Adam Steele 29: The Big Prize

By George G. Gilman

Mesa, Colorado, was a nice town. Settled, growing, thriving. God-fearing on a Sunday, money-making of a weekday, the citizens grew carefully richer, and their life had a pattern to it.
A pattern that Adam Steele didn’t fit. Not when he rode in, sweaty and shabby after too long on the trail, leading a gelding with two dead men lashed across the saddle.
Mesa, Colorado, drew back, squeamish and shocked at the blood dried black round the gunshot wounds, at the flies and the smell.
Until the news got around that there was a fortune buried somewhere out there in the hills. And only one man had the map of its location. Then the niceness and the manners were stripped away to the bare bones of greed and hatred. And the citizens remembered how to kill.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Piccadilly
• Release date: Jul 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005261399

George G. Gilman

GEORGE G. GILMAN (11 December 1936 - 23 January 2019) was a pseudonym created and used by the near-legendary Terry Harknett -- is so well-known to western readers for his Edge and Steele books, that he hardly needs any introduction. Arguably the most influential British western writer of the last 50 years, his tough, graphic, wise-cracking westerns are still in demand, even though almost twenty years have now passed since the last one was published.

Book preview

Chapter One

WHEN THE SHOT cracked through the silence of the long night Adam Steele came awake with a groan. And shivered in the cold air of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

A second and a third shot were exploded in quick succession and the Virginian threw off his blankets and folded up into a sitting posture: took a double-handed grip on the Colt Hartford revolving rifle but did not thumb back the hammer. For, fully awake now, he had a bearing on the direction and distance of the shooting in relation to his night camp at the mouth of a timbered ravine. So knew the gunfire was not being aimed at him.

He rose to his feet and moved away from the bed blankets, saddle, the powdery ashes of a fire and the hobbled grey gelding which was totally unconcerned by the disturbance.

More shots accompanied Steele’s unhurried progress between the aspens. Rifle fire. And horses were galloping now. Two or three. Coming closer to where the man roused from sleep halted at the base of a twenty feet high rock face that formed the north wall of the ravine: to peer down a gentle sagebrush-covered slope and witness the running gun battle.

Three horses. Two riders chasing a third along the trail that curved around the base of the slope: coming out of New Mexico Territory and into Colorado. Emerging from a stand of straggly timber and on to an area of sage cloaked hills cut with many ravines of the kind in which Adam Steele had made camp.

The Virginian pursed his lips and murmured: ‘Trouble, stay away from my camp.’

Bright, glittering moonlight illuminated the stretch of trail over which the riders were galloping their horses: a half mile away from where Steele watched, drawing closer by the second. But he stood in the deep shadow of the rock face and had no intention of showing himself. If the man being chased stayed on the trail, he and his pursuers would pass by the hidden watcher at a distance of some three hundred yards at the foot of the slope: and be lost to sight beyond a rocky hump on the incline a few moments later.

But it was not to be.

The frontrunner, who was canted low in his saddle, both hands on the reins while his heels thudded viciously into the flanks of his mount, was widening the gap between himself and the two men behind him. Men who were inevitably destined to lose ground while they divided their attention between spurring on their horses and working the lever actions and firing their Winchesters.

They were yelling at the tops of their voices, too. Their rage expanding with each wildly fired shot that cracked high, low or wide of the diminishing target.

Then the man who was out in front by two hundred and fifty feet veered off the trail. Having seen the substantial cover of the wooded ravine mouth.

‘Feller, you’re wrong,’ Steele rasped. And thumbed back the hammer of the Colt Hartford.

By making the turn on to the slope, his headlong pace was slowed by the rising ground under the pumping hooves of the speed-wearied horse. And rider and mount became slantwise on to the pursuers: presenting larger targets.

One more bullet missed. Then another drilled deep into the right rump of the horse. The animal snorted in reaction to the impact: and stumbled.

A shriek of triumph akin to the Rebel yell of Civil War days was vented by the man who fired the wounding shot.

The injured horse struggled desperately to regain the rhythm of the headlong gallop in response to the demands of his rider. But could manage only a few yards before the effects of the bullet in his flesh caused him to stumble again. And this time there was no recovery. His right hindleg collapsed and the forward momentum was abruptly halted. He went down and began to roll, the flailing fore-hooves unable to fasten a grip on the sloping ground.

There was the snap of a breaking bone. An agonized snort from the horse and a scream of terror from the rider—who for a moment seemed to be thrown clear. But his right foot was trapped in the stirrup. His scream was curtailed as he slammed to the ground, crushing sagebrush beneath him. And was in turn crushed under the weight of the horse falling on him and rolling over him.

Now both men on the trail shrieked joyfully as they galloped their horses to within twenty feet of the struggling animal and unmoving man. Then reined their mounts to a halt and became silent. Stayed in the saddles while they exploded two shots each from the Winchesters: to end the pain of the horse and make certain the man under the carcass was dead.

Adam Steele allowed a soft sigh to escape his pursed lips. Continued to watch from his secret vantage point, but did not strain to hear a quiet exchange of words between the two killers as they dismounted, slid their rifles in the boots and moved up the lower slope toward their victims.

He saw them merely as two tall, broadly built men wearing Texas hats and knee-length coats with the collars turned up, their pants tucked inside riding boots. Slow moving, but from weariness rather than age, he guessed.

One of them remained standing, coat parted and thumbs hooked over his belt while the other dropped on to his haunches to fumble in the clothing of the fresh corpse. Both of them were too intent upon finding what was being searched for to consider the remote possibility that the gunfire had attracted attention in this desolate area.

