Natchez Read online

  “You gents sit down,” Ty Dewey said, pointing a finger at Montak and Joseph. “And don’t breathe. What I want to know, Toures, is where the hell they came from? How many other folks might know what’s going on?”

  “They don’t know a thing,” Toures said, trying to appear casual. He was well aware he was the one member of their party who no longer had a gun. “Joseph works for a man named Greene, he lives around here. The mute rolled in with an old man, a couple of friends. Featherskill, I think and a tall man. Soledad, something like…”

  “Kid Soledad!” That rattled Dewey and he took Toures by the shoulders roughly. “Kid Soledad? A tall man, wears black, two fancy silver-mounted Colts, hard eyes?”

  “Why yes.”

  “You damned fool,” Ty Dewey told the general. “You poor damned fool.” The gunman stood silently for a moment. So the Kid was here! “Let’s get moving,” he said suddenly. “I want that silver and I want out of this swamp.”

  Lou Questler sat on a rock, rifle across his propped up knee, watching as Toures and Ty Dewey disappeared into the brush. He pushed back his red hair and glanced thoughtfully at his brother who glared at the prisoners.

  “John,” Lou Questler said. “We ought to cut out of here.”

  “What?” John Questler laughed. “Are you nuts, boy?”

  “I mean it.”

  “You do don’t you?” Questler wagged his head. “Not hardly, Lou. There’s enough silver on that fat man’s wagon to set us up for life. And I got a score or two to settle with our partners—both of ’em.”

  “We’ll never see that silver,” Lou Questler said, raising his eyes. “It’s a rush to doom we’re in. I got me the feelin’. I got that feelin’ real strong, John.”

  Ray Featherskill crept across the floor of the time-devoured Planter House. A board squeaked, a rat scuttled away. The girl was behind him, framed in the broken window where first light lined the far bluffs with a thread of gold.

  Nothing. No one was there.

  Ray walked back across the floor to where this beautiful, fair-haired girl stood smiling. The sunlight streaked her hair with gold, streamed through the sheer white gown she wore, silhouetting her figure beneath it plainly.

  “Melinda? Why did you bring me here? It’s very dangerous. There’s no sign of Big Joseph. Are you sure they brought him here?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, her voice sing-song.

  “Are you well?” Ray touched her forehead with his hand, concerned about the girl’s odd behavior. She took his hand instantly, holding it in a vise-like grip. Then, smiling still, she bit his hand savagely, bringing blood to it. Ray tore his hand free, the warm blood trickling onto the floor, spotting it.

  Suddenly Melinda was in his arms, tears falling from her eyes in torrents. She clung to him, tearing at his shirt with bloodless hands.

  “I don’t want to die,” she said pitifully. “I don’t want it. I have a right to live. I have a right…”

  Ray held her in confusion, petting the silk of her hair. Then again she kissed him, and again he felt that her lips were utterly cold.

  “Come on,” Ray said, taking her by the hand. “Whatever you brought me here for, I can’t help you. It’s obvious Joseph isn’t here.”

  They walked down the stairs, stepping carefully over the missing steps. They had come into the parlor, going toward the door when Ray’s senses caught something. What? An unusual odor. Sulphur, perhaps? His eyes returned to the upper floor.

  Quickly they retraced their steps, Ray probing the rooms off the musty, lightless hall until he opened the door where rows of bottles, metal vials, chemicals in boxes and pouches lined a bedroom shelf.

  “Blackschuster!”

  He knew it instantly. The bottles were all new, dust-free. Melinda leaned against the wall, smiling vacantly as Ray inspected the chemicals, lifting a dark blue bottle and another to glance at their labels, some in foreign languages. Silver nitrate. Nitrous oxide. Mercury. The door across the room, beyond the dilapidated fireplace was open just a hair.

  Ray’s Colt filled his hand instinctively. With a glance at Melinda who had not moved, he stepped quickly to the faded green door.

  He hesitated, touched the door with the barrel of his pistol and drew back against the wall as the door swung open with a screech from the protesting rusty hinges.

  Taking a deep breath, Featherskill plunged into the inner room, pistol raised in both hands, legs spread wide apart.

  Kirstina!

