Lookout Hill (9781101606735) (8 page)

The little dog let out a yelp, as if the gunshot had actually hit him. The big dog froze in place with its wet jaws clamped around the side of Siebert’s head. Silence fell instantly over the chaotic scene.

“Turn him loose, Big!” a voice commanded behind the cloud of looming gun smoke. The mongrel opened his jaws and let Siebert’s head drop like a rock. But he stood panting, his big front paws planted on the mauled outlaw’s chest, staring down at him with bloody drool swinging from his flews. A low growl persisted in the dog’s throat.

Siebert groaned in pain and fell to the side, the pocket pistol still in hand. The little black-and-white-spotted feist sat down on its hindquarters and whined anxiously.

“Mother of God,” Siebert moaned.

“
Deje caer su fusil! Sea rápido acerca de ello!
” said the voice in the flickering circle of lamplight.

“Wha-what?” said Siebert. “I mean,
No
hablo Mexicano!
” He held up his bloody free hand between himself and the big dog as the dog’s low, menacing growl grew louder.

“I said
drop your gun and be quick about it,
” the man repeated in English. “How come you don’t speak
Mex
?” he asked, sounding suspicious.

“Because I’m not a Mex!” Siebert said quickly, gasping for breath against the weight of the big dog. “That’s why I don’t speak Mex. Please get this dog off me!”

“I won’t tolerate thieving Mexes around here,” the voice went on.

Siebert saw the shotgun barrels leveled down at him, one of them curling smoke.

“Jesus! This
is Mexico
!” Siebert reasoned. The growling grew more intense; the little dog joined in, springing up onto its tiny paws.

“All the more my concern,” the voice said. “Mex or no Mex, drop the gun or I’ll kill you where you sit.”

Damn my hide!

His impulse was to turn the Colt toward the man and pull the trigger, but in a flash, it dawned on him that he couldn’t remember if the little Colt was a five- or a six-shot—not only that, but he couldn’t remember how many times he’d fired it.
Damn it! Damn it! Damn it to everlasting hell!

Siebert let the Colt Pocket fall from his hand.

“There, it’s dropped. What do you want from me?” he said, sounding like the one being put upon. “I only pulled it because your damn dogs were eating me alive.”

At the sound of Siebert raising his voice, both dogs growled with renewed vigor.

“Get back, Big. Get back, Little,” the man commanded the two dogs.

Big and Little, these sons a’ bitches….

With the big mongrel’s weight off his chest, Siebert sat up, bloody from head to waist from dog bites, his shirt shredded down the front. His chest wound was throbbing. The big crucifix swung from its rawhide strip around his neck.

“Are you a man of faith, then?” the voice asked. The circling light came in closer. “I can see you’re not a Mex.”

“Mister,
faith
ain’t even the word for it,” Siebert said. “If it wasn’t for this cross I wouldn’t be sitting here.”

“Oh…?” The man seemed to consider it. “What are you doing coming around here unannounced, the middle of the night?”

Unannounced?
Siebert looked around. He was over two hundred yards from the house, but he wasn’t going to say anything. Instead he shook his lowered head.

“I don’t know,” he replied in defeat. “Just being plain stupid, I guess.”

The man chuckled behind the flickering lamp as he opened the shotgun and slipped a fresh load in the empty barrel.

“Here that, boys?” he said to the growling dogs, snapping the shotgun shut. “Just stupid, he guesses.” He tucked the shotgun under his arm and reached a hand down to Siebert. “Here, come on up from there. Let’s go get you looked at.” He clasped Siebert’s hand
firmly and pulled. “Can you eat something, Mr…. ?” He trailed his words.

“Howard, John Logan Howard, and, yes, I could eat the ass-end out of a running wildcat—pardon my language,” Siebert said, rising to his feet, dusting the seat of his trousers.

“Dudley Bryant,” said the man, introducing himself. “Don’t be saying nothing like a wildcat’s ass in front of the woman,” he warned. “She can’t see worth spit. But she’ll swing a broom handle on you if she hears blackguarding of any kind.”

“She’ll hear none from me,” Siebert assured the man. “Can I pick up my gun now?”

