Baca had been on guard duty when they hit. They stabbed him in the back, but the blade missed the heart, and the Mexican pulled away, spitting up blood, but cursing and drawing his gun. He put two bullets into the belly of the man who had killed him.

  The surprise was over. The gunfight began.

  When it was all over, Monk Quinn had to guess that the scalp-hunters had been drunk when they attacked. The moon was full, and it bathed the canyon, the valley, and the opening in wan light. They charged drunkenly into the center of camp.

  Quinn was awake, and on the rock high above the others, he worked his rifle and shot two of the charging bad men dead. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Conrad running up the hill to the northeast. Well, Quinn thought, Conrad wouldn’t be worth a damn in a fight like this anyway.

  Dundee shot the second charger.

  The sound of the gunshots and eerie echoes faded, to be answered with the howls of coyotes and wolves deep into the northern side of Valle Verde.

  Hearing the sound of rocks tumbling, Quinn adjusted his aim and fired in the direction.

  “Watch where you’re shooting!” O’Brien yelled. “You’ll hit one of our mules!”

  Quinn worked the lever, and then he understood. “They’re after the mules!” he yelled.

  O’Brien stood up. The mules brayed. A bullet tore through O’Brien’s forehead and blew the back of his head off.

  “The mules!” Negro yelled and he ran to the picket line. Dundee followed, and Quinn climbed down from his rocky perch and took off after his two companions. By the time he reached the picket line, all he could hear were the echoes of all of those mules, and the mocking laughter of the scalp-hunters as they wound their way through the slot canyon portion of Valle Verde.

  Dundee’s chest heaved. He cursed, and slammed his empty rifle to the ground. Negro walked along the outskirts of the line counting the packsaddles, but mostly, counting the saddlebags. When he came back to the other two, he laughed.

  “Fools. They got the mules. They did not take one saddlebag.”

  “So . . .” Dundee wet his lips. “All the gold . . . ?”

  “Still there,” Negro said. “As far as I can tell.”

  “And more for us to split,” Quinn said. He pointed in the general direction of the bodies of Baca and O’Brien.

  “What about the yellow one?” Dundee asked.

  Quinn made a gesture toward the hilltop over his shoulder. “Conrad ran off in that direction.”

  “Conrad!” Dundee called out.

  The answer was his echo.

  “It’s all over.”

  “Over . . . over . . . over . . . over” bounced across Valle Verde.

  “At least,” Negro said, “we are still rich.”

  “So you’ll die rich,” Quinn told him. He pointed at the picket line. “We have no horses. We have no mules. We have several saddlebags filled with gold bars. How do we get them out of here?”

  “The scalp-hunters know that too,” Dundee said. “They’ll be back with more guns. Just to find what we’ve been using those mules to haul.”

  “Maybe we can hide the gold,” Negro suggested.

  “Where?” Quinn snapped.

  They stood there in silence for a while, and Dundee began reloading his six-shooter. Negro grabbed a canteen off a saddle and began to drink.

  That’s when Monk Quinn drew his pistol and shot Dundee in the heart. He whirled around and put two bullets into Negro’s belly.

  Dundee hit the ground dead. Negro was on his knees, bleeding like a stuck pig and coughing up blood. After holstering his pistol, Quinn picked up the gun Dundee had just reloaded, thumbed back the hammer, and touched the trigger. The bullet slammed into the back of Negro’s head, and the bandit fell facedown near a saddlebag.

  The shots faded away in the night. Quinn saw a figure coming down the hill. Shoving Dundee’s hot pistol into his waistband, Quinn cupped his hands over his mouth and called out, “Conrad. Hurry up. We have to hide the gold before the bandits return. We are rich. And the gold is all for you and all for me.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  “You said you didn’t kill anyone,” Morgan Maynard told Monk Quinn.

  The outlaw leader shrugged. “I said I killed no man. Those who rode with me? They were not men. They were no better than animals. Stupid animals too. I was the only smart one there.”

  “The bandits? The scalp-hunters? They did not come back?” Yaqui Mendoza asked.

  “What about the gold?” Allan said. “What did you do with it?”

