Destined to Die Read online

  Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE LATEST ‘EDGE’ AND ‘STEELE’ BOOKS

  DESTINED TO DIE

  by George G. Gilman

  First Published by Kindle 2014

  Copyright © 2014 by George G. Gilman

  First Kindle Edition April 2014

  Names, Characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  Cover Design and illustrations by West World Designs © 2014. http://westworlddesigns.webs.com

  This is a High Plains Western for Lobo Publications.

  Cover Illustration by Cody Wells.

  Visit the author at: www.gggandpcs.proboards.com

  For Ed Bruce

  They just have to let cowboys in, don’t they?

  CHAPTER ONE

  IT was an hour after sun up, but the sun could not be seen through the heavy cloud layer that was spread across the sky above the Mohave Mountains, when Barnaby Gold reined in his black gelding and looked down at the small homestead on the east bank of the Colorado River.

  But it was as hot as the threshold of hell. Damper, though, for the high humidity felt like a blanket steeped in water pressing against his skin. And his face was beaded with moisture, the sweat standing out on his flesh like raindrops which had fallen invisibly from the clouds.

  It was the good-looking face of a young man in his mid-twenties. Lean, like his six foot tall frame: but whereas there was little outward sign of the physical strength commanded by his lanky body and rather gangling limbs, the face revealed an undoubted strength of character. This showed most prominently in the green eyes, which surveyed the world with confidence - as if whatever remained to be seen of it could hold no surprises. Also in the set of the mouth, which in repose was firm, and looked more ready to smile than to scowl. But either would require an effort.

  The forehead, the nose, the bone structure of the cheeks and jaws, and the ears were all regular in form and the skin was evenly tanned and unblemished. His hair was blond in colour and neatly trimmed.

  He was dressed entirely in black.

  A hat that was something between a Stetson and a Derby, a frock coat worn open to show a shirt buttoned to the throat, pants which had once been part of a suit and riding boots.

  With the exception of the hat, which he had confiscated from a dead man, his clothing had once been part of his professional garb. But he was no longer an undertaker of Fairfax, Arizona Territory. Neither was he what might be suggested by the gun-belt fastened around his waist. A belt which was hung on the right with a conventional holster tied down to the thigh and holding a wood-butted Colt .45 Peacemaker. With, fitted to the right by a stud in a slot, another Peacemaker, eagle-butted in mother-of-pearl. Even though two powder-burned holes in the area of the frock coat’s left pocket showed that the wearer had made use of the swivel-rigged gun.

  Down at the homestead beside the river, a man emerged from a rear door of the single storey house, strode across the yard and entered a barn. A young man from the way he walked. And one with urgent business elsewhere, judging by the speed with which he saddled a horse and galloped away, heading north-east along a trail that followed the course of the shallow, forty foot wide river.

  Barnaby Gold watched the rider out of sight into some timber and when he returned his expressionless eyes to the house he saw black wood-smoke beginning to wisp from the chimney. Then he took the time to light a long, thin cheroot before clucking his horse forward to ride down a long, gentle incline which was dusty and rocky, toward the well-watered and carefully tended fields of growing crops behind the house and barn.

  The Denver saddle in which he sat creaked a little as he rode but the twin bags, the canteens and the bedroll tied on behind, remained steady where they were fastened. Just the double barrel, hammerless Murcott shotgun - hung by a hook to the right front rigging ring - moved slightly with the motion of the horse.

  Down on the bottom land at the foot of the slope, he veered his mount to the right, then the left. To ride around the unfenced property to the east and north of the house and barn, so as not to trample the plots of wheat, barley and sugarbeet.

  He could smell frying bacon in the wood-smoke now. And a citrus aroma from the lemon grove to the south of the house. Then heard a woman singing - la-la-laing some of the lyrics she had forgotten - as he turned on to the trail that dead-ended on an area some forty feet wide between the stooped front of the house and the sluggishly flowing, mud-coloured water of the Colorado. She sounded like a very young woman. And curtailed the song with the abruptness of alarm when Barnaby Gold reined in his horse and called: ‘Good morning.’

  Her face showed at an uncurtained window two to the right of the closed door. Wearing an expression that was a match for the way in which she had finished the song. Very young - not even a woman. A girl of no more than thirteen.

  Gold remained in the saddle, as motionless as his mount, ten feet away from the front of the house and facing it. Eyeing her expectantly. But the girl did not call out to her parents: just stared through the window at him with curiosity gradually displacing fear on her immature features.

  ‘Appreciate it if your folks have some of that hot breakfast to spare, little lady.’

  She nodded and turned from the window.

  Gold swung down from the saddle, led his horse forward and hitched the reins to a post that supported the stoop roof.

