“Yeah, you’re right about that.” Stovepipe gestured with the Winchester. “I told you to get on your feet, hombre. Do it now or—”
“Or what?” the man interrupted with a sneer. “You’re gonna shoot me? Blow my head off? The hell you are. You’re not a cold-blooded killer. I can tell that by lookin’ at you.”
“Appearances can be deceivin’,” said Stovepipe coldly. He stepped closer to the prisoner. The man’s eyes widened as he probably realized that he might’ve overplayed his hand.
But instead of pulling the rifle’s trigger, Stovepipe swung the weapon instead so that the stock slammed against the man’s head, knocking him out again. He slumped to the side and didn’t move.
“Dang, Stovepipe, you might’ve busted his skull,” said Wilbur.
“Naw, I know how to wallop an hombre so I knock him cold without doin’ any permanent damage to him . . . I hope.”
“What are we gonna do with him?”
Stovepipe thought for a second, then said, “I don’t particularly want to haul him around with us. I’ll tie him up and gag him and leave him stashed behind that rock with the other fella.”
“The dead one, you mean?”
“Yeah.” Stovepipe smiled. “He won’t be much company for this one, but I figure the fella would rather be bored than dead. Then we’ll finish havin’ our look around and come back for him if we can.”
“If we don’t run into the rest of the bunch and get ventilated.”
“Yep,” said Stovepipe as he leaned his rifle against the rock and set about the task of tying and gagging the man he’d knocked out. Wilbur dismounted and dragged the corpse behind the rock, out of sight.
“It appears that I’ve taken up a new line of work,” said Wilbur. “Hauling bodies.”
“Somebody’s got to do it,” said Stovepipe, “because there’s never gonna be any shortage of dead people in this world.”
“Yeah . . . especially around us, seems like.”
A few minutes later they were mounted again and riding along the wash in the same direction as the horses they’d been following. Those horses were out of sight now. Stovepipe listened intently. If the rest of the gang had been bearing down on him and Wilbur, out for blood, he thought he would have heard their horses by now. Instead the countryside was quiet. There weren’t even any sounds of birds or small animals, because those had hushed due to the gunplay a short time earlier and hadn’t started back up again.
“You know, I’m startin’ to wonder if there’s anybody else in these parts,” mused Stovepipe after a few minutes. “Maybe the gang cleared out and left those two behind to stand guard in case anybody showed up lookin’ for ’em.”
“Like the three hombres we shot it out with at Apache Bluff and then in that box canyon,” suggested Wilbur. “They were watching the place where Abel Dempsey was bushwhacked.”
“Yeah. Could be the gang moves around so they’ll be harder to find, or maybe they pulled up stakes because they got spooked when their plan to frame Dan for Dempsey’s murder didn’t go exactly the way they expected.”
“I’d say it worked out pretty well. Everybody in the basin thinks Dan is guilty except for you and me and a few other people.”
Stovepipe grinned and said, “Maybe they’re scared of us.”
“Not likely. As far as they’re concerned, we’re just a couple of shiftless saddle tramps who got caught in the middle of this ruckus. They don’t know how hard we work at being unimpressive.”
Stovepipe let that pass as they rode on. A few more minutes went by, and then they came to a broad, shallow depression that was thick with grass and had a small pool on one side of it. The three horses they had been following earlier were grazing contentedly on the grass near the pool. No other signs of life were visible at the moment, but when Stovepipe gazed at the ground and saw a multitude of hoofprints, as well as the way the grass was pushed down in places, he knew what he was looking at.
“Somebody’s been holdin’ stock here,” he said to Wilbur.
“Yeah, there’s the remains of a campfire over yonder.” The redhead pointed. “This was the gang’s hideout, Stovepipe. Has to be. But they’re gone now.”
“Yeah, they pulled up stakes, like I said, and it ain’t likely they’ll be comin’ back. They’ll shift the operation somewhere else in the basin. That’s good news for the Box D but bad news for whichever spread they set up shop on next.”