“Yes, you can, brother Howard,” the man said. “Big…Little, both of yas get back,” he commanded the growling dogs. “Let this man pick his gun up.”

Brother Howard…?

Siebert just looked at him. As he stood up from grabbing his Colt, Dudley Bryant leaned in close to him with the lamp and smiled at the gun from behind a thick white mustache.

“Say, now, brother Howard,” he said, “is that possibly an 1862 Navy Colt Conversion?”

“You’re good, brother Dudley.” said Siebert. “It is that.” As he spoke, he turned the gun back and forth in his hand and held it between them, pointed loosely at the ground. “This one has the custom Eagle handle grip.”

“The eagle holding the snake in its beak and talon?” the man asked, looking excited at the prospect.

“Right you are again, brother Dudley,” said Siebert,
impressed. “I think I’m in the presence of a man who knows his Colts.”

The white mustache spread wide in a smile.

“May I, then?” he asked, his thick hand stretched out toward the pistol.

“Of course,” said Siebert, handing him the Colt. “I’ll hold your shotgun and lamp.”

The two exchanged guns and Siebert took the lamp.

“My, my, brother Howard,” said Dudley, looking the gun over good. “What I wouldn’t give for a huckleberry like this.” He turned the gun in his hand and held it out to Siebert.

Siebert took the gun and looked down at it, still holding the shotgun and lamp in his left hand.

“Addle-brained as it sounds, I can hardly ever remember if this gun is a five- or a six-shot,” he said.

“That’s not so addle-brained,” said Dudley Bryant. “I’ve seen both, you know.”

“My goodness, you are right again!” said Siebert. “Aren’t you just
the one
!” He grinned and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Dudley Bryant in the heart at a distance of two feet. Fire and smoke puffed on his shirt. He staggered backward, a stunned look on his face.

Siebert swung the shotgun toward the two dogs as they went into a fit of growling and barking. The big dog had crouched for a leap at him. But two fast blasts from the shotgun silenced both dogs at once.

He turned his face back and forth on the night air, searching for any power from the killing—nothing. Disappointed again, he walked toward the house, toward the sound of the black mare crying out in the
night. When he found her, she stood nickering and thrashing against her reins, the juniper bush she was tied to stuck firmly between two rocks.

“Look at you now, idiot,” Siebert said, stepping in to free up her reins. “You’re damn lucky I even want to fool with you—the way you’ve treated me.”

As he settled the mare and untangled its reins, he looked toward the house and saw a figure step out onto the porch.

“Dudley?” a woman called out in a shaken voice.

Siebert grinned to himself and said in a mock voice, “Dudley ain’t talking.”

“Well, who are you?” she asked. “I heard shooting. Where’s the dogs? What’s going on?”

“One thing at a time, ma’am,” said Siebert, leading the mare toward the house, the lamp raised in his hand. “Your dogs nearly ate me alive. Dudley said you can’t see much, but you’re a fair hand with a needle and thread?”

“He’s right, I am,” the woman said. She paused and looked all around in the darkness. “I don’t like this at all. Where is he anyway?”

“You’d better be good, ma’am,” Siebert said menacingly. “I don’t want you stitching an eye shut.” He grinned.

“What are you talking about? Where’s Dudley and the dogs?” the woman said to the night. “I don’t like them being gone this way.”

“You’ll be with them soon enough, ma’am,” said Siebert as man and animal swayed closer in the flickering glow of light.

Siebert sat shirtless, clenching the edge of a wooden table with his left hand. Daphne Bryant rethreaded her needle and went back to sewing up a gruesome gash atop his left shoulder. In Siebert’s right hand he held the small Colt Pocket. A cup of whiskey sat within close reach.

“Dudley brewed this himself, eh?” he asked, feeling tipsy. He’d been taking a swig every time Daphne finished running the needle and thread through another ripped and gaping bite wound.

“Yes, he did,” Daphne said, paying close attention to her handiwork. She wore a pair of thick spectacles with a magnifying lens tied in front of one of them. She glanced up at Siebert with eyes that appeared to be the size of skillets. Her thick, frizzled hair stood out around her black, leathery face like a silver-white mesquite bush.

“Get ready to take another drink,” she advised grimly.