  Two bolts were slid and a chain rattled before the door folded open on silent hinges. And the girl stepped over the threshold. She was about five feet five inches tall and more than slim, the all-engulfing white cotton nightgown she wore seeming to touch her only at the shoulders and wrists. She had very long, dark red hair, untidy from sleeping, that reached almost to her waist after framing her oval-shaped, angular-featured face. Her eyes were large, the pupils a soft brown colour. Freckles were scattered to either side of her snub nose. Her top teeth were a little too large and protruded slightly. ‘My folks ain’t here right now, mister. But you’re welcome to have some breakfast. On one condition.’

  She was not native to this Arizona-California border area, her strong accent placing her origins in Kentucky or Tennessee.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘My name is Joanne. Joanne Engel I don’t like to be called little lady or stuff like that.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘What’s your name, mister?’

  ‘Barnaby Gold.’

  ‘I call my parents by their first names.’

  ‘Okay, just Barnaby.’

  She turned to lead the way into the house. And by accident or design, her arms pressed the fabric of the nightgown to her sides. Which had the effect of drawing the thin cotton taut over the low, twin contours of her adolescent breasts.

  Gold took off his hat and dragged a coat sleeve
across his sweat-tacky forehead as he followed her inside. He left the door open, struck a match on the frame to relight the cheroot which had gone out since he removed it from his lips to call the greeting.

  ‘You make yourself at home now,’ the girl offered, ‘while I put some more bacon in the pan. Coffee’ll be ready in next to no time.’

  There was definitely an exaggerated sway to her hips under the capacious nightgown as she walked across the parlour and through an open doorway.

  Gold clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and went to sit down in one of two matching padded armchairs that flanked a stone fireplace. The furniture in the wooden walled room was plain, worn and comfortable. Some dozen or so books on a shelf to the right of the fireplace and a piano angled across a corner near the window were the only trimmings. There were no pictures on the white painted walls nor any rugs on the boarded floor.

  ‘You think it’s gonna rain, Barnaby?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he answered the question called from the kitchen.

  ‘It certainly looks so from the sky. Not that it makes much difference to us. Having the river and all. But some rain would be nice. Cool things down some, wouldn’t you say?’

  She was trying to sound older than her years, but there was a note of strain in her voice. Like she was a bad actress playing a part unsuited to her.

  ‘Guess so.’

  ‘You ain’t much of a talker, are you?’

  ‘Not much.’

  She began to sing again. The same song as before. A lyric about mountains and rivers and a man who would not return. The bacon sizzled in appetising but monotonous accompaniment. Then she brought in a tin mug of coffee.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You’re surely welcome. I’ll just go put some clothes on and by then it’ll be ready to eat.’

  ‘Okay.’

  She swayed toward a door on the other side of the room. Left it open behind her. Beyond was a short hallway with a door to either side. Her bedroom was at the rear of the house. She left its door open, too. Began to hum the same tune while water was poured into a basin. Then came splashing sounds.

  Barnaby Gold smoked his cheroot and took small sips of the scalding, very strong coffee. Decided it was pointless to try to keep from his mind a vivid image of the girl’s slender naked body run with water just two open doors and maybe twenty feet away from him. The thoughts caused a stirring of lust at his crotch, but the sweat which oozed from his pores continued to be due entirely to the un-Arizonalike humidity of the morning. Joanne Engel was just a child.

  And when she emerged from her bedroom, she looked almost every inch what she was. Her hair was brushed and tied at the nape of her neck in two ponytails and she wore a pink and white gingham dress, short sleeved, high at the neck and with a hem that reached to just below her knees. White socks covered her legs and on her feet was a pair of brass-buckled black leather shoes. The swells of her embryonic breasts and the curves of her hips below the narrow waist were emphasised by the close fit of the dress. A child aware of approaching womanhood, obviously proud of her blossoming and eager for full bloom.

  ‘There, that’s better,’ she said with a bright smile. ‘Before, I was in no fit state to receive a gentleman caller.’

  Gold showed a personable smile - an expression which, throughout his life, had given countless strangers pause for thought about their first impression of him. As it did on this occasion, while the girl was taking the things from a bureau to set two places at a table.

  ‘And that’s better, too. Why, when I first looked out at you, I had the fright of my life, Barnaby. Sitting there on that black horse, and you dressed all in black the way you are. And not smiling. You looked like . . . well, I don’t know what. But not friendly, that’s for sure.’

  He rose from the chair and set his empty mug on the mantelshelf that was bare of ornaments.

  ‘Didn’t mean to scare you. Be okay if I water my horse?’

  ‘Certainly. There’s a trough in the barn. And leave him in there if you’ve a mind. In case it rains. Not too long now.’

  He went out and unhitched the reins from the post. Overhead, the cloud cover was thinning and the orb of the sun could be seen, whitish, above the ridges of the Mohave Mountains. Gold led the gelding across the front of the house, along the side and on to the yard out back. Another horse in the barn snorted when he pushed open the door and led the gelding inside.

  In fact, there were two horses in the barn. A grey and a chestnut. Both mares, occupying the only stalls. There was a trough at the rear, beside a stack of half a dozen hay bales and some sacks of oats. Gold allowed his mount to drink then hitched him to the offside front wheel of a cut-under wagon, neatly parked against a side wall.