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Featherskill froze, the gun in his hands. Sunlight streamed through the window, lighting the crystal casket and the beautiful woman who slept her eternal sleep inside. Kirstina—the woman Spectros had devoted a lifetime to.

  Ray glanced around and holstered his pistol, stepping nearer. He had actually seen her only once before, but he knew her instantly. Such a haunting beauty, still dressed in her white wedding gown, a great emerald ring on her finger. Her pale breast rose and fell evenly.

  Suddenly he heard the sound of hoofs in the yard. Rushing to the far window he saw them. Blackschuster himself, with Wango beside him on the seat of a wagon. Wango sprang from the box as the wagon screeched to a halt.

  A tarp covered an odd-sized load in the wagon bed. The silver, undoubtedly. There were only seconds to consider.

  Instantly Ray made his decision. Wango’s footsteps clicked on the floor downstairs.

  Ray tore the dust-filled blue velvet draped from the windows and tied them together, his fingers knotting with tension as he worked. When he was through he had a crude sling and he cradled the casket in it.

  “Soon!” Ray whispered, and the girl’s eyes seemed to flicker, her heart beating faster.

  He dragged the coffin to the window and, bracing both feet against the sill, lowered Kirstina to the earth. Then, with the sound of muffled voices downstairs, Ray himself dropped to the earth and hastily concealed the casket in the dense underbrush.

  “It won’t be long,” he promised Kirstina, as if time any longer had meaning to her. There was one more dangerous job to be done.

  Melinda Toures, out of her senses, was in that house with the magician and the cutthroat. Ray planted a boot on the wall, and gripping the torn draperies he climbed once more into the window.

  “I’ll begin mixing the chemicals,” he heard Blackschuster say. “Bring me a crate of silver, then prepare to leave immediately. They can’t be far behind.”

  The door to Blackschuster’s workshop opened and closed again as Ray crept into the hall, his breath catching in his chest. He feared no man. But then Blackschuster was not quite in that category.

  Wango’s footsteps receded as the henchman went down the stairs after the silver. Ray saw her then. Still leaning against the wall in the far room. Still smiling. To get to her he had to pass Blackschuster’s partly open door.

  Ray slid along the wall, hearing the clinking of a bottle, the rapid sound of Blackschuster mixing the chemicals he needed to make the solution which, added to silver, produced the coma in which Kirstina slept, never waking, never aging.

  The front door opened again. Wango knocked against the door with a heavy crate and swore in Malaysian. Ray took a final deep breath and stepped past the door, moving quickly down the hall to where Melinda waited, still framed in the yellow lighted window of the empty room.

  “Now!” Ray whispered. “Out the window. Quickly.”

  “No,” she replied in a conversational tone. “I’ll die if I leave here.”

  “You won’t!” Ray looked around anxiously. Wango’s steps were nearer. The crate of silver thumped on the stairs as he dragged it along.

  “Melinda,” Ray said heatedly, eyes on the girl’s. “You’ll die if you stay here. Can’t you see that?”

  “No.” She took his hands for a moment, her eyes incredibly tender and damp. “I’ll die if I leave. You don’t know? He made me—the fat man. He made me Melinda Toures. Before that I was not alive. I was simply drifting past when he found me.
Then when he copied Melinda Toures…”

  “Copied her!” Ray heard Wango’s feet, nearer now. Melinda clutched at his shirt.

  “Thank you for loving me a little,” she said. And she kissed him. This time Ray understood the coldness in her lips, and this time he did not draw away from her icy kiss. She clung to him as if only he could keep her alive, her fingernails tearing at his back as her eyes filled again with tears—cold tears.

  “Touching.”

  It was Wango, knife dangling from his hand, an evil, broad grin on his scarred face. “Hello, Featherskill. The man said we’d be seeing you soon.” Wango smiled again, then he leaped forward, knife flashing.

  Ray drew aside, but Melinda, whoever she was, still clung to him, pinning his gun to his side. Wango slashed once with his blade, heedless of Melinda, the stroke just grazing Ray’s shoulder as he madly tried to tear Melinda loose and dodge the flashing blade.