“
Dammmmn!
” Siebert lamented painfully as the needle slid through his sore flesh and tightened down onto the coarse thread. He raised the wooden cup to
his lips and threw his head back, pouring a long, fiery drink down his throat. “I love whiskey as much as the next fellow, but
dammmmnnn!
” he screamed again as the needle sank into him. He set the wooden cup down and wrapped his hand back around the pocket pistol.

“We’re nearly finished,” the woman said.

Siebert stared at her large, empty eyes.

“You can’t see shit, can you, old Daphne?” he said drunkenly.

“I see well enough,” the old woman said. Readying her bloody fingertips to take another plunge with the needle, she stopped and said, “You want to do this yourself?”

Siebert didn’t answer. Instead he chuckled drunkenly under his breath and shook his swirling head.

“When this is over…
oh
, I swear to God…,” he said. Then he stiffened and said, “
Dammmnnn!
” again as the needle made another stab into his shoulder.

“We’re stopping for a spell,” Daphne said. She took off her spectacles and laid them in front of her. Her eyes seemed to shrink to the size of small berries. She folded her bloody fingers on the table. “You’ve killed Dudley, ain’t you?” she asked. She’d also asked him the same question three other times since she’d started sewing his wounds.

“Hell no, I told you I didn’t,” Siebert said. “But I will if you keep crowding me about it.”

“Okay, then, where’s the dogs?” Daphne challenged matter-of-factly.

Siebert gave her a drunken stare. He reached over to the side of her head and clutched a handful of spongy silver-white hair.

“Do you think I’d do that, kill your man?” he asked.

“I don’t see no dogs,” she said with a shrug.

“You know, you’re not a bad-looking old gal,” Siebert said, appraising her in his whiskey lull. His eyes swerved; he caught himself and sat up stiffly. “Okay, listen to me.” He jiggled her head, then turned her hair loose and placed his hand over hers. “I want you to feel something of mine.” He picked her hand up and pulled it toward him.

“Huh-uh, I ain’t that way,” she said bluntly.

“Damn it, just feel it!” Siebert insisted. He jerked her weathered hand over and laid it on his bare chest. He squeezed it closed over the cross. “There, did that hurt any?”

“No, it didn’t,” said the old woman. She settled down with a slight sigh. “I’m careful what gets put in my hand, bad as my eyes are.”

Siebert just stared at her.

“My point is,” he said, “would a man wearing a cross kill your old man, your dogs either, far as that goes?”

“I’m not saying,” Daphne replied curtly. “People carry a cross for all sorts of makeup—some for pure evil, just to catch folks unawares, I’m thinking.”

“Jesus…,” said Siebert. “Let’s get to sewing.” He threw back a long drink, set the cup down and laid his hand over the pocket pistol.

Daphne’s bloody fingers crawled across the tabletop and felt of his hand.

“Why do you keep your hand on this little thing all the time?” she asked.

Siebert grinned behind a warm whiskey glow.

“Because it’s all I have right now,” he said.

“Dudley’s got a bigger one,” she said.

“Really…?” said Siebert. “Where’s it at?”

“Back in the bedroom under a plank beneath the bed,” the woman said. “We’ll go get it when I’m finished here. There’s a good liver dun horse in the barn too,” she added.

“No fooling?” said Siebert. “Why are you telling me all this, Daphne?”

She paused for a moment before saying, “I’m hoping if I give you everything we’ve got, you won’t kill us.”

“Listen to you, old sweetheart,” Siebert said affectionately. He cupped his hand over hers again. “God forbid if I were to harm a hair on your precious head—Dudley’s either.” He smiled and sighed. “Now get on with the sewing.”

Even with the whiskey surging through his veins, he still felt every sharp sting of the needle sliding through his flesh, every draw of thread as the old woman tightened on it. But by the time the last stitch was looped and tied, he had fallen into a painful lull that kept him from being either asleep or awake. Twice in the night he either felt, or
thought
he’d felt, the old woman try to raise his hand from the pocket gun lying on the table. Both times he gripped the gun and gave a warning growl. Finally he turned half-closed eyes to the woman and saw her knobby hands folded on the tabletop.