The two men sat on their horses and stared disconsolately at the empty hideout. After a moment, Wilbur asked, “What do we do now?”
“Reckon we’re sort of at a dead end. About the only thing we can do is try to trail that bunch to wherever they’re headed next.”
“What about that fella we left back up the wash?”
“He can work his way loose after a while. He’d just slow us down, and I don’t reckon he knew much. That’s the impression I got, anyway. When I said somethin’ about the rustlers killin’ Abel Dempsey, he looked downright puzzled.”
“Is our thinking on the whole business wrong, Stovepipe?”
“Nope, I don’t believe it is.” Stovepipe shook his head slowly. “There’s just somethin’ we ain’t come across yet, and when we do, the whole thing’ll make sense.”
“I suppose you’re right. You haven’t been wrong yet.”
Stovepipe grinned and said, “There’s a first time for most things. I hope this ain’t one of ’em.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
At the HS Bar the previous night, Jessica Stafford ushered Dan and Laura into the parlor. Henry Stafford followed them with the shotgun tucked under his left arm and a suspicious frown still on his rugged face.
“Sit down,” Jessica told the two visitors as she gestured toward a divan. “You both look exhausted. Can I get you something? There might still be some coffee in the pot on the stove.” She smiled ruefully and added, “Although I’m sure it’s just about turned into mud by now.”
“You can be hospitable later, Jess,” said Stafford. “Right now I want to hear the story these two promised us.”
“It’s not that pretty a story, I’m afraid,” said Laura.
Stafford grunted and said, “Life ain’t pretty most of the time, and folks who thinks it is, or ought to be, are just foolin’ themselves.”
“Most of this mess is my fault,” Dan said. “Not what happened to Abel Dempsey, but the rest of it, so I should be the one to tell it.”
Laura laid a hand on his and told him, “Don’t blame yourself, Dan. I certainly don’t. I had just as much to do with everything that happened as you did.”
“Just get on with it,” growled Stafford.
Dan started talking. He told Stafford and Jessica about how he and Laura had known each other back in Saint Louis, how her father had come between them and pressured Laura into marrying Abel Dempsey, and how they had encountered each other again unexpectedly out here in Arizona Territory.
Stafford let out a skeptical snort at that and said, “You really want us to believe you didn’t know Laura was here, Hartford? That you didn’t come to these parts plannin’ to steal her away from her husband?”
“It’s the truth,” Dan insisted. “I know it’s quite a coincidence, but that’s not any more unbelievable than a lot of other things that have happened in life.”
“I was completely surprised when Dan showed up at the Box D,” added Laura. “Please believe us, Henry. We really didn’t plan to see each other again and . . . and rekindle all those old feelings . . .”
Stafford made a curt gesture and said, “You can leave out that part. Just get on with the rest of it.”
“No, you need to hear this, Henry,” Laura insisted. “I was never unfaithful to my husband. It’s true that Dan and I had feelings for each other. We still do. But I wasn’t going to cheat on Abel, regardless of the circumstances that led to our marriage in the first place. In fact, that’s what I was going to tell Dan . . . that day on Apache Bluff . . .”
“You were?�
�� said Dan.
Laura swallowed hard and nodded.
“That’s right. I know we had talked about . . . running away to California. I was going to tell you that’s where you ought to go . . . but without me.” She shook her head. “But before I could say anything about that, we heard that shot . . . the shot that killed Abel . . . and everything was different after that. In that one moment, everything changed.”
“Yeah,” grunted Stafford. “You were a widow, so you were free to play around with this no-account cowboy—”
“Henry, please,” said Jessica. “From everything Laura and Dan have told us, you’re making things sound a lot more scandalous than they really were.”
Stafford grumbled something, then snapped at Dan, “Get on with the story.”
Dan told them about finding Dempsey’s body, the shot directed at him from the rocks, and then returning that fire only to be discovered a moment later by Lew Martin and some of the other Box D hands.
