Lookout Hill (9781101606735) (9 page)

“Are we through?” he asked.

“We’ve been through for a while,” the old woman said. “It’s near daylight. Do you want some coffee? I’ve got some boiling.”

Barely awake, Siebert looked around at the ray of venturing sunlight stabbing slantwise through the front window. His wet eyes swam around the room to a coiled lariat hanging from a peg.

“Yeah, I want some,” he said. His gaze moved back to the table and focused on a large Dance Brothers .44 revolver staring at him from the tabletop. Beside the big gun lay a large tin of ammunition. “Holy dogs,” he whispered.

“I went and got it for you,” said Daphne.

“Did you load it?” Siebert grinned, reaching for the pistol.

“I was afraid to,” said the woman. “I was afraid you’d wake up and get the wrong notion.”

“You should have been my ma,” Siebert said. He picked up the big pistol and turned it in his hands. “What about that coffee?” he said stiffly, feeling the tightness of the fresh stitches all over his face, his head and his upper body.

The old woman went to a small hearth and poured coffee into a battered tin cup. Siebert stood up, loaded the revolver and spun it on his finger, liking the feel of it.

“All right,” he said. He twirled the gun into his empty holster, drew it, reholstered it loosely and let his hand rest on the bone handles. “I need to see how it shoots.”

Daphne set the cup of steaming coffee on the table. Siebert stuck the Colt Pocket down in front of his gun belt. He picked up the tin of ammunition and tucked it into the crook of his arm.

“Get on the table,” he commanded.

Daphne stared at him through her thick spectacles.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because I told you to,” said Siebert, his palm resting on the butt of the small Colt, his fingers tapping idly.

“I never done nothing this crazy in my life,” the old woman said. But she crawled up atop the table on all fours.

“You have now,” said Siebert. “Lie on your back.”

She stared questioningly at him through the spectacles, one lens covered by the magnifying glass.

“So I can tie you up,” said Siebert, gesturing toward the lariat hanging on the wall. “I don’t trust you anymore.”

“Oh,” she said as if she understood.

In the night, the boy had shaken his sleeping father as soon as he’d heard the sound of distant gunfire. Yet by the time his father was awake, the gunfire had seized. The night beyond the open windows of their small hillside adobe lay as silent as stone.

“I heard it, Papa,” said the young man with determination when his father seemed skeptical. “By the saints, I heard it—this was
not
thunder.”

His father stared at him and batted the clinging remnants of sleep from his eyes. He let out a long breath and looked around for his trousers even though they hung from the same peg where he’d hung his trousers for twenty years.

“Do you not believe me, Papa?” the young man asked.

“
Sí
, Julio, I believe you, my son,” Umberto said. He
pulled the thin peasant trousers down from the peg and shook them for scorpions before stepping into them. “From the
gringos locos
, you say?”

“
Sí
, from the crazy
americanos
,” said Julio. “The shot of a pistol and the double blasts of an
escopeta
.”

“The
escopeta
is for wolves and coyotes,” said Umberto. “The old gringo uses it too freely, I think. But the
pistola
is worrisome, especially in the night.” He tied the strings of his trousers at the waist and picked up a machete from against the wall. “We go.”

“
Sí
, we go,” said Julio. Having anticipated his father’s decision, he’d put on his sandals, his trousers and shirt, and thrown on a frayed poncho. A machete was hooked to his waistband, and a straw sombrero hung behind his shoulders from a string around his neck. “It is at times like this I wish we owned a horse.”

“Oh?” said Umberto, eyeing him. “Why? So we could kill it on these dark high trails?”

Julio didn’t answer.

“Besides, we travel across the rocks from here to the
gringos locos
quicker than any horse,” Umberto said. “A horse must have a trail of some sort. We need no trail, nothing but a place to put a foot, a spot to clasp a hand, eh?”

“
Sí
, Papa,” said Julio, wishing he had kept his mouth shut. A man did not speak of things he
wished for
. Wishing was for fools and wistful young girls. He kept a hand on the handle of his machete.

When they’d left the adobe, they did not walk down to the trail lying two hundred feet below. Instead they had moved right out the side door of the house and
onto the steep, rocky hillside and negotiated the jagged terrain like driven, agile spiders.

They climbed silently upward and sidelong over boulder and spur and moved effortlessly down broken rock faces like two dark teardrops. At a steep, rocky ledge, Umberto made it a point to stop long enough for his son to look down at a sharp turn in the winding switchback trail that they both knew would have taken over an hour longer to reach were they relying on horse or donkey.

The two stared out across a steep wall of rock that rimmed the trails and hillsides in a half circle and stood high and vertical against the night sky.

“
Desea un caballo,
eh?” Umberto asked his son.

Julio gave a slight smile.

“No, Papa, I do not
want a horse
,” he said.

“
Qué?
” said Umberto, taunting his son a little. “I did not hear you.”

“I said, ‘No, Papa,’” said Julio. “No
caballo
.”

Umberto chuckled as they both took off their sandals and dusted the soles together before shoving them down into their waistbands.

“
Ahora el viaje comienza,
” Umberto said, standing.

“
Sí
, Papa,” said Julio, “now the travel begins.”

They stepped over the edge of the cliff and moved on.

