He knew it was a wrong move when he absorbed a haymaker to the mouth, jarring his teeth. More blows followed it. Lost to all sense of balance, and feeling as if his head was exploding, Makin dropped full length in the water trough. The shock of the water revived him somewhat, but as he tried to scramble free, Larry’s hand locked in his thick hair and forced his head under the water again.
‘Admit those deeds were faked,’ Larry demanded, as he brought his head up momentarily for air.
Makin spluttered and choked and said nothing so Larry jammed his head under the water again.
‘You gypped me, didn’t you?’ Larry snapped, bringing his head up again.
Makin might well have made some kind of answer — but he was not given the opportunity, as there came a sudden interruption. Sheriff Crawford pushed his way through the crowd, his revolver in his hand.
‘ That’s enough , Ashfield !’
Larry looked up in surprise. The sheriff was a tubby, narrow-eyed man with a thin, unpleasant nose. That he was one of Cliff Makin’s closest friends — along with the town mayor — was common knowledge.
‘Who says it is?’ Larry demanded bluntly.
‘Leave him be, Sheriff,’ somebody complained. ‘It’s about time Makin had the tar beaten outa him.’
‘I’ve got law and order to preserve!’ Crawford snapped, looking about him. ‘When it comes to near drowning a man to make him confess to something he never did, it’s time to call a halt.’ Makin sat on the edge of the trough, his clothes clinging to him, his face puffed from the blows he had received.
‘About time you showed up!’ he commented sourly. ‘Sooner you get this louse locked up for assault, the better.’
Crawford hesitated, acutely aware that the temper of the people would never permit him to try and put Larry in jail. Instead:
‘We’ll call it a fight and let it go at that,’ Crawford decided. ‘You’d better be on your way, Ashfield, and don’t try getting tough around here again.’
Larry hesitated, then he shrugged.
‘Nice of you to step in and save your pardner,’ he said briefly. ‘It won’t stop me dealing with him somewhere else — just when he least expects it.’
With that Larry pushed through the crowd, and returned to his horse up the street. Disappointed at the tame finish to everything, the spectators broke up and began drifting back towards the Lucky Dollar. Makin watched them go, then stood up.
‘Thanks,’ he said briefly to the sheriff. ‘Something’s happened to that guy since he was last around: he’s dynamite! He’ll have to be taken care of — and pronto. Get Hank and the boys to fix it.’ He broke off in disgust. ‘I’ve got to be rid of these wet things.’
The sheriff nodded grimlyand turned away. As he moved back in the direction of the saloon Larry came riding past, heading out of town for the trail. Not three minutes after him six men also went riding, and at the tremendous speed at which they travelled in the starlight they got ahead of Larry before he could reach the Bar-6.
His first intimation of them was when they suddenly emerged from the side of the trail, blocking his path. He reined to a halt, his hand dropping to his gun. Then a warning voice stopped his action.
‘You’re covered, Ashfield. Stay right where you are!’
Larry obeyed. He recognized Hank as he came forward in the starlight. He reached out a hand, and Larry found his gun taken from him.
‘Far as I’m concerned, feller, you’d be a lot safer dead than alive. But it ain’t going to be by bullets. The boss is careful about things like that. Bullets can be traced back to their owners sometimes, and it won’t do … But there’s another way to take care of you. You’re comin’ with us to Eagle’s Pass.’
Larry knew of the spot vaguely — about five miles south of the Bar-6 at the foot of the mountain range.
‘Start ridin’,’ Hank ordered. ‘And don’t try any tricks, or you’ll suffer for them.’
Larry could do nothing but comply. On and on through the pastureland, through the ground-level mists … until, by the time the moon had risen, they had left the green countryside behind and were riding amidst dusty earth and rock chippings on the outskirts of the mountain foothills.
The mountains reared grey and invulnerable into the starry sky, their peaks lost in the glittering diadem of light above them. Rock walls closed in as the horsemen left the immediate foothills behind and began to follow a narrow arroyo that led eventually into a canyon.