  Then, as he straightened up from slackening the saddle cinch, he did a double-take over the rump of the horse at something he had glimpsed from a more acute angle beneath the animal’s belly. And saw he was not mistaken. That, protruding from near the edge of an elongated patch of newly dug earth . . . there was a man’s finger.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SINCE, at the age of twelve, he had been apprenticed to his father’s undertaking business in New York City, Barnaby Gold experienced no sense of horror as - using a shovel taken from a rack of tools on the barn wall - he scraped aside some loose dirt from around the finger. To expose a work-gnarled hand. And enough of a shirt-sleeved arm so that he was able to get down on his haunches, take a double-handed grip on the dead flesh and haul the corpse partway out of the shallow grave.

  Just one arm and shoulder, the head and upper right quarter of the torso.

  ‘Barnaby! I’m putting the food on the table now!’

  She sounded like a mother summoning her reluctant offspring to leave a favourite game and come eat. Gold thought it likely that it was the hand of her own mother which was hooked over the shirt collar of the man partially dragged from the double grave. For he was certainly her father - despite the crumbs of dirt clinging to the dead flesh, the family resemblance between the thirty-some-year-old man and the girl was obvious.

  ‘You hear me, Barnaby?’

  ‘I hear you.’

  He inched the man out of the dirt some more. Just enough to see the bullet hole, encircled by crusted blood, in his chest, left of centre.

  The woman had a slighter build than the man and it was much easier to bring her far enough out of the ground to see that she had been killed in the same way. Her hair was the same colour as that of Joanne and her upper teeth also protruded slightly. In death, her eyes were closed. Her face was so contorted by agony or anguish, it was difficult to tell if she had been a pretty woman. The man had died with his eyes open, expressing a shock less intense than the woman had left. His face was rough-hewn, not quite ugly.

  Barnaby Gold straightened up and brushed his hands clean of dirt, rather than to free them of the touch of limp, cold, newly dead flesh. Then went out of the barn, blinking in the brightness of a sun which had punched a hole in the clouds. He re-entered the house through the rear door from which the young man in a hurry had emerged earlier.

  It gave on to a kitchen hot with stove heat and redolent with the aromas of recently fried bacon and brewed coffee.

  ‘And about time, too. Ain’t nothing worse than bacon when the grease starts to cool.’

  She was seated at one side of the table, already started on the breakfast of bacon, beans and grits. A plate with an equal amount of food was in front of the empty chair. Along with a mug of fresh coffee. The detached attitude of Barnaby Gold, which hardly ever altered - except when he smiled - gave Joanne Engel no premonition of his discovery.

  ‘You want to tell me about your folks?’

  He bypassed the table to go to the fireplace, tossed the stub of the cheroot into the empty grate.

  ‘Virgil and Mary-Ann?’ she responded conversationally. ‘Them and me, we come from the Great Smokey Mountains in Tennessee. Like a lot of the folks hereabouts. Moved out to this neck of the woods .
. .’

  She allowed the sentence to hang in the hot air, bright with sunlight streaming in through the east-facing window. And turned on her chair to look at him - standing before the fireplace. Her head was cocked to one side and there seemed to be genuine puzzlement in her soft brown eyes.

  ‘You found them?’

  ‘Right.’

  She began to cry. Abruptly, tears filled her big eyes and spilled down her freckled cheeks. For long moments there was no sound from her. Then she dropped her fork to the floor, covered her face with her hands and vented a wail.

  ‘Shut up.’

  She curtailed the sound but kept her face covered. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s as fake as your grown-up act.’

  She let her hands fall into her lap. ‘Shit, they were my parents!’

  ‘Been dead for most of the night. You’d be through weeping about that, if you felt bad about it. Don’t even think you’re sorry you killed them. You or the guy I saw riding out on the trail awhile back.’

  She used the backs of her hands to rub the salty moisture from her eyes. And stood up violently, so that her chair fell over backwards.

  ‘Jesse! Jesse Gershel. You saw him leave here, Barnaby?’

  ‘If that’s who he was.’

  ‘I’m not going to protect him! Why should I? He’s nothing to me! Just a hillbilly rube! He took me in just because he was the only man around here to show any interest in me! What a fool I’ve been!’

  She took two steps toward Gold, but the lack of emotion in his green eyes extended no invitation to come closer. Then he moved. Swinging to go around her to the table. Where he sat down and began to eat the breakfast she had prepared.

  ‘You just going to leave it there?’ she asked hoarsely: and her surprise was definitely genuine.

  ‘How old are you, Joanne?’

  ‘I’m...’ She was going to lie, but decided against it ‘Shit, I’m twelve, going on near thirteen.’

  He swallowed some beans and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

  ‘Just that? Tell me why?’ A fresh spell of weeping was in the offing. Not the histrionic variety.