Maybe an hour pa.s.sed, but it felt more like a day as Longarm recovered his vision and waited for either Dan to come to his aid or the sun to go down so that he could slither off without getting drilled with a rifle slug. Then, suddenly, Longarm heard brush cracking downslope. He twisted around to see Preacher Dan standing with the rifle held loosely in his hands. The fool was just gawking up at the rocks.

"Get down!" Longarm shouted.

His warning was too late. The ambusher shot Dan in the shoulder, spinning him completely around. The only thing that saved Dan's life was that he fell over backward into brush before the next rifle slug could ventilate his empty head.

Longarm was furious! With the ambusher's attention momentarily diverted, he hobbled forward, scooping up his shotgun. Three long but limping strides carried him up the slope to cover. When the ambusher realized his mistake and stood up to try to get a better line of fire, Longarm opened up with both barrels of his shotgun.

The range was probably too far, but the shotgun's sh.e.l.ls packed rare force and Longarm actually saw the ambusher lift completely off his feet and then fly backward as if he had been jerked over by an invisible chain. He also saw the mushrooming crimson smear that had been the ambusher's upper body. No question about it, the son of a b.i.t.c.h was dead.

Longarm glanced down at the crease in his pants. He was bleeding pretty good but knew that he'd suffered no permanent damage. Nothing that a few st.i.tches or even a good bandage job wouldn't fix. But Preacher Dan was another matter, and Longarm was almost certain that the old man had taken a fatal bullet in the shoulder.

"Dammit, Dan!" he swore, hobbling as fast as he could over to his friend's side and dragging him out of the bushes so that he could be examined. "What were you thinking when you jumped up there and gave that man a clear target?!"

"I was thinking that, if the Lord was calling, I was ready to go."

Longarm snorted. What could you do with such a man as this? Dan really didn't care if he lived or died.

"Well," Longarm said, "the Lord wasn't calling because you are still alive."

"Maybe I'll get gangrene," Dan said almost hopefully.

Longarm tore open Dan's shirt and studied the wound. It was nasty, but the blood wasn't real bright red as it would have been if Dan had taken a slug through the lung. "Maybe you'll make it after all," he said. "Roll over and let me see if the slug pa.s.sed on through."

"And if it didn't?"

"Then," Longarm said, "I'll have no choice but to cut it out and that can be pretty rough."

"I can take it," Dan gritted.

"I'm sure that you can."

"Did you kill that fella up above?"

"Blew his murdering head right off his shoulders," Longarm said with a tight grin. "He won't be ambushing anyone elsea"or cutting their throats."

"Maybe he isn't the one," Dan said, looking pale as Longarm eased him over so that he could see that the bullet had not pa.s.sed completely through the shoulder.

"I'm going to have to dig this bullet out or you're a goner," Longarm said. "Either that, or try to get you back to Wickenburg before you get blood poisoning."

"The doc in Wickenburg is just a tooth puller. You go ahead and do your best. If I die, ain't no big matter."

"It is to me," Longarm said. "I brought you out here, I feel responsible. Besides, you pretty well saved my life."

Dan had been lying still, breathing hard with his eyes closed. But at Longarm's words, he managed a smile. "I did?"

"That's right."

"Well, then, I don't feel so bad about that other fella dying. I mean, I guess he deserved it."

"Yes, he sure did. Now hold still and grit your teeth while I dig this slug out of your back. I think I can see it just under the skin. It almost went through."

Longarm cut Dan's flesh just under the shoulder blade. The blood really started to flow, but that wasn't necessarily bad because it would carry out the infection. Dan didn't do much other than grunt like a rutting boar while Longarm fished out the rifle slug, then rinsed the wound with his canteen and finally bandaged it tightly.

"Am I going to make it?"

"Of course you are," Longarm said, taking care of his own leg wound. "But I have to tell you that we are both going to be a little under the weather for a few days."