‘This is it,’ Hank said, calling a halt. ‘Just the spot we need. Hey, Ashfield! See them cedar trees up the canyon side there?’
The trees were visible as a darker mass against the canyon face. Larry saw them but said nothing.
‘There’s plenty of dry brushwood below ’em,’ Hank continued, ‘and a nice draught blowing through this canyon. With you bound to one of them higher trees, and the brushwood fired, there won’t be much to save you gettin’ nicely fried, I reckon! Nobody likely to find you in this remote spot, neither!’
Larry was forced to descend from his horse. He remained silent and passive whilst his wrists were secured behind him with lariat rope.
‘Start climbin’,’ Hank ordered, brandishing his gun.
Larry found the ascent difficult with his hands bound, but where he could not climb he was dragged, and so gradually he was brought to a spot perhaps a hundred feet above the canyon floor, in the midst of a sloping hillside wood of dense cedar trees. Up here they swayed in the cold night wind, their leaves rustling.
He said nothing as his wrists were fastened securely at the back of the tree; then his ankles were also bound. By the time Hank had finished his handiwork he was satisfied that Larry could not budge.
‘OK, boys, let’s go.’ Hank grinned wolfishly. ‘We’ve a fire to start.’
He and his men turned away, hurrying through the shadowy gloom of the trees, until at length they and the sound of their movements were lost. Only then did Larry withdraw his wrists from the ropes tethering them round the tree. He smiled to himself.
‘Maybe learning magic is going to prove more useful than I thought,’ he muttered, and stooped to unfasten his ankles.
Magic had not released his wrists. He had merely used the old magician’s trick of keeping his wrists slightly apart by wedging his thumb between them as they had been bound. The dim light had made it quite impossible for Hank to detect the subterfuge.
By the time Larry had his ankles freed he saw the first glowing flame below, announcing that the brushwood had been set on fire. Fanned by the wind, the flames spread immediately, feeding avidly on the sun-parched leaves and branches of the trees above. Within thirty seconds a column of flame was devouring its way up the cliffside, hurling a fountain of crackling sparks into the night.
For Larry to go below was impossible: he would be ringed by fire. Climbing upwards beyond the timberline would be tough, and he would have to move fast to keep ahead of the flames. But it was the only way out, so he began to climb swiftly, digging his toes and fingers into the rockery, using the tree boles to thrust himself upwards.
Even so the fire was gaining, a crackling inferno streaming up in his wake, the trees exploding like monstrous torches as they burst into vivid flame.
Larry began to fear for his chances of escaping, until the glare of the flames revealed the unexpected. Not very far above him there was a black, irregular hole in the cliff in fact, not one, but several. Evidently they were ancient blow-holes, cave mouths, created in the mountains by volcanic action in the dim past. There lay sanctuary.
Larry made a desperate effort, scrambling upwards, pursued by a curtain of fire. He reached the ledge of the cave nearest to him and clawed his way over it. Within seconds he was inside the cave, backing into its depths, watching the increasing glare outside as the flames came roaring nearer, The fire reached the cave, the flames and smoke belching around the opening as the trees near it fused, exploded and crackled. Larry, deep inside the rocky sanctuary, was untouched. Gradually, the
inferno began to pass by as it burned its way to the very limits of the timberline. Before it was spent it might involve entire swathes of vegetation in the region — there was no escape for Larry just yet, unless he wished to wade ankle-deep in red-hot ashes.
4. Death At The Bar-6
So he turned and surveyed the cave into which he had come. The light of the rising moon, penetrating the smoke wreaths, was just strong enough to show him that he was in a tunnel, not a cave. A black abyss yawned at the back of the place, and from somewhere in its depths came a remote bumping sound, some kind of buried concussion as though a pile-driver were at work.
Larry hesitated. His interest was aroused, but so was his sense of caution. He had no gun with which to defend himself if he ran into trouble. He began to walk forward very slowly into the depths, presently taking a box of lucifers from his pocket as the blackness became absolute.
The heavy dust was undisturbed and lay deep, so evidently nobody had passed this way recently. He was glad of it in one sense: it muffled his advance if there did happen to be anybody unpleasant at the end of the journey.