  Monk Quinn’s face brightened. He seemed to enjoy being the center of attention. Shrugging, he continued his story:

  “It was like this. Conrad, the fool working for the express company, came down the hill. His face had lost all color, and he pointed up and said that he had almost fallen into a pit. When he looked into the pit, he saw that it was alive with serpents. Rattlesnakes.”

  The outlaw shivered. “I do not like snakes of any kind, but I despise rattlesnakes in particular.”

  Allan bellowed again, “What about the gold?”

  With a sigh, Quinn shook his head and looked back at the corrupt prison guard. “I am telling you that, my friend. Be patient. There is not much left to my story.”

  After clearing his throat, Monk Quinn said, “I do not like snakes, but this time I got an idea. I turned to Conrad, demanding, ‘Where is this den of rattlesnakes?’ He pointed at the hill. Not really a hill, but a ledge. ‘Hurry!’ I demanded, and I ran to the packsaddle that was closest to me. Straining, I hefted one of the pairs of bags over my shoulder. ‘Grab one!’ I yelled. Conrad just stared. ‘Grab a saddlebag!’ I demanded. ‘Or do you wish to lose the gold and your life?’”

  Preacher Lang gasped. “You didn’t?”

  Quinn’s whole body rocked with laughter. “Indeed, I did. What choice did I have? If we left the saddlebags there, or tried to bury the gold, the bandits would have returned and found it. I knew I could not make it to Vera Cruz with all this gold. I did not want to run away with just a few bars myself. So I stumbled and made it to the ledge. I had to sit down to catch my breath. I was sweating. My chest heaved and ached. And I was scared . . . yes, I, Monk Quinn, was quaking in my boots . . . for Conrad was right. I could hear the whirling of the rattles in that pit. So frightened was I that I shoved the bags I had carried into the pit. I could not look inside. I feared I would fall in. The leather dropped. I heard the loud thud and then what sounded like a hundred, nay, a thousand, rattles from inside that deep pit of death. They sang like the serpents of hell.”

  “Twenty saddlebags?” Allan sank down on his haunches. “You dropped twenty saddlebags full of gold bullion into a nest of rattlesnakes?”

  Quinn shrugged again. “Only eighteen bags. Remember?”

  “That,” Maynard said, “weighed something close to two hundred pounds each.”

  “True. It was hard. It was more than hard. It was excruciating, for I had to do almost all of the work. A timid, puny, pathetic man like Conrad? What could he do? He dragged one bag up the slope, and that took him as long as it took me to bring up three more. Four times I went up and down and up and down and up and down . . . carrying my bags over my shoulder. Conrad? He dragged his. It left a trail anyone could follow. And when he got his up to the top, he did not have the nerve to push it into the den of snakes.”

  Quinn stopped here to drink some water. He gargled it, but did not spit it out. After swallowing, Quinn said. “I had to push it into the hole in the earth, and you know how much I detest snakes.”

  “How far?” Yaqui Mendoza asked.

  “A hundred yards from where we were to where the slope begins. Forty or fifty yards up the slope to the edge. Twenty yards to the hole in the ground.”

  Preacher Lang’s pale head shook. “That must have taken you a long time.”

  “It took forever,” Quinn said.

  Doc Fowler finally asked a question. “The robbers and killers? They did not come back?”

  “They would have to get their plunder, the mules they had stolen, through the slot canyon first. That would take them a while. Then they would come back, but they likely thought there was no hurry. They figured that Conrad and myself, or anyone who survived, would be hightailing it for the border, for the nearest town, to get as far as we could from the killing fields as quickly as possible.”

  “The snakes didn’t come out of the hole?” Mendoza asked.

  “It was not the time of evening when rattlesnakes come out to hunt,” Quinn said. “We could hear them snapping and hissing and even striking at one another. They were not used to having heavy bars of gold rain down upon them. I am sure we crushed many of those demons to death.”

  “And,” Maynard said, “you got all that gold all the way up the hill and left it in the snake den?”

  “Yes.”

  “But,” Allan said, “you said it yourself. The gold that the express agent dragged, it left a trail. And even you, a big man such as yourself, carrying two hundred pounds of gold. That would have left an easy trail to follow too.”