“I knew how it would look to them,” he said. “They weren’t going to give me a chance to explain. All I could do was get out of there before they filled me full of lead. Even as fast as I moved, it was a mighty close thing.”
“Might’ve been better if they had ventilated you.”
“Henry, how can you say that?” Jessica admonished her husband. “Haven’t you heard a word Dan’s said? He didn’t shoot Abel, so why should he be gunned down for it?”
“You believe that yarn he spun?”
“I believe Laura,” Jessica insisted. “If she says Dan was with her when Abel was shot, then it’s the truth.”
“Thank you, Jessica,” said Laura. “Most of the time, it seems like nobody in this basin even wants to listen to me, let alone believe what I’m telling them. If it weren’t for you, and Mr. Stewart and Mr. Coleman—”
“Who?” Stafford interrupted.
“The two fellas who helped me get away from Sheriff Olsen’s posse the other day,” Dan explained. He sighed. “Of course, that didn’t last very long, and then we all wound up in jail anyway.”
“Yeah, I heard about that,” said Stafford. “You’re talkin’ about those saddle tramps who broke outta jail with you. Who in blazes are they, and how’d they get mixed up in this?”
“Just a couple of drifters, from what I can tell,” replied Dan with a shrug. “But they believe in me, and they’ve been good friends so far.”
“Where are they now?” asked Jessica.
“I don’t really know. Off somewhere trying to get to the bottom of this mess, I suppose.” Dan laughed humorlessly. “Although if they had any sense, they’d light a shuck out of this whole part of the country and never come back.”
“Maybe that’s what you ought to do,” Stafford said.
Dan shook his head and said, “I don’t want the law on my trail the rest of my life. The only way to prevent that is to find out who really killed Abel Dempsey.”
“What can we do to help?” asked Jessica.
“What we really need is a place to stay for a while,” said Laura. “That will give Stovepipe and Wilbur a chance to look into things more.”
“That’s those two saddle tramps?” Stafford said.
When Laura nodded, Jessica said, “You’re putting an awful lot of faith in them, it seems to me.”
Dan said, “There’s something about them that makes you have confidence in them, almost like you can tell they’ve done this sort of thing before.”
“Well, of course you’re welcome to stay here.” Jessica looked at her husband. “Isn’t that right, Henry?”
Stafford looked like he wanted to disagree with his wife, and vehemently, at that. But after a long moment, he overcame his reluctance and said, “All right . . . for now. I ain’t sayin’ I believe you, Hartford, and even if you’re tellin’ the truth about what happened to Abel, I still don’t like you. But I reckon you can hide out here for a spell.”
Dan’s face flushed with anger. He didn’t like the way Stafford had phrased that about him and Laura hiding out here on the HS Bar, but he supposed there was some truth to it. They actually were fugitives from the law, after all.
“Thank you, Henry,” Laura said. “And thank you, Jessica. This means so much to us.”
“Yeah,” said Dan with a curt nod to the rancher. “We’re much obliged to you.”
“Did anyone see you when you came up to the house?” asked Jessica.
“I don’t think so,” Dan replied. “We walked in on foot and stayed away from the other buildings as much as we could.”
“Where are your horses?” asked Stafford.
“We left them tied up a couple of hundred yards from here.” Dan told the older man where to find the mounts.
“I’ll go out and get ’em,” said Stafford. “Can’t bring them back here to the barn or one of the corrals, though. My hands would spot ’em and know right away they’re strange horses. Reckon the boys’d want to know where they came from. There’s an old rock pen up in the hills where I can put ’em for now, though.”
“That’s smart thinking, Henry,” Jessica told him.
Stafford grunted and said, “I ain’t sure we’re doin’ the right thing, Jess, but if we’re gonna do this, we might as well try to do it right.”
“That’s exactly what I thought,” she replied with an affectionate smile.
“There’s one more thing . . .” said Dan.
“What do you want now?” Stafford asked impatiently.