"Give us time to rest up and explore these caves," Dan whispered between clenched teeth. "Maybe find poor Jimmy's grave."

"I doubt that they'd have bothered to even bury Jimmy," Longarm said. "These kind of men aren't generally so kindly disposed, if you know what I mean."

"I guess that I do," Dan said.

"Let's go on up to the caves," Longarm suggested. "I'll bet that there is food and water waiting up there. We can rest up tonight, then tomorrow start poking around."

"What about our horses?"

"All right," Longarm said, "I'll lead them up after the sun goes down. We've got grain, water, and hobbles. There's enough feed up here to keep them going awhile."

"Okay," Dan agreed, allowing Longarm to help him to his feet. Dan leaned heavily on him as they slowly made their way up to the caves.

Despite the fact that they were both bleeding and in considerable pain, Longarm made a slight detour so that the preacher did not have to witness the terrible sight of the headless ambusher. If Dan realized that fact, he didn't say anything. They both collapsed in the first cave they reached, gasping for breath.

"You wait here," Longarm said. "I'll be back soon."

"You going for my horses?"

"Not until I've had a little look around," Longarm said.

"Don't make it too long," Dan fretted. "Those horses might just have broke away during all that shooting. If they did, we're in a terrible fix *cause they'll head straight back to Wickenburg."

Longarm realized with a jolt that Dan was right. Forgetting about the caves, he hurried back down the slope and made his way through the brush to where they'd left the horses.

"Well, gawdammit!" he swore, seeing a faint trail of dust leading off toward Wickenburg. "Dammit anyway!"

The only good part was that Dan, always worrying about the condition of his horses, had unsaddled them during the long afternoon wait, so at least their supplies, the Winchester rifle, and Longarm's other belongings had not gone south with the runaways.

Still, as Longarm gazed out at the merciless desert, he could not help but feel a powerful sense of foreboding. Things could have been worse, but they could also have been a h.e.l.l of a lot better.

Chapter 12.

Longarm wasn't in a very good mood as he hobbled back up to the caves with his rifle, their water, and a few of their supplies. His leg wound was throbbing like the devil, and the preacher looked very pale and feverish where he lay stretched out in the cave.

"The horses ran away," he told his suffering friend. "We're stuck out here, and neither one of us is in any shape to hike back to Wickenburg for help."

"We've got food and you can hunt rabbits," Dan said. "And maybe we'll find other things to eat here."

"I expect that we will," Longarm agreed. "And that spring where you found your gold isn't but a long day's walk, so I'm not worried about dying, if that's what you mean."

"Have you looked around yet?"

"No," Longarm said, collapsing on the floor of the small cave and tightening the bandage on his leg because he was bleeding again. "But I'm about played out for the moment and it's getting d.a.m.ned hot outside. Think I'll just rest this leg and my eyes for a while."

"You do that," Dan said, nodding with approval. "I've spent most of my life in this desert country and the best thing to do is take a long siesta in the afternoon. Get your business done early in the evening and late in the day when it's cooler. The Mexican people are smart enough to understand that simple fact of life."

Longarm laid his head on his saddlebags, knowing that he would go right to sleep and expecting that old Dan would do the same. The preacher was in rough shape and had lost a great deal of blood from his shoulder wound. The man's eyes were sunken in his face and his complexion was the color of wax. Longarm knew that Dan was trying to put on a good show, but he was weak and suffering. It would take weeks for Dan to regain his strength, but they didn't have that much time. A way would have to be found to get the preacher back to Wickenburg where he could receive proper rest and medical attention. But right now, d.a.m.ned if Longarm could think of one.

They both slept right through the day and that night, waking up at dawn the next morning. As the light grew stronger, Longarm got up, stretched, and then hobbled back down to where the horses had escaped. He collected the rest of their supplies and lugged everything up to the cave. His leg was very stiff and painful, but the bleeding had stopped and, when Longarm rebandaged the wound, he was happy to see that it was healing without infection. Once again, he'd been real lucky.