Then the man searching the corpse said something and raised a hand. His partner responded shortly in the same low tones. The man on his haunches used both hands to unfold a piece of paper that, when it was opened, measured about twelve inches by twelve inches square. He nodded, and turned his head to look up at his partner.

‘No!’

His terrified plea rang out as loudly as that first shot that had roused the Virginian from sleep. And, as on that occasion, Adam Steele grunted.

The reason for the man’s shrieked denial was the revolver which his partner had drawn from under the left side of his coat. Gripped in the right hand and aimed over a distance of six inches into the upturned face of the squatting man.

The trigger was squeezed and the bullet that belched from the muzzle brought instant death. The impact of the lead into the face at such close range jerked the corpse violently to the side, to sprawl it over the torso of the first man to die.

The killer raised the revolver and blew at the smoke wisping from the muzzle. Then raised the left side of his coat to push the gun back in the holster, butt jutting forward. He stooped to take the reason for the double killing from the hand of the second victim and refolded the paper without looking at it. Placed it in a pocket of his topcoat, turned wearily around and went to his horse. Swung up into the saddle and clucked the animal into movement. Heading northward along the trail at a much easier pace than previously.

In the mouth of the ravine, Adam Steele eased forward the hammer of the rifle and when he had watched the man ride from sight beyond the rocky hump, returned his impassive gaze to the heap of sprawled bodies and the horse carcass. Did not move out of the shadow of the rock face and on to the open slope until after the clop of hooves had faded from earshot on the trail.

When he was close to the scene of the slaughter, the abandoned horse snorted and backed off several feet. Wary of the approaching stranger.

‘Easy, boy,’ he said soothingly. ‘Some of my best friends have been horses. Mean you no harm at all.’

The black gelding stopped backing away, but remained rigid with tension until Steele had gripped his bridle and begun to stroke his neck, reinforcing with a gentle action the friendliness of his tone. Then the animal whinnied softly and was calm. And the Virginian left him to take a closer look at the murdered men. One with a blood-caked hole in the center of his forehead and the other probably dead from massive internal damage before the two bullets drilled into his chest. Both in their late thirties or early forties, unshaven for several days and stained by many miles of arduous travel. One wore agony as a death mask, the other terror.

In his death throes, the horse had rolled off all but the feet of his rider and it required little effort from Steele to drag the corpse completely clear of the carcass after first hauling out on to the trail the body of the second man to die. Then, when they lay side by side, he searched their clothing. And in the hip pocket of the man who was crushed by his falling horse found a wanted poster. Concerning a man named Cecil Carr for whose capture a reward of fifty dollars was offered. He was alleged on the tattered and torn poster to be guilty of cattle rustling. The description of the wanted man fitted the one who had been carrying the poster—and mention of a small, vee-shape scar on his jaw made the match a certainty.

There was nothing among the items the other man carried in his pockets to give him an identity.

‘Call you John Doe, feller,’ the Virginian growled as he straightened up after replacing everything where he had found it. ‘And hope you’re worth more of it than he is.’

Chapter Two

THE VIRGINIAN WALKED back up the hillside toward the ravine. A lean-framed man of a little over five feet six inches in height, attired in a mixture of styles. A grey city suit worn over a white, lace-trimmed shirt and a red vest: and under a sheepskin jacket designed for warmth rather than smartness. On his feet black riding boots, on his hands black buckskin gloves and around his neck a grey silken kerchief.

He had not taken the time to pick up his black Stetson when he was roused by the gunshots and left his camp to investigate them.

His neatly trimmed hair was prematurely grey, for he was not yet forty, and it was only in the long sideburns that traces could be seen of the redness which had been his natural coloring. The features flanked by these strips of mottled hair were regular in form, the skin stained dark brown by the elements, and heavily lined. The eyes were jet black and the mouthline had a gentle set when in repose: the jawline firm. The whole contributing to an undeniably handsome face. With only a certain coldness in the dark eyes to suggest that this man was capable of killing With the same lack of compunction as the rider he had watched go from sight along the trail north.

But with a far greater degree of skill. Whether it be with the Colt Hartford canted to his shoulder, a knife held in a boot sheath and accessible through a split in the outside seam of his right pants leg or the silk scarf which served as a kerchief when it was not required as a weapon of strangulation. He carried no handgun.

Up in the ravine, he donned the black Stetson with its low crown and wide brim, furled his bedroll around his cooking and eating utensils, saddled the gelding and lashed the roll on behind. Then took the hobbles off the horse, swung up astride the animal, booted the rifle and rode out of the ravine: down the slope.

He had no watch and with the night still solid over the mountains could only guess at the time. He did not make camp and bed down until late and although the shooting had roused him at the deepest point of his shallow sleep, he felt rested and refreshed. So dawn could not be far off.

And the daybreak came less than thirty minutes after he left the scene of the two killings: heading north along the trail in the wake of the murderer. Riding at an easy pace, with the abandoned gelding on a lead line, the two bodies draped over the saddle.

Greyness spread over the sky from the eastern ridges and the starlit blackness of night retreated. Then the sun rose and the moon faded to a pale white color and in moments disappeared. And within a few minutes the warmth of the new day on this eastern flank of the Rockies caused Steele to take off his topcoat and fix it to his bedroll.

He was unfamiliar with this section of Colorado Territory. Knew only that, since there was a trail, it had to lead somewhere. If to a town where he could raise