Pete LaRue Looked down at the body in the dirt at his feet. Gonzales was a tough man to beat with a gun, yet here he lay-dead!
“You men look around for tracks!” he ordered. “Jesus, you put him under the dirt, the rest of you follow me.” Pete LaRue walked quickly to his horse and was soon riding out with eight of his men.
The tracks were easy to follow and from the looks of them, Pete surmised that there were two horses-one being ridden, the other probably a pack animal.
It had taken a while before he and his men chanced leaving the protection of their cover to investigate the hilltop where the shots were heard, giving the man they were after a small head start.
The LaRue men were a wild, unkempt lot. Most were Mexican, some with Indian blood. The rest were an assortment of hard cases brought together by the common bond of men on the run.
Pete LaRue harbored no illusions about his position of being leader. Some men were fast with a gun, others with their fist. Pete LaRue was faster with a gun than most men, and being big and raw-boned he could more than hold his own in a fight. But LaRue ruled with a quiet strength, a strength only found in a very few-the few that knew how to use their minds as well as their brawn.
LaRue was smart and knew that vengeance would have to be taken on whoever killed Gonzales, even though he personally knew the man had only been defending his own life. It was the cutthroat code, as long as there were enough men to place the odds heavily in their favor. As LaRue rode he silently prayed his men would lose the trail of the stranger ahead.
The man that shot Gonzales had gotten a twenty minute head start, but with a packhorse in tow, he wouldn’t be able to travel very fast.
LaRue and his men rode on in pursuit. At first the trail was easy to follow, but when it went into the trees it became more difficult, so the men had to spread out to find it again. Finally they found where it went out across a high plain toward the distant Rockies to the west.
Looking far in the distance they could see dust rising and knew they were well within a mile of the man they hoped to kill. Jack Lasson was the first to break out of the trees, and was followed closely by Art Simson and a couple of the others.
Pete LaRue knew better than to try to stop them. Jack and Gonzales had ridden together for several years, and if anybody would kill the stranger ahead, it should be him. Pete and the rest followed a short distance behind.
They hadn’t gone more than a quarter of a mile when a puff of smoke far ahead caught Pete’s attention. The fool’s going to waste all his ammunition before we’re even in range, he thought. Then he heard the eerie noise, a noise he heard only once before. In a few seconds Jack was knocked from his saddle.
“A Sharps!” LaRue shouted while spurring his mount back for the cover of the trees. “He’s got a Sharps! He can pick us off before we can get within half a mile of him!” he yelled to the other men who had also retreated to the safety of the trees.
“No man can shoot that well! It’s close to half a mile he’s shoot’n from!” one of the men hollered back.
“Then what do you think hit Jack?” LaRue asked.
“I don’t know, but it wasn’t no bullet. Maybe he’s just playing dead. Maybe he’s afraid of whoever killed Gonzales.”
Marty Manning, who on several other occasions had challenged LaRue for leadership, was doing the talking. It made no difference that what he said made no sense. He had the men’s attention and that’s what he wanted.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with Jack, but I’m tellin’ ya, nobody can shoot and hit anything that far!”
“You ever hear of a Sharps?” LaRue asked disgustedly.
“You mean one of those buffalo guns?”
“That’s the one I mean. Just before Jack went down, I heard a noise that I’ve heard before. It was the sound of a heavy bullet fired from a Sharps! No other sound like it in the world!”
“You sure about that? A rifle can’t hit something at that distance!” Manning sneered.
“I’m sure. Of course it would take one hell of a shooter. You saw what it did to Jack out there. I’d say the man at the other end of that rifle knows what it can do and he knows how to use it!” LaRue was nervous and Manning picked it up in the tone of his voice.
“Are you maybe getting too old to lead us? Maybe you want to let this man get away so you won’t have to face him!” There was a taunt in Marty’s voice, a challenge to LaRue. He antagonized LaRue some more. “I’ll show the men what you really are-a coward, afraid to go after one man.”