After breakfast, Longarm went over to the headless corpse and dragged it over to a little rock slide. It was truly a ghastly sight, and even a seasoned lawman like Custis almost gagged as he searched the man's empty pockets looking for some clue as to his ident.i.ty. Finding none, he removed the man's side arm. It took very little time and effort to climb a few yards up a nearby rock slide and get enough shale moving to bury the hideous corpse. When that was done, Longarm felt much better and took a moment to glance up at a circling buzzard.

"Not this time," he said to the ugly scavenger as he hobbled off to inspect the caves. He was anxious to see what kind of supplies he'd find and if there was any trace of Jimmy c.o.x that would give him a clue as to the old prospector's fate.

There was a series of caves, all of them cut out of the sandstone by the action of spring runoffs. Each varied in size, but only a few were large enough so that a body of men could enter them and take shelter. In the first one of size, Longarm discovered the supplies. It was clear that this was where the ambusher had been living, and it took only a few minutes to see that there was a good supply of food, although mostly just coffee, flour, and dried beans. There were, however, casks of precious water, enough to keep him and Dan going for several weeks.

Longarm also saw evidence that several other men had recently been living in this large sandstone cave. A pile of tin cans and other a.s.sorted trash including many empty whiskey bottles told him plenty. He found prospecting tools too. Picks, shovels, and even a few sticks of dynamite.

"They haven't found what they were looking for yet," he muttered to himself as he went back outside and began to explore the rest of the caves.

It took only a few minutes to glance inside some of the smaller caves, but in one he was half turned and leaving when he froze, then slowly revolved back around and stared. Inside, he found a skeleton and it was wearing a rusty breastplate. Longarm dropped down on his hands and knees and eased inside, wondering if there were more skeletons. He quickly realized that this particular cave, though small in circ.u.mference, was at least twenty feet deep. As he eased past the skeleton, he saw more scattered bones including four skulls which had been placed by someone so that they rested in a neat little circle, face to noseless face.

Longarm lit a match and held it in front of him. He discovered several more pieces of rusty armor in such a deteriorated condition that it was impossible to guess their original purpose. The cave was very cool and dark, and Longarm was sure that the dying Spaniards had probably taken their last refuge here as if crawling into their own crypts. Unfortunately, their decaying bodies would have drawn scavengers who devoured them and then scattered their bones. Someone, perhaps the man Longarm had killed or one of his friends, had taken sick humor in putting the skulls in that little circle as if they had been talking at each other for the last few centuries.

Longarm backed out of the cave and went to finish his explorations. In the next to the last cave, he found signs that a good deal of excavation had taken place. The cave was more like a funnel, some six or seven feet round, and its natural shape narrowed like the point of a cone. Longarm found candles and holders and lit one. He crept back into the cave and saw that the original back wall, which could not have been more than a yard square, had been opened up just enough to reveal another cavern. To enter it, Longarm had to get down on his knees, turn sideways, and squeeze through. Back here, the air was cool and still. Longarm shoved his candle out before him and beheld a very large cavern, one big enough to have housed at least a dozen men and maybe a few horses, if they had been able to reach it.

Longarm stood up in this larger, deeper cavern and gazed all around. It was clear that this had been the place where the Spaniards must have opened up and then lived in until they became extremely weak or had died. There were bones all over the floor, and someone had smashed the skulls beyond recognition. Longarm found dozens of shattered whiskey bottles here too. Dark black smoke smudges told him that hundreds of campfires had burned in this cavern. He studied the walls, hoping to see some early Indian petroglyphs, but there were none.

Longarm felt very sure that Jimmy c.o.x or some earlier prospector had discovered this secret cavern and used it for extended periods. As in the smaller cave where he'd found the circle of skulls, this one also had a large pile of trash. Longarm moved over to sift through it and that was when he found an old burlap sack stenciled with the letters JC.

