Luke's Gold by Charles G. West Page A

murderin’ thief? You weren’t worth the powder it’d take to blow you to hell back in the army, and it looks like you’re still the back-shootin’ son of a bitch you were then.”
    A malicious grin slowly formed on Snider’s bushy face as he watched Luke’s defiant reaction. He paused a second to hear Curly report that Cade looked dead to him, his body floating downstream with the current. “Well, I reckon you’re itchin’ to join your partner,” he said to Luke. “I’ll take good care of the gold for you.” He squeezed the trigger, cutting Luke down with a slug in his gut. Taking his time, he ejected the spent shell and fired again, this time aiming a little higher, the bullet catching Luke in the neck. Luke dropped to the ground, dead.
    Watching with childish excitement, Curly giggled nervously, and in a moment of uncontrolled fever, pumped two more slugs into the dead man. Bob Dawson, silently watching up to that moment, was less concerned with wasting ammunition by shooting a corpse. His interest focused upon the sixteen pouches lined up on the riverbank. “Look at that,” he murmured, talking to himself as he counted the sacks of gold. “That’s more gold than I’ve ever seen at one time.”
    â€œWell, get you a good look,” Snider snarled, and swung his rifle around. The rifle bucked, sending a slug into Dawson’s back as he bent over the pouches. Staggering, trying to keep from falling, Dawson tried to bring his rifle around, only to be met with two more shots ripping into his chest. Snider immediately turned to confront a stunned Curly Jenkins. Too confused to react, Curly was struck dumb for a few seconds while waiting for his inferior brain to tell him what to do. Snider smiled at him and said, “We didn’t need that double-crossin’ snake, did we? That gold will be easier to split between the two of us. Right?”
    It took a moment more, but Curly finally believed he understood what had just happened. He didn’t like Dawson, anyway, and it appeared to him now that Snider didn’t, either. Smiling, he slowly nodded his head and answered, “Right.” Things couldn’t be better, although he would have preferred to be the one to have sent Dawson to hell.
    â€œLet’s have a look at them sacks,” Snider said. After untying each pouch to make sure there was gold dust in every one, he told Curly to load them on the packhorse. When that was done, he took inventory of the minor spoils he had acquired in the form of horses, guns, and supplies. “Untie them other horses and bring ’em over here,” he instructed Curly.
    Excited as a child at Christmastime, Curly hurried to do his bidding, fairly giggling to himself at the thought of the immense riches he had come by. When he approached the two horses tied in the trees, they both stamped nervously and tried to back away. Curly untied Luke’s horse, but when he untied Loco, the mottled gray gelding jerked free of his grasp and bolted off through a dense stand of evergreens. “Come back here!” Curly yelled, but the horse would have no part of the clumsy man.
    â€œDammit, Curly!” Snider swore when he turned to see the horse galloping through the trees. Thinking the guns and the saddle more valuable than the scruffy-looking gelding, he raised his rifle and fired at the fleeing horse, his shot whistling harmlessly through the branches. “Too late,” he complained. “I couldn’t get a clear shot.” He lowered his rifle. “We can look for him later.” Then he remembered that he was now a wealthy man, and a smile crept across his face. “To hell with that damn horse. I got more guns than I need.”
    â€œYou reckon we oughta do anythin’ with these bodies?” Curly asked when he had finished stripping Dawson and Luke of anything he thought useful.
    â€œWhat for?” Snider