LaRue was angry inside but he let little of it show. He knew from years past that Manning was the real coward and, like scum everywhere, his mouth was bigger than his brains.
“Just how would you handle this situation, Marty?” LaRue asked.
LaRue had taken Manning off guard, and for a long moment Marty was silent.
“He’s riding out on us right now as we sit on our butts talking! I’d go after him, that’s what I’d do!” Marty turned his horse toward the open plain. “Who’s man enough to go with me?” he shouted. Before LaRue could stop them, two other riders answered by kicking their horses out into the open, Manning following a short distance behind.
Just like Marty, thought LaRue. Stay in the rear while others put their lives on the line. The thought hadn’t left LaRue’s mind when off in the distance a puff of smoke told him that the man was still waiting.
“Hit the dirt!” LaRue ordered.
For Marty Manning it was too late. As LaRue and his men watched from their hiding places, Marty was knocked off his horse. LaRue wondered if Marty had known what hit him. The other men yanked their mounts around and raced back to the sanctuary of the trees.
At least LaRue would have no more trouble with Manning, and from the looks of the others, he wouldn’t have any problems from them either.
“What do we do now, boss?” one of his men asked sheepishly.
“We wait till dark, then we circle around and try to get the drop on him from behind.” LaRue felt in his heart that the man with the long gun would be gone by then. But after just losing two more men to him, he wasn’t about to do anything stupid.
“Any of you think you got a better idea?” he challenged. No one replied. “Then make some coffee and beans. We have a long wait ahead of us.”
LaRue watched as the men busied themselves getting the camp in shape. What circumstances had brought him to be leading such a bunch of rogues as this, he could only wonder at.
“What about Manning?” someone asked.
“If you want to go out there and get him, be my guest.”
“Not me! I don’t want to join him,” the man said shaking his head.
“Then why’d you ask? Go over there and make some coffee like I told you. When I want you to do something, I’ll tell you. Until then, keep your mouth shut!”
LaRue was back in control and he wasn’t about to ease up on his men now. That two of them chose to ride out with Manning was a sign to him that he’d been too easy on them. He’d given the men time to think, and when men started thinking, they also started to question their leader’s abilities. When that started there could only be trouble. Pete LaRue would not make that mistake again.
After the men had a chance to eat, he called them together. “Here’s my plan,” he began as they gathered around him. “The way I see it, that man out there has all the advantages. We don’t know whether he’s still there or not. The later it gets in the day, the more we have the sun in our eyes. We try to ride before dark and he might just sit out there and pick us off like fish in a barrel.”
Several of the men looked out across the high plains. The sun was already low enough on the horizon to force them to shade their eyes. LaRue was quick to pick up on this.
“See what I mean.” It was more of a statement than a question. “Now we might wait till dark and then try to get behind him. But I don’t think he’ll still be there.
“What do you mean, boss?”
“I think he’ll be long gone. We can’t see him leave because of the sun in our eyes, but he’ll have a clear view of us until dark. Our best chance will be to wait for dark, then ride for the mountains. In the morning we can pick up his tracks. Once we do, we’ll take the extra horses, and the two best riders can ride him down using the horses in relay.” LaRue looked around at his men. They all seemed in agreement.
As LaRue glanced around at the different faces, he again wondered at the circumstances that had brought him to lead such an unruly bunch as the outcast before him. Something he would wonder at many times in the days to come.
“Get some rest!” he ordered. Then he leaned back against a tree to think. How many years was it since he felt the comfort of a good meal and warm bed? Or a woman to hold and call his own? Like Mary. How he longed to hold her in his arms, to kiss her and feel her body press against him, to hold her hand as they walked in the moonlight. He could still hear the cheerfulness of her voice when she talked about their plans together.