And the further he went into the heart of the mountain range the more the distant concussions impressed him. He could tell that they were created mechanically by the regular intervals of silence between the reverberations.
Then, as he found that everything was not entirely dark ahead, he advanced more stealthily as the distant glow of grey turned to a golden-yellow. He reached a ledge of rock and peered over it into an enormous natural cavern lighted by batteries of oil-lamps, all of them training their glare on a gang of sweating men, toiling at the rock face. Not far from them a mechanical driller was pounding at the granite and creating the concussions that Larry had heard.
Intrigued, he lay watching, hidden in the deep shadows. The walls of the cavern were lined with rich yellow veins, suggesting gold-bearing ores. He realized he was in his own mine, the one Cliff Makin had taken away from him. Now that he came to see the enormous value of the mine — which seemed to Larry as though it might have been some leftover cavern from the days of the gold-hoarding Aztecs — he could almost understand Makin’s duplicity. Any man in his position would have found it difficult to let such a prize escape from him.
Larry continued watching the activity for some time. There were portable wooden dwellings, all manner of equipment, and gangs of men hard at work. With the whole operation obviously so well organized, Larry knew that, unarmed as he was, there was nothing he could attempt at the moment. All he could do now was to return the way he had come, and try and find his way back to the Bar-6. But at a later date …
*
And meanwhile, back at Buzzard’s Bend, Makin himself was riding out of the town. His various injuries patched up and wearing a fresh outfit, he had just received the information from Hank as to how Larry Ashfield had been eliminated. Now in distinctly better spirits, he was resolved to bring things to a head with Val King.
Reaching the Bar-6, he pounded heavily on the locked outer screen door. It was Val herself who promptly answered, having fallen into the error of thinking it was Larry who had returned. She stepped back quickly into the gloom of the hall as she recognized the voice of Makin.
‘Howdy, Val! Surprised, huh?’
‘What do you want?’ she demanded angrily. ‘I’ve told you enough times to stop pestering me — ’
‘Get in the living room,’ Makin snapped, kicking the door shut behind him. ‘I’ve a few things to tell you. — ’
Grabbing her arm, he forced her before him into the oil-lit glow of the room. Richard King had recognized Makin’s voice, and stood ready with his gun levelled.
‘Get the hell outa here, Makin,’ he said deliberately, ‘unless you want to be shot as a trespasser. Come over here, Val, where you’re safe.’
As the girl tried to obey Makin tightened his grip on her arm and swung her in front of him.
‘OK, King,’ he said briefly. ‘If you want to shoot me you can shoot through Val. Otherwise, put that gun down!’ King lowered his weapon slightly, but did not lay it aside.
Makin’s own gun suddenly leapt into his free hand. He fired deliberately, and King gave a gasp. His gun dropped and he stared fixedly for a moment at blood brimming from his torn palm. Apparently the slug had gone clean through it.
‘Dad!’ Val cried in horror, trying to break away. ‘You’re hurt! Cliff, you murdering swine — ’
‘Shut up!’ he interrupted her. ‘Your old man shouldn’t play games if he doesn’t want to get hurt. Better get your hand bound up, King — you’re losing blood fast.’
His face set hard in the lamplight, King sat down slowly and then pulled his kerchief from his neck with his uninjured hand. Using his teeth to help him, he wrapped up his damaged palm.
‘One day, Makin, I’ll return this — with interest. And let Val go, damn you!’
‘When I’m ready.’ Makin was still being cautious. ‘I just thought you’d like to know, Val, that I had to take care of your boyfriend. I don’t know what you’ve done to him in the interval, but he sure acted as though he owned Buzzard’s Bend. It became necessary to tone him down.’
‘By doing what?’ Val tore free of Makin’s grip and glared at him.
‘Hank and the boys fixed him,’ Makin said, his eyes cold. ‘He met with an ‘accident’, same as most clever guys do around here.’
‘You’ve killed him!’ Val whispered, her eyes wide in horror.
‘Put that way it sounds unpleasant.’ Makin grinned. ‘But I guess it adds up to the same thing.’