It was silvery daylight when they had walked onto the hillside overlooking the Bryants’ narrow home on the rocky valley floor. When they reached the bottom of the hillside and started across the stretch of brush and wild grass, they stopped at the sight of Dudley Bryant and both dogs, Big and Little, lying dead and bloody on the ground. No sooner had they come upon
the gruesome sight than they ducked down quickly as the sound of rapid pistol fire erupted from the direction of the house.

A loud yell and a round of maniacal laughter arose behind the echoing gunfire. Both Umberto and his son let out a breath, realizing that this was just wild, random firing—at least no one was firing at them. Umberto gave a troubled look at the dead lying strewn on the ground beside them.

“That is not the old woman, Daphne,” he whispered warily.

“No, it is not,” said Julio. He rose into a crouch enough to duck-walk over to his father’s side.

“Stay close to me,” Umberto said. “We must see about the woman.”

The two moved forward in a crouch as another round of gunfire erupted, then ended in a loud yell and another peel of laughter. During a reloading lull, they ran the last few yards and ducked for cover at the corner of the house. They both looked down curiously at long lines scraped in the dirt from the porch, around the corner and to the rear of the house. They stiffened as six more pistol shots erupted rapidly followed by a cackle of laughter as a man’s voice called out, “
Yiiii-hiii!
I’ve never owned so many bullets in my
whole damned life!
”

“Quickly, follow me,” Umberto said to his son. Realizing the pistol had once again been emptied in a wild, mindless shooting spree, he jerked the machete from his waist.

“No, Papa, wait!” said Julio, reaching for his father’s arm. But he was too late.

Umberto stepped into sight from the front corner of the house and stood facing Hodding Siebert with his machete hanging at his side.

“Who the hell are you?” Siebert said, the Dance Brothers revolver lying empty, open and smoking, in the palm of his left hand. His right hand was full of bullets, ready to reload.

“Do not load that gun, hombre,” Umberto warned.

Now that his father had made the unwise move, all Julio could do was follow suit. He stepped out from the corner of the house and stood beside his father, his bare feet spread apart, the machete in hand.

“The hell you say!” Siebert shouted, sticking bullet after bullet into the Dance as quickly as he could, some of them falling to the ground in his efforts.

Father and son charged forward, wielding the big glistening blades above their heads. But Siebert fell back three steps hurriedly, managing to get four bullets into the gun, then raise and fire it as the two made it dangerously close.

“Close, but no prize for second best!” Siebert shouted as four shots erupted almost as one. At his feet, the young Mexican writhed in pain, the machete gripped tightly, blood pumping hard from two bullet holes in his chest. Six feet behind the boy, his father lay dead, a brutal exit wound gaping on the back of his head, another on the back of his neck.

“Here, give me that,” Siebert said. Clamping his boot down on Julio’s wrist, he jerked the machete from his hand. “This might sting a little,” he warned, raising the big blade high above his head.

Julio screamed, but he was silenced when the sharp blade came down and did its job.

Siebert turned loose of the sunken blade and walked away to the barn without a second look.

“If a man needs some practice, he can do worse than come here for it,” he chuckled. He snatched up the reins to the black mare he’d hitched to a half-collapsed fence rail.

But his cheerfulness ended when he led the mare into the barn and saw a big liver-colored dun gelding lying dead on the floor.

“What the hell…?” Siebert walked closer and looked down at the wide puddle of dark blood beneath the dun’s neck; then his puzzled eyes went to the rays of sharp sunlight shining through several bullet holes in the barn wall. “I’ve shot the son of a bitch.”

Beside him the mare scraped a hoof and chuffed.

“I dare you to say a
damned
word,” Siebert warned her, giving a yank on her reins. He paused in consideration, and then a grin spread across his face. A worn California-style saddle was draped over a stall rail. “All right,” he said, “at least I get a good saddle out of the deal.”

Cursing his luck, Siebert carried the saddle over and dropped it at the mare’s hooves. He removed the sidesaddle, then pitched the California saddle atop the mare. But before he could fasten the cinch, the mare reached her head around, grabbed the saddle between her teeth and flung it to the floor.

Siebert bit his lip. He picked up the saddle, shook if off and pitched it back up on the mare. Almost before
it landed on her back, the mare grabbed it, yanked it and threw it to the floor in a puff of dust once again.

Siebert drew the Colt Pocket from his waist, cocked it and pointed it at the mare as he picked up the saddle and shook it off.

“Do it again, see if don’t stick a bullet through your brain.”

The mare stood still as stone as he saddled her, gun in hand, cocked and pointed, and swung up onto the big comfortable saddle. Without a tap of Siebert’s heels, the big mare walked out the door and milled, awaiting its rider’s command.

“That’s more like it,” Siebert said. “Now show me some more of that speed.” He nailed his single boot heel to the mare’s side, the cocked Colt still in hand. But instead of running straight, the mare bunched up beneath him and cantered sideways a full thirty yards before Siebert could right her and finally turn her back toward the barn.

“I know I’m going to kill you,” he hissed. “I just don’t know when.”

The mare chuffed and blew and shook her bowed head. Siebert almost lost his seat. But near the open barn door he managed to sit up straight, seeing the young Mexican stagger toward him, his whole front covered with blood, the machete blade sunken deep in the side of his neck.

“Why’s this stuff
always
happening to me?” Siebert queried any and all universal sources. He raised the Colt with difficulty as the mare leaned dangerously to one side and bounced stiffly on to the barn.