Her voice. . the thought brought back the realization that he would not hear her voice ever again. The pain of her death shot through him, and for a minute he felt as if he might weep. He fought hard to hold back the tears. Why did she have to die? She was so young, so beautiful, with a vivaciousness about her he’d never seen in anyone else. His heart ached with the loneliness of her death.
It was still an hour before sunset. LaRue wished it to be dark already so he could be on his way again. At times like this when for one reason or another he was forced to mind his time, he was torn with the memories from the past.
He closed his eyes again and drifted back to happier times when his life held promise of better things than cold nights on the trail in the company of rogues and thieves.
LaRue’s mother was Irish, big-boned and blunt in manner, yet gentle in nature. His father often called her a study in contrast. Pete’s father was French, a bare-knuckle boxer by trade, but well read in the arts.
Pete could still visualize his father, battered and bruised with a paintbrush in hand, painting the most delicate flowers on a white canvas pulled tight across a frame of his own making.
They were lovers those two, and a gentler pair the Lord never made. But in the ring his father was a killer and his wife sitting in the crowd would not be outshouted by the best of men.
They sent Pete to the finest schools in England and France where he was a top student learning arithmetic and English, among other things. But Pete’s best and most loved subject was archaeology. It was there that he learned of the Aztecs and how they fled their own country with statues of gold and silver.
He studied everything he could about the Aztecs and how Cortes conquered their land, the country now called Mexico. But what most interested him was the fact that the Aztecs, although grain growers, were the best miners in the world. They worshiped the sun god and made many temples in his honor, and all the temples were covered in gold.
Gold to the Aztecs was as wood is to us. So when Cortes’ men took Montezuma’s brother-in-law hostage, after Montezuma was killed by one of his own people, they asked for a room full of gold for his return. The Aztecs were quick to reply.
Gold came carried in by great quantities. It was even said that from the mountains a great chain of gold more than a mile in length was being brought to help pay the ransom. Then Cortes’ men made a fatal mistake. Fearing a reprisal from the Aztecs once their hierarch was released, they killed him instead. They hoped to keep his death secret. But it was not to be. His death was found out almost immediately, and the news went out by runners so that all shipments of precious metal and jewels came to a stop.
The great chain of gold was said to have been dumped in a high mountain lake where only the privileged few of the Aztec priests would know its location. Those slaves that carried it were put to death to keep its hiding place safe from the conquistadors.
But what was of more importance to Pete LaRue was that the Aztecs gathered up all the gold and other precious metals and jewels they could and took them to the north to be hidden against any more invasions by the fair-skinned people that came from the sea.
Pete LaRue searched for years for any documents that might give a clue as to where the Aztec gold was hidden. When he was done with schooling and returned to New York, he knew as much as any man alive about the Aztec civilization. And LaRue had a pretty good idea where such a people might look to hide their riches.
Many men went down into Mexico in search of the Aztec wealth, only to find nothing. LaRue was sure the gold and silver were not in Mexico any longer. It was his educated guess that fearing more attacks from the conquistadors, the Aztecs took as much of their wealth as a thousand men could carry and crossed into the Colorado Territory somewhere west of the Continental Divide, and not too far, maybe twenty-five miles or so from the town of Durango or maybe even a little south into New Mexico. But LaRue was sure it was somewhere in the general location of Durango.
To further strengthen his theory were the legends told by the Indians of the Southwest, about many men in strange dress carrying baskets full of gold into the mountains of Colorado. It was there that these strange people moved into dwellings upon the cliffs that were built years before their arrival by an ancient race of grain growers. Here the Aztecs lived for many years until they all disappeared one night, taking all evidence of their visit with them, just like the old ones before them, never to be seen again.
The Indians of this area would not go near the cliff dwellings for fear of the evil spirits they believed to be there, nor would they show any white men the way.
It was in this area that LaRue concentrated his search for the hidden treasure. He knew that if he could find the mysterious dwellings of the ancient people, the gold should be close by.
Another problem to deal with was that this land was the home of the Ute, Navajo, and roaming bands of Apaches. Any man caught out in the open was sure to be tortured to death.