“I’m just curious about something. While Laura and I were on our way here, we had to get off the trail for a little while and let a group of riders go past. Looked like at least a dozen of them, and they were moving along at a good clip. I was just wondering who they were.”
Stafford’s forehead creased in a frown. He said, “These hombres you saw were comin’ from this ranch?”
“That’s what it looked like. They were headed south, toward the Box D, or maybe Hat Creek.”
Stafford shook his head.
“They weren’t any of my crew,” he insisted. “None of the boys went to town tonight. Reckon they’re all accounted for. If you don’t believe me, we can go out to the bunkhouse and roust ’em from their bunks.”
“I believe you,” Dan said. “The sheriff wasn’t out here with a posse last evening?”
“I ain’t seen Frank Olsen in a couple of days.”
Jessica, who’d been sitting in an armchair while they talked, leaned forward until she was perched on the edge of the chair cushion. She asked anxiously, “Who could those men have been, Henry?”
Stafford rubbed his jaw, which at this hour was dotted with silvery beard stubble.
“I don’t reckon I know . . . unless they were up to no good.”
“Like that gang of rustlers who’ve been bleeding off stock throughout the whole basin,” said Dan. “Stovepipe figures they’re behind Abel Dempsey’s murder, as well as the deaths of Fred Tomlinson and Jack Hogan.”
Stafford’s frown deepened. He said, “Tomlinson was bushwhacked, all right, but Hogan fell in a ravine and busted his neck.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Dan said. “The killers could have made it look like that.”
“Yeah, I reckon . . . You mean to say this fella Stewart thinks the rustlers are goin’ through the basin, killin’ off all the cattlemen?”
“It seems possible.”
“Why would they do that? They’re out to steal cows, not slaughter a bunch of folks.”
“Yes, but if they throw the basin into enough of an uproar, they can strike in force, round up every cow that’s out there, and drive them out of here, say, down across the border into Mexico. It would be a cleanup the likes of which has never been seen around here.”
“Yeah, maybe. If Stewart’s right, and all the ranchers in these parts have got targets on their backs . . .”
Jessica stood up and hurried over to her husband to clutch his arm. Eyes wide with fear, she said, “My God, Henry, you could be next. You can�
�t . . . You have to stay right here in the house where you’ll be safe.”
Stafford blew out his breath disgustedly and said, “I ain’t never hid from trouble, and I don’t plan to start now. Besides, somebody’s got to deal with the horses these two rode here.”
“Henry, no,” Jessica said, shaking her head.
Stafford put the shotgun back in the rack where it had come from and took down a Winchester instead. He checked the repeater to make sure it was loaded, then said, “I won’t be gone long.”
He plucked his hat from a hat tree near the door and stalked out, leaving his wife staring after him as she stood there gnawing her bottom lip worriedly.
Laura said, “Jessica, I’m sorry for the trouble we’ve caused—”
“You didn’t cause it, Laura,” said Jessica. “I’m just married to the stubbornest man on the face of the earth, that’s all!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
It appeared that only a small herd of cattle had been kept at the rustlers’ hideout Stovepipe and Wilbur had located, but the stock had left enough of a trail for the two men to follow. It was difficult to move even a small herd without leaving a considerable amount of sign.
They tracked the cattle toward the northwest as the sun rose in the east, over their right shoulders. After a while, Wilbur commented, “It looks like they’re headed for those breaks where Dan was holed up when we first met him.”
“North of there, I’d say,” mused Stovepipe. “Of course, we don’t know how far those breaks extend in that direction. They may run along the whole edge of the basin on this side, all the way up onto Henry Stafford’s range.”
“That’d make sense if they were going after some of Stafford’s beeves next.”
“Or goin’ after Stafford himself,” Stovepipe said grimly.
Wilbur frowned, shook his head, and said, “I don’t follow you, Stovepipe.”
“Think about it. The two ranchers who were killed before Dempsey were one of the Tomlinson brothers from the Leanin’ T, who was bushwhacked first, then Jack Hogan from the Big Nine.”
The Range Detectives Page 16