The Good the Bad and the Ugly

“Then,” the hunter said, “you’re going to end up with blistered hands and empty pockets.” He grinned faintly. “Stop worrying, Tuco. I got the name straight enough. What I didn’t get was the location of the grave. We may have a mighty long search ahead of us, finding that one particular grave among thousands just like it.”

“The search will soon begin, Whitey,” Tuco said, pointing. “There is Sad Hill Cemetery on that slope ahead.”

“It’s big, all right” The hunter squinted through the heat haze. “But it’s going to get a whole lot bigger when the toll from Langston Bridge starts coming in.”

They dismounted at the edge of the immense burial ground. Tuco almost fell over his own feet in his wild haste to get to the nearest grave markers. He peered around.

“Unknown. Unknown. Pete Anson. Unknown—”

“Hold it, Tuco. We’ll find it a lot faster if we organise our search. You take the first two rows and I’ll take the second two. That way we won’t miss a single head-board as we work our way through.”

Heads turning right and left steadily, they tramped up the slope to the edge of the woods, then moved inward and worked their way back down. Tuco stopped at the end of his third row to mop his streaming face.

“Yon know, Whitey, I am so mad at those Yankees I could almost become a real Confederate myself.”

“What are you riled up about now? We traded them our spent mounts for fresh and better ones.”

“But the stinking tightwads could have at least thrown in a couple of shovels for us to dig with.”

It seemed they had been tramping for hours and there was still more than half the vast cemetery still to be covered. A few rows ahead of them the centre of the graveyard was marked by a large open space—an amphitheatre reserved for the holding of formal funeral services.

“When we get to that open space,” the bounty-hunter said, “we might as well call it a day. It’ll be too dark to see the names—and my head feels about ready to break right off my neck. We can get a good night’s rest and start on the other half at sunrise.”

“How can you think of sleeping when all those beautiful gold dollars are lying right around here somewhere—maybe so close one of us could reach out a hand and touch the spot, eh? I will keep on looking until my eyes balls pop out and my legs drop off.”

“All right. We’ve still got a couple of hours of daylight left.”

They reached the trees, shifted over to the next rows and started back down the slope. Tuco suddenly loosed a wild, incoherent howl and flung himself on to one of the grave mounds.

He clawed frenziedly at the dirt with his bare hands, yelling, “Here it is, Whitey. This is the one. I have found it at last. I have found my fortune.”

The hunter strode to the spot, bent to examine the marker. Storms and the fiercely beating sun had faded the paint but the name, Arch Stanton, was still plainly legible on the weathered headboard.

He straightened and turned to find himself looking into the muzzle of Tuco’s pistol.

“I am sorry about this, friend,” the bandit said, thumbing back the hammer, “but you know how it is sometimes, eh? There are two kinds of people in this world. Those with a little money and those with two hundred thousand. It is better to be one of those with two hundred thousand, eh, Whitey? This time I errs the one who is dissolving the partnership”

He pulled the trigger. The hammer fell with an empty, metallic click.

The hunter leaned an elbow on the headboard and watched impassively as Tuco whirled the cylinder, staring at it from bulging eyes. He slapped frantically at his gunbelt.

“My bullets are all gone. You—you—”

The hunter said, “I took them out last night after you went to sleep. You’re a little too handy at switching sides to suit my fancy.”

“You could have got me killed,” Tuco yelled.

“That would have been a pity—before you’d finished doing the heavy digging for me.” The hunter wrenched the headboard from the ground and tossed it at the bandit’s feet. “Get on with it. And use this instead of your bare hands to dig with. You’ll get the job done a lot quicker.”

Behind him Sentenza said, “In fact, you’ll get it done twice as fast with both of you digging.”

He stood at the edge of the woods, smiling sardonically. The long-barrelled pistol pointed steadily. The hammer was drawn back. Sentenza’s finger lightly caressed the trigger.

“I wondered when you’d show up.”

The bounty-hunter seemed unperturbed.

“Now you know,” Sentenza said. “Drop your gun-belt and step back away from it.”

The hunter smiled faintly and shook his head.

Sentenza’s face darkened. His pale eyes glittered with rage.

“Damn you, do as I say or I’ll—”

“Or you’ll what, Sentenza? Kill me? You would be foolish. The only wealth you’ll find in Arch Stanton’s grave are the remains of poor Arch Stanton. His mother might like them—but they wouldn’t bring a dime on the open market.”

“Don’t believe him, Sentenza,” Tuco howled. “He’s lying—it’s only a trick to save his miserable skin. The gold is here. It’s got to be here—”