"Oh, Jimmy," he said with a deep sigh of sadness, "I don't give you much in the way of odds as for being alive. I'll bet anything that I find your bones somewhere around close. Or maybe your killers took the time and trouble to cover you up just like I did to the ambusher."

Longarm spent a quarter of An hour in the cave. By then, he was convinced that he could find nothing else that would give him any useful information about Jimmy c.o.x. So he retreated from the cave as his candle flickered low and went back to tell Dan about his findings.

When he was finished, Dan said, "It does sound pretty grim. But, Marshal, we can't just give up on Jimmy. He could still be alive."

"No," Longarm said. "They followed and then obviously murdered him somewhere around here. I just wish I hadn't used my shotgun on the one that was left behind. If he were still alive, we'd have all our answers to this riddle. We'd know the real story about what happened to Jimmy."

"What do you think the chances are of others returning?"

Longarm eased his wounded leg out before him and sat down heavily. He felt a little unsteady and realized that he was going to have to go slower for the next couple of days, if he was to get strong again.

"I think that whoever did this hasn't found what they wanted. Or maybe they did find all the Spanish treasure but, for some reason, believe that there is still more. Jimmy might have played that card, hoping to keep himself alive."

"It makes sense, doesn't it?" Dan said.

"Yes. Let's suppose that you were Jimmy c.o.x."

"I'd rather not," Dan said. "He was a G.o.dless man."

"Never mind the moral judgments for now, Preacher. Just suppose that you were Jimmy and had found the Spanish coins here. You had used some of them to pay off your doctor and other medical bills, then had come back out to collect the rest of the treasure but had been followed."

"I wouldn't have allowed myself to be followed," Dan said. "I mean, wouldn't he have expected something like that to happen, given the greed of most men?"

"Sure," Longarm said. "And if he had been followed by just one or two killers, he probably would have been able to shake them and reach this place without anyone knowing it. However, if there were a good number of killers a"

"You mean a gang of outlaws."

"That's right, Dan. I mean a gang like Hank Ba.s.s used to have."

"I see."

"it fits," Longarm said. "Ba.s.s is the most likely candidate for this job. He'd have had enough men to scatter them across this part of the desert so that one or two of them would have seen Jimmy coming. And Jimmy would have been looking back not forward. Anyway, I think that is what happened. They watched Jimmy come straight to these caves. After that, they would have caught and probably tied him up, then sent for the rest of the Ba.s.s gang."

"And then they would have tried to force Jimmy to tell them where he'd found the Spanish coins."

"Exactly," Longarm said. "And we both know how mule stubborn Jimmy was. He'd have fought to the last breath and held his secret to the end."

"But what if a"

"If what?" Longarm asked.

"What if there was no more Spanish treasure?"

"That's possible," Longarm said. "But put yourself in Jimmy's shoes. If there was no treasure left to be found, why would you risk your life to return, knowing that everyone in this part of Arizona would be trying to follow you?"

"Good point," Dan admitted. "So you do think that there is still some treasure."

"Yes. But what I think doesn't mean anything at all. It's what Jimmy thought that was important and what he managed to convince his captors."

"And he'd want to convince them that he knew the location of more treasure. That would be his only hope."

"Sure," Longarm agreed. "It was his only card to play. He'd have had to keep silent, yet give his captors hints that he knew something."

"But how long could he play that sort of game?"

"Not long, I'm afraid. Ba.s.s and his ganga"or maybe some other buncha"would have tired of the game very quickly. And they wouldn't have been sitting still waiting either. No sir. They'd have been tearing these caves up. Scattering conquistador bones and poking and picking into every creva.s.se, hoping to find more gold coins."

"But they didn't."

Longarm shrugged. "Who knows. If they did find a few more coins, it would have fueled their already mountainous greed. If they didn't find any coins, that too would have been fuel to their fire and increased their frustration and anger until a"

"Until they killed poor Jimmy."