  “Of course. We were not hiding our trail at that time. To do so would have been folly. Conrad?” Quinn let out a mirthless chuckle. “He sat on a rock a good twenty or thirty feet away from the opening of the pit. He said he had to catch his breath.” Quinn shook his head and bellowed. “Like I did not have to catch my breath? Like my shoulders did not ache from the strain of lugging all that fortune all that distance, all the way up to the edge? But I had no time. And, eventually, Conrad came back down and tried to carry another of the bags. I had to help him. And to be honest, by the time we were bringing up the last of the bags, we had to do it together. My strength had begun to ebb. Sweat stung my eyes so much I felt practically blinded. Yet I was determined to get this gold out of sight.

  “So I backed up. We moved slower than a crippled snail. Me holding one of the leather bags and Conrad straining to keep the other bag just inches off the ground. We did one of the pairs that way. It took forever. He had to rest every ten or twelve feet. Then it would take him two or three times, sometimes five or six, before he could even lift the bag just a few inches so we could move it. But he did it. We got that bag up, and I shoved it into the pit.”

  “That was the last bag?” Fowler asked.

  Again, Monk Quinn laughed. “The last bag? Ha! No, my good doctor. Not at all. Maybe the tenth. That seems about right. Once again, Mr. Conrad was utterly exhausted. Played out. He sank again, wiping his sweaty face, groaning, moaning, whimpering like a sick dog. My muscles ached. I wanted to quit. I wanted to run. Run from the sound of the serpents in the hole. Run from the bandits that surely had to be out of the slot canyon by this time. Yet dark clouds passed overhead. We thought we could smell rain. And the temperature dropped. It was a sign from God.”

  “Amen,” Preacher Lang said.

  “Yes. Amen. Because that gave me the strength to return. I managed to get another pair of bags on my shoulder, and I stumbled. It took me three times as long as it had taken me to get the first couple of bags to that pit. My knees were bleeding from falling under the weight of the fortune I carried. It was hell. It was pure hell. My shoulders and neck were rubbed raw from the weight and the leather. I made it up. Again. And while Conrad just sat there, heaving, aching, complaining, down I went again. For yet another pair of saddlebags.”

  All eyes remained on the storyteller. Even Gloria Adler looked at the brutal killer. Fallon tried to read the others. Preacher Lang seemed to be half out of his head, and he listened with great attention. Fowler had this dreamy look about him, and Fallon couldn’t tell if the doctor was drunk or suffering from sunstroke. Maynard had the look of the cocksure gunfighter he was. Allan seemed to be trying to think of how he could get all that gold out of a rattlesnake den. Yaqui Mendoza’s face read something entirely different. He was, Fallon thought, trying to figure out exactly where this rattlesnake den could be.

  “Conrad, the weakling, eventually came down. I will give him some credit. He passed me while I staggered up that slope with the crushing weight of the gold on my shoulders. He said nothing, but he was determined to bring up one more pair of bags. And, to my amazement, and likely to his . . . the fool did it. Dragged and pulled and somehow managed to bring up one more load of gold bullion.”

  Quinn had another swallow of water.

  “Conrad was sitting on one of the saddlebags near the pit. Soaked through with sweat. Panting like a dying man. I brought up the last of the bullion, and heaved those bags into the pit. Then I helped Conrad to his feet, mainly so I could get the last of the bags into that hole. Then we could run as far as we could . . . but only after I had done something to wipe out that trail we had left.”

  He shook his head, and tossed the canteen to Preacher Lang.

  “Then we heard the loudest roar we had ever heard. It sounded like the end of the world.”

  There was a long pause. No one dared to encourage Monk Quinn to finish the story.

  “The sound, we realized, came from the slot canyon. Like the roaring of a train. I’ve heard that tornadoes sound like that, but I have never heard of a twister in the deserts of Mexico. Then . . .” He shook his head. “It was like we were in the heavens, Conrad and me, watching the great flood. Or maybe we were aboard the ark with Noah. Water—tons of water—almost to the top of the entrance, exploded out of that canyon, turning the bottom into a shallow lake.”