LaRue spent many years searching for these mysterious houses built on the side of the cliffs, hiding by day and searching by the light of the moon when the Indians were in their camps, but to no avail.
Then one night as he was returning to camp, he came across a prospector with an arrow in him. Dying, the man told of finding the abode of the long lost people. He was able to tell LaRue of its general whereabouts, but with a warning, “Do not go searching for it alone!”
Before the old man died, he held out his hand and to LaRue’s amazement, in it was a little gold figurine. One other thing got LaRue’s attention. The arrow that killed the old prospector had a point made out of gold hardened with silver.
Now the gold fever caught hold of Pete LaRue like the lure a beautiful woman holds some men against their will. For hours he would sit and look at the small figurine, almost willing it to give up its secrets. He soon grew slim from not taking the time to eat. At the end of a month he looked haggard and unkempt; his mind drifted and he could not remember from one day to the next.
Finally out of his mind with fever, he wandered from his hiding place out into the desert to die, the figurine clutched in his hand. The Utes found him there lying in the sand, clothes torn from his body. They found him there talking to himself, yet they let him live.
With some Indians there is a belief that the spirit of the one you kill becomes part of your own. It makes you stronger, so they believe. To kill one that is out-of-his-head crazy is to make your own spirit weak, but to help that person is big medicine.
So they took Pete LaRue to a cabin built in the rocks with only one way in. It went unseen except by a very few for many years. LaRue had once passed only yards from its entrance on one of his searches and hadn’t seen it. The Utes took him there but would go no closer than fifty feet from the cabin. Then they left leaving Pete to go the rest of the way on his own.
Even in the most shattered of minds, there is an instinct for survival, and Pete LaRue found his way into the cabin. There he found tins of food to eat and a small spring in back of the cabin that gave up clear, sparkling water. Under the cot he found clothes. It was obviously the cabin of the old prospector.
In a few days his mind again grew calm. Having found himself at death’s door and surviving, Pete LaRue again became the thinker he once was. And for the next few weeks while he got his strength back, he planned on how to find the treasure he was looking for.
The first thing he realized was that it would take help in getting the gold, and that meant he would have to be able to make a payroll. Since he was penniless, that left only one avenue open to him: he would have to give up a share of whatever he found. LaRue also knew he would only get two kinds of men for a proposition like that: prospectors, who usually liked to work alone and would, if given the chance, strike out by themselves; the second choice was to hire a gang of drifters and outcasts.
The sound of a coffee pot being dropped snapped LaRue back to the present.
The men were starting to move about, getting restless at having to wait, and anxious to be on their way again.
The sun was setting in the west, yet there was still enough light to see by. From where Pete sat he could see the men were saddled and ready to move.
His eyes jumped from one man to the next, analyzing, then dismissing each man in turn. Now that Manning was gone, he would have little trouble with the men.
Someone had saddled LaRue’s horse for him, so all that was needed was to mount up and be on the way. Pete pulled himself erect and walked stiffly to his horse. The men waited for him before riding off toward the distance unknown.
“What do you want us to do, Pete?” Shorty asked as LaRue rode past.
LaRue thought for a moment. “Just fan out. Everyone pick his own trail. It will be harder to see us if we’re all spread out than if we’re in one big bunch. A couple of you men find the bodies and bury them!” It felt good to be giving orders again without any questions from the likes of Manning.
In silence, the men formed a long skirmish line in the dark. LaRue rode several yards in front with his friend Shorty beside him.
Shorty was the only man other than LaRue that was not an out-and-out cutthroat. He’d been a teacher in a boys’ school back East. He was of mild yet firm manners, and came West to get a little excitement, he said.
One would think Shorty would be timid at the sight of a gun, since he had never fired one before coming out West. Nothing could be further from the truth, for Shorty took to firearms like a duck takes to water. And he was more than just a good shot. His speed and shooting was held in awe even by the most accomplished gunslinger. Even the late Marty Manning was afraid to upset him.