Words were beyond Val. She stood looking at Makin as though he were some kind of venomous snake. Her father’s gaze moved slightly, however, to the gloom of the hall beyond the open living room door. He saw a figure glide across it and then vanish. It was his Indian servant, who had evidently heard the voices and the shot. Possibly he had gone to fetch the ranch foreman and his boys from the bunkhouse.
‘Do you realize,’ King asked deliberately, holding his damaged hand, ‘that you’re admitting to murder in the presence of witnesses?’
‘You can talk all you like, King, but it won’t do you any good without a second witness. And the second witness being Val, that lets me out. A wife can’t testify against her husband!’
‘ What did you say?’ Val looked up sharply from an agitated contemplation of her father. ‘Have you gone crazy?’
‘Mebbe it won’t be for love,’ Makin admitted, with a cynical grin. ‘Just the same, you’ll marry me, Val — because the alternative is that you’ll lose your father!’
‘I reckon you’ve gone trigger-happy, Makin,’ King said. ‘Having fixed Larry, you think you can fix me just the same.’
‘I know I can.’ Makin twirled his gun in his fingers. ‘You’re too winged at the moment to fight back, and I’ve plenty of bullets left in this gun. Before I left town, Val, I fixed it with Luke Clay to come over here in another half-hour. He’ll perform the marriage service. He’ll bring his wife and daughter as witnesses.’
Val moved to a chair and sat down shakily. Luke Clay was the local blacksmith and preacher. When he was not shoeing horses he was ministering to the soul.
‘You think a decent-living man like Clay will ever marry us when I tell him the facts?’ she asked. ‘After I tell him everything you’ve done?’
‘Are you deliberately trying to kill your father?’ Makin demanded, still toying with his gun. ‘Another word out of place, Val, and your father gets it.’
‘Even you haven’t the damned nerve to shoot me dead with a minister and two other witnesses in the room,’ King snapped. ‘You’d swing in double-quick time!’
‘I’d probably swing anyway if Val talked too much,’ Makin answered, ‘so I’d take that risk.’ He relaxed a little and grinned. ‘Nobody need get hurt. I’ve simply removed the opposition, and now I just want you to be my wife, Val. Simple, isn’t it?’
She gave him a look of disgust, and suddenly her father, sensing Makin was distract
ed, stooped towards his fallen gun. Instantly Makin’s hard voice checked him.
‘Hold it, King! Better leave that where it is!’
He strode over to the gun, picked it up, then tossed it into a far corner of the shadowy room. Returning to the table, he perched himself on the edge of it, his gun cocked.
‘All we have to do now is to wait for the preacher.’
Silence fell. With his free hand Makin took a cheroot from his pocket. He struck a lucifer along the edge of the table and inhaled deeply at the weed. King looked about him anxiously, wondering just where his servant had gone.
‘Surprising how the time drags when you’re waiting for something exciting to happen,’ Makin commented, after a long interval. ‘Gives me the chance to tell you just what I’ve figured out for you and me, Val.’
‘I’m not interested,’ she said bitterly.
‘I am,’ a voice said from the doorway — and Makin swung round, levelling his gun simultaneously. Before he could fire a heavy object shot through the air and struck him violently on the side of the head, making him slip from the edge of the table. He found his wrist being seized and twisted violently. The savage pain caused the weapon to clatter to the table top.
‘Surprised?’ Larry enquired drily, his eyes glinting in the lamplight as he tossed Makin’s gun further aside.
‘Larry!’ Val cried joyously, leaping up. ‘He said you were dead!’
‘Trifle premature, Makin, eh?’ Larry asked, his fists clenching as the lawyer stood glaring at him. ‘You thought I went up in a blaze of glory at Eagle’s Pass, but I escaped, and luck was with me — I found my horse running round in circles trying to find me. After that, it didn’t take me long to get back here.’
‘Hank said he’d lost track of your horse,’ Makin said, recovering himself. ‘In fact I think Hank rather lost his head. I only told him to run you out of town.’
Snake Vengeance Page 5