  Wildly Ray tore at the girl’s clutching hands, and they toppled to the floor in a bizarre struggle. Featherskill scratching for his gun, trying to dodge Wango’s knife as the girl clutched him tightly, frantically, not wanting to let him go.

  “You can go back with me!” she screamed, eyes wide.

  It was Wango who finally parted them, throwing the girl aside as he drove the knife again at Ray who only just managed to twist aside, the knife taking a chunk of meat from his side, splattering blood onto the floor.

  Ray kicked out with both feet and caught Wango coming in. Wango grunted and fell back. Featherskill grabbed at his holster, but the Colt was gone. Wango, leering, holding his chest, black hair across his eyes, came in, his knife held low, edge turned up.

  Ray backed toward the window, crouching to meet Wango. Melinda lay crumpled in the corner, her voice growing weaker as she sobbed.

  Wango lunged and Ray side-stepped, lifting a knee which Wango partially blocked with his own knee. He grunted with pain nevertheless and slashed out, tearing the front of Ray’s shirt away.

  Their breathing, heavy and ragged, echoed in the empty, dusty room. Wango circled warily now, flicking out with his blade.

  Perspiration stung Ray’s eyes. Blood trickled from his side. The room swam in his vision, the girl in white in the far corner of the bare, sun-streaked room.

  Wango came in again and Ray was just able to weave aside. Yet the dark man made a mistake. He came in too confidently and Ray stepped quickly in, taking him by the wrist as he swept his feet out from under him with his toe.

  Wango slammed back, grunting as the breath was knocked out of him. The knife clattered free. They both dove for it, but Featherskill was there first, and he came up, ready for action. Then he saw the looming shadow in the doorway. Blackschuster!

  The big man’s bulk filled the door, his eye sparked. Ray backed toward the window, but too slowly. He blinked and then it was there, crouching, a tremendous black panther, fangs bared. It had taken Blackschuster’s place. The animal snarled, pawed at the air and bounded toward Ray.

  Featherskill reacted instantly. He threw himself from the window, splintering glass. There was no time to calculate a landing and Featherskill landed roughly on one shoulder in the thicket below.

  Ray dragged himself to his feet, the pain breaking his breath into short gasps. He glanced back once, only once. The panther was perched on the ledge, but did not leap. Twitching its tail, the big cat sprang back into the house where the haunting sobs of Melinda still sounded.

  Ray broke into the brush, working toward where he had left Kirstina. Blackschuster had not followed him; but when the man discovered Kirstina’s casket was missing he would be pursuing Featherskill with the fury and the tools of hell.

  Ray tripped and fell, pain filling his head with brilliant lights. Where was the Kid? He couldn’t be far behind unless something had happened. Or, and the thought chilled Ray, perhaps the old man had simply exhausted his strength.

  Spectros was old, very old. He had the strength for bursts of power, yet his endurance was failing now. Each battle, all the long trails, took something which could not be replaced from Spectros.

  Ray had to search for the casket. He could not see clearly. His blond hair hung in his eyes. He was still in the shadow of the house.

  Finally he did find her, still resting peacefully and he dragged her away into the thickest part of the swamp, floating the coffin across a narrow finger of water. Still he heard no pursuit, yet he was exhausted himself now, his head dizzy.

  There was the bother of swarming mosquitoes in his ears, eyes. A dragonfly looped low across the murky swamp water. An alligator some distance off splashed into the waters.

  Ray finally found a place. His lungs were on fire, head aching dully as he drew Kirstina into the deep swamp grass, withdrawing farther and farther still into the stagnant depths of the swamp.

  There was a knoll of dry earth, only ten feet in diameter, perhaps, shielded by trees and cattails, and there Ray dragged the coffin, on hands and knees.

  He could go no farther, even if he knew another place, so he sat, head throbbing, side torn with jagged pain, one protective arm draped over the crystal casket where Kirstina still slept, awaiting that moment when all of this mad nightmare might end.

  Ray’s head snapped up. He had somehow fallen off to sleep, despite the pain, the danger. Nothing stirred near him, yet something had awakened him. What?

  He listened a time longer. Then he heard it—from across the swamp. Voices.

  Ray lifted himself to his knees and slid forward from his concealment, stopping at the water’s edge. The voice again. And he recognized it.