Marty once told LaRue of having seen a top gunslinger tease Shorty until all the men in the bar were in hysterics. Then after Shorty called him a bastard, which he probably was, the gunslinger told him to draw, at the same time going for his own gun. Shorty drew and fired twice before the man cleared leather. Each shot hit true, and the man slumped to the floor dead before he knew what hit him.
When asked how he became so proficient with a gun, Shorty would answer, “As near as I can figure, it was a quirk of nature, as I never practiced even once.” LaRue was glad this little, mild-mannered schoolteacher was indeed his friend.
Ahead lay the dark outline of the Rockies with Poncha Pass somewhere to the south. LaRue was familiar with the area and figured that the stranger ahead would undoubtedly head for the Poncha.
It was from the head of the trail leading to the pass that LaRue would send two of his men with extra horses to run the stranger down. Already the stranger had cost LaRue and his bunch dearly, both in time and men. But LaRue still hoped he would get away.
The air was cool as they rode through the night, each man lost in his own thoughts. LaRue’s mind drifted back once again to the past. Many months had come and gone since the Indians saved his life. After regaining his strength he had made his way south to Sonora and enlisted the help of every cutthroat and saddle tramp he could find, amongst them Marty, whom he had known before. At least now LaRue was rid of him and his problems.
“Why are we chasing this man?” Shorty asked. The question took LaRue by surprise.
“He killed Gonzales. Why else would we track a man halfway across hell’s half acre?”
“Seems to me that losing two more men to a man that Gonzales would have killed, if he hadn’t been killed first, is a bit much to pay, isn’t it?”
“You and I know that, but the others live by the emotion of the moment, not by logic or common sense. As long as we’re going in the same direction as the man we’re after, I’ll let them have their vengeance.”
“Still doesn’t make much sense to me. Could get more of us killed and for what? Would have done the same thing myself if Gonzales was sneaking up on me like that!”
Pete LaRue turned in his saddle. “Shorty, you and me, we both know that it was self-defense on the stranger’s part. But those men out there don’t think like you and me. They like killin’ and stealin’. It’s a way of life to them. Hell, none of them can even write, let alone read. They live their lives from one miserable day to the next. Most are cowards hiding behind their guns. That’s why they’re afraid of us. We’re faster than them and they know it. And we are their only hope at the moment to get something out of life other than a bullet someday.”
“I see what you mean. How do you think they will be once we find the treasure?”
Pete smiled at his friend. “I wouldn’t turn my back on any of them.”
First light found the men at the trailhead to Poncha Pass. The two best riders were making ready for the ride ahead. The rest of the men were looking for sign. There was a coolness in the air promising the threat of snow at the higher elevations.
“Not a thing to show anybody even came this way at all,” one of the men said as he scanned the vast plains they had just come across. Don’t suppose he just laid up last night and let us go on by in the dark, do you?”
“Not much chance of that. He’d be taking too big a chance that we might come up on him without him seeing us. No, he’s gone on up the pass somewhere. There was a stiff wind last night that covered his tracks, that’s all.”
“What makes you so sure he didn’t take one of these other trails?”
“Because the boss knows this part of the country and he says the man went this way!” Shorty said with a warning to his voice. “Anybody want to argue about it can step right up and start in. But they’ll have to do it with me and I’m cranky from lack of sleep right now!”
“No harm meant, Shorty. We was just askin’, that’s all.”
Shorty turned so that only LaRue could see his face and winked. Soon the two men were ready to ride.
“Leave most of your stuff with us so you’ll be as light as possible. Take only one rifle in case you can get a clear shot at him, but shoot only if you’re sure you can hit him the first time. Otherwise you’ll give yourselves away and he can take cover and pick you off before you can get close.