  Quinn again wet his lips. He even appeared to shudder. “Limbs and the carcasses of two of our pack mules and rocks and sand and stones and debris from who knows where . . . they all came out, spreading across the ground below us.

  “It came out so suddenly, so violently, so shockingly, that Conrad screamed out and took a step back. He started to topple over into the pit with the rattlers, but I reached out and grabbed hold of his arm. I stopped him from falling. His face turned even the starkest, the most fearful, of whites. His eyes bulged. I started to pull him to safety.”

  Quinn laughed. “And then I realized something extraordinary. I let go of his arm. And he screamed and fell back, disappearing into the pit. He landed with a thud that I could barely hear because the water still poured out of that canyon.

  “Then I walked to the edge, and watched the last of the water pour out. I did not go back to look into the den of snakes. I hurried down the hill. I found a canteen and filled it with water. I walked through the water—it was just past my ankles, but sinking into the desert very quickly. I walked out of that part of the Valle Verde and into the other canyon. I walked away. I left the gold . . . all two hundred thousand dollars of bullion—in the hole.

  “That is where I am taking you.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  A silence hung over the camp like a thick fog.

  The men and the woman had to let the story Monk Quinn had told them sink in. Eventually, Captain Allan cleared his throat and asked the most important question:

  “What makes you think the gold is still in that snake den?”

  Quinn moved to his horse and began tightening the cinch. Speaking with his back to the others, he said, “The floodwaters wiped out any sign Conrad and I left behind. And none of that gold bullion has ever shown up in Mexico or our United States as far as we know. The Pinkertons, as I’ve said, and other detectives, professional and amateurs, have been after that gold, after the reward. No one has claimed it. Most have forgotten it.”

  “What about the bandits?” Morgan Maynard asked.

  Quinn tugged on the saddle, seemed satisfied, and stepped away from his horse. “When I saw the carcasses of two of our mules come out with that water, tossed about as though they were nothing but rag dolls, it struck me that most, and maybe all, of the bandits were caught in that terrible canyon. There might not have been any left alive.”

  “But you did not see for yourself,” Maynard said.

  “I was not about to set foot in that canyon. Not after what I had seen. For all I knew another thunderstorm had filled the canyon again, and I was not going to risk drowning.”

  “You didn’t check on the express agent?” Preacher Lang asked.

  “There was no need. When the sound of the flood ended, I heard no groaning, no moaning, no screams. The fall likely did not kill him. With luck, he was unconscious, though, and did not feel the fangs of the many, many rattlesnakes sinking into his flesh and veins.”

  “You are sick,” Gloria Adler said. “Sick. You said you killed no men. But you are no man yourself. You are not even an animal. You are the devil himself.”

  He mockingly bowed at her and turned back to his horse. “We should ride,” he said.

  Yaqui Mendoza said, “I know of this place. Not the den of vipers, but where the canyon spreads out and begins again. I have been there. But not in many years.”

  “I have not been there in six years myself.” Quinn had climbed into the saddle. “I would like to see it again. Vamanos.”

  * * *

  The wind blew the sand off the desert floor so violently that they had to pull bandannas over their mouths and noses and keep their eyes trained on the ground. The sand stung like millions of cactus needles pricking their skin. Yet Yaqui Mendoza saw the entrance to Valle Verde, and they found themselves in the shelter of the canyon.

  The sun no longer baked them so harshly, and the sand stopped stinging them. But the moaning of the wind inside the canyon was haunting, and even unnerving.

  Quinn rode his horse close to Preacher Lang and patted the killer’s thigh. “I told you, Padre,” Quinn said, and laughed. “That we would be in Valle Verde soon. Aren’t you glad to be out of the desert? You have delivered your people, Mr. Moses.”

  The sickly looking murderer did seem to be revived once he felt the shade of the canyon’s walls. He wet his horribly cracked lips and tried to grin. His lips parted, but he said only in a hoarse whisper, “I can’t seem to recall any Scripture about Moses . . . or . . . the desert . . . or . . .” He shook his head.

  “How about this one, Padre?” Quinn called out. “It’s from Exodus. ‘And they shall take gold . . .’”