  Ray eased into the waist deep water, keeping close to the bank. With a wary eye for water moccasins, he worked silently toward the voices, finally pulling himself up onto the shore, crawling through the marsh grass toward the clearing.

  “I’m not waiting any longer,” John Questler said.

  Joseph and Montak were tied back to back in a sitting position. Lou Questler’s eyes were deep, concerned.

  “What’re you going to do?” the younger brother asked.

  “Kill ’em,” John answered shortly. “Dewey and that damned coward Toures’ll have that silver and be gone while we stand here making slow shadows.”

  “We could just leave ’em tied,” Lou Questler protested.

  “Could. They’d get loose eventually, though. Then they’d talk. No, I’ve my mind set, Lou. These boys got to die.”

  Coolly Montak watched the red-haired man shake his head and walk nearer to where he and Joseph sat. Lou Questler stood rigidly nearby, but he would not argue any further.

  Questler’s rifle barrel came up. Montak was looking squarely into the black bore when he saw a movement in the brush. Questler heard something too, and he turned sharply. Then he laughed.

  Ray Featherskill stood ten feet from him, a club in his hand. Ray’s yellow hair was green with swamp water, hanging in uneven strands. His shirt was torn wide open, revealing a scabbed chest. His clothing was soaked with water, caked with mud. He came two steps toward the laughing Questler, then stopped.

  “Look here!” John Questler laughed to his brother. “It’s Tex. Tex,” he growled, “I been wanting your hide. But you forgot something, didn’t you, gunfighter? Didn’t you forget whatever it is that’s supposed to fill that holster?”

  Ray stood utterly still, the length of wood still in his hand, he glanced at Montak whose face was pinched with pain.

  “Now I’m gonna kill you, Tex,” Questler snarled, and he drew back his thumb, raising his rifle.

  Ray stepped forward and swung out with all his might. The club flew from his hand and took Questler on the temple as his rifle exploded.

  Questler’s head was split open, blood streaming across his face. Black smoke filled the clearing. Ray came in quickly, untouched. He snatched up the rifle and pointed it at Lou Questler who had not moved, hypnotized by the brief, bloody scene.

  “You?” Ray asked, the rifle heavy in his hands.

  “M
e?” Lou Questler shrugged and took his rifle by the barrel, throwing it far into the swamp water. Then he came forward and crouched by his brother. “He’s dead,” he said, looking up at Ray.

  “He seems to have been riding hard after death,” Ray commented.

  “He was.” Lou Questler stood by as Ray untied Joseph and Montak. “Can I…?”

  “Go on!” Ray said sharply. “Get out of here. And once in a while thank God that you didn’t end up the same, boy. Lord knows you had every opportunity.”

  Lou nodded hesitantly, twisting his hat in his hands. Then he was gone, slashing through the reeds and high grass.

  When the kid was gone, Ray just folded up. Montak caught him as his legs went from under him and he and Joseph made Featherskill comfortable, propping him up against a log, Joseph looking to the wounds, treating them with the swamp herbs his people knew so well.

  Ray’s bleeding had stopped, but he was pale, shivering from time to time. He managed to find his voice, however.

  “It’s over, Montak!”

  Montak crouched beside Ray, not understanding.

  “What’s over?” Joseph asked. Ray had closed his eyes.

  “It’s all over. Montak, I’ve got Kirstina.”

  “What was that?” Dewey’s head snapped around at the sound of the shot from across the swamps. Slowly it died away. Toures was shaking. “Could it be Bangston?”

  “I doubt it. He should be downriver by now,” Ty Dewey said with agitation. They were in sight of the Planter House. The wagon still loaded, sat in the yard. They had come this near unheard, unseen. That shot would alert the fat man.

  “It was Questler,” Dewey guessed.

  “But why would he…” Toures’ voice broke off. He knew why Questler would be shooting.

  “Come on,” Dewey said, dragging Toures from the stump he rested on. “We’ve got to move fast. That silver’s too close to lose now.”

  A moving shadow caught Dewey’s eye. Instantly he drew his pistol, his hand a blur of motion. It was Sam Potter, shotgun in his hands.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”