“If you don’t have any questions then, get crackin’! We’ll wait a while so as not to stir up any more dust than we have to. Good luck, men.” LaRue waved them on and within a few minutes they were out of sight. As LaRue watched them ride away, a strange sadness welled up inside him. Not for them, but for the man they were going to kill.
An hour after the two riders left on their hunt for the stranger, Pete LaRue moved the rest of the men ahead. It would be hours before the men could even hope to catch up and surprise the lone man with the big rifle.
The trail took an even climb through some of the most beautiful country LaRue had been through in a long time. The rest of the men were strung out behind him, as the path would only allow one rider at a time along most of its narrow ledge. From time to time the men could get a look at the valley below them from which they came. It was good that he’d moved the men at a slow walk across the plain below so as to raise some dust. He hoped it would afford the stranger a warning that they were coming.
In his heart Pete LaRue wished to be done with this whole affair, the gold included. It’d taken him weeks to round up enough men to get the job done that he had in mind. Now after weeks of being away, it all seemed like a bad dream from the distant past.
As Pete rode along he wondered if he was doing the right thing. Maybe the little gold figurine was the only one of its kind and there was no other Aztec gold to be found. Too late now, he thought. He had cast his destiny and entrusted his future to the low-life that was trailing along with him.
Even if there is gold and they find it, it would not be an easy task to keep it out of the hands of the men. Men like these would not be content for only a share, no matter how large it might be. These are greedy men of no proper upbringing, and honor of one’s word means nothing to them.
At the next widening of the trail, Shorty rode up beside Pete. “From that look on your face I’d say you were thinking mighty hard about something. Anything you can talk about?”
“Just thinking,” LaRue started, “just thinking that if I had it to do over again I would have kept the figurine and been satisfied.”
“I was wondering if that might be it. You don’t have to worry about me. Find gold or not, I have what I want, freedom to go where I please, when I please.” Shorty lowered his voice so as not be overheard by the others. “Another thing that you should know. When and if the time comes that you need someone to stand beside you against these fellows back here, I’ll be there. You can count on it!”
Pete looked over at his friend and nodded his head. “Thanks,” he replied.
About four o’clock, as they were riding over a ridge, one of the men came forward and pointed toward the sky ahead.
“Looks like something’s dead or dying up ahead. Them buzzards don’t circle like that unless they’re getting ready for a meal.”
“How far off you make it?” LaRue asked.
“Three, maybe four miles at the most. Want me and some of the men to ride on up ahead and check it out? Maybe our men got that bastard and now the birds are waiting for them to leave so they can get to eatin’.”
“Go on up if you want, but don’t stray further than you have to. And keep an eye out for a good place to make camp. Be getting dark in a few hours.”
Several of the men rode on ahead and were soon lost from sight over the next ridge. LaRue and the rest rode at an easy pace. They were in no hurry to stir up any more dust than necessary. It wasn’t long before they came upon one of their riders sitting along the trail.
“Where’s the others that rode up with you?” LaRue asked.
The man said nothing, just flicked his thumb in the direction of the trail ahead. In a minute LaRue dismounted alongside the other men who’d gone on ahead to see what the buzzards were about.
“Over there,” one of the men said waving towards some thick brush. Pete walked a dozen feet before he was greeted with a sight that made his stomach crawl. The partly-eaten bodies of the two riders he sent on ahead were laying together where they’d been dragged by the bear.
“That bear might still be around close, so keep your eyes open. Not likely he’ll leave his dinner this soon. Must’ve scare him off when you came riding up,” LaRue said. The men looked nervously around, not wanting to meet the same fate as their friends.
“Get them buried and let’s get out of here before it comes back for a try at the rest of us,” LaRue said as he walked back to his horse. “The rest of you men that aren’t digging the graves, get your rifles and stand guard. Anybody seen the horses?”
“They weren’t here when we found the bodies. The bear must have scared them clean into the next territory! Be lucky if we ever see them again.”
The bear watched from cover high on the hill above the men. He was content to just watch. His belly was full.