brother was somewhere nearby, possibly sneaking around behind the icehouse. The creek, then? It ran between banks five or six feet high, the near bank some twenty yards from where he lay; if he could get down into the cut, he ought to be able to make his way back toward town unseen. The grass was tall enough to cover a squirming crawl to it as long as he was quiet about it.
He began moving, slowly at first, propelling himself with his free hand. Fear was a stranger to him, but he could feel a thin ooze of sweat on his brow despite the cold and the dampness. A short distance from the bank, his extended hand struck and loosened something smallish and solid. The noise the bump and roll made seemed loud in his ears, froze him into immobility. But the sound must not have carried, for no third shot came, nor did any movement from the direction of the barn break the heavy silence.
Quincannon resumed his crawl. The bank’s edge was all but invisible; it was the gurgling murmur of creek water close below that told him when he’d reached it. But he had no way of knowing how steep it was until he wiggled forward, twisted his body, and commenced a sliding descent. It was not strictly vertical, fortunately, but still steep enough so that he had to clutch at vines of ivy and clumps of fern to keep from tumbling into the stream. The slithering sounds his body made were muted by the water’s quick-running passage.
Near the bottom, a section of brush and root-tangled earth ended his slide. He dug one boot heel into the bank; the other foot slipped into the icy water before he could brace himself. He yanked it out and managed to shove himself erect, the brush tearing at his coat. And he bit back a sharp oath when he attempted to step gingerly into the creek.
The water was only ankle-deep, but the rocks in the streambed were not pebbles; most were large, the size of baseballs, and packed loosely together. Walking on them in daylight would have been difficult enough; in the inky dark you couldn’t see where you were putting your feet. Even moving at a retarded pace would be risking a fall, serious injury.
A mistake, coming down here, he thought grimly. He might well have trapped himself.
But there was still a chance if the bank remained slanted and not too overgrown ahead, so that he could ease along it far enough and silently enough to get past the icehouse. Then he could crawl out, make his escape. If the Schneider brother by the barn hadn’t realized where he’d gone and didn’t come hunting him meanwhile. And if the other Schneider brother wasn’t hidden, waiting, somewhere near the icehouse.
Two hands were necessary to feel his way along the bank; that meant holstering the Navy. Best to do that anyway, for if he tripped or fell, the weapon might be jarred out of his hand and lost in the darkness. More brush, roots, vines, clumps of fern impeded his progress, and more than once one foot or the other slid into the water, chilling him even more. Every few feet he paused to strain his ears. Still nothing to hear but the voice of the creek and the thin, labored plaint of his breathing.
He’d gone an indeterminate distance when light suddenly flashed on the flat above. It arced, bobbing this way and that — Schneider, with a lantern of his own or the one Quincannon had carried, searching for him.
Quincannon attempted to increase his speed, only to come upon a mass of something that blocked his way. One groping hand touched a cold surface just in time to prevent him from falling over whatever it was, but not in time to avoid kicking a loose stone that clattered metallically against its surface — surely a carrying sound. Cursing under his breath, he stood motionless, head tilted upward. The light still sliced the darkness above, but in the same dancing arc rather than steadying toward where he was. Schneider was too far away to have heard the noise.
The obstruction on the bank was mounded earth split by something thick and thigh-high that extended at a downward angle into the creek. Quincannon ran his ungloved hand over its ridged surface, identified it: a section of drainpipe some three feet in diameter and covered with stalks of ivy. Hell, damn, and blast! In order to get over and around it he would have to risk stepping into the treacherous stream. And for all he knew, there was more obstruction on the far side.
One other choice: climb out here, on the hope that the light wouldn’t pick him out before he could pinpoint Schneider’s location. The fact that only the single beam swept the grassy flat, and that there was still nothing to hear, indicated that the man was alone up there. Just the one brother and himself in this tense duel.
The cutbank here was not quite as steep as it had been farther down. Ivy grew thickly here; using the thick stalks, Quincannon was able to pull himself upward with relative ease. Partway to the top he thought he heard something, halted to listen again.