Snake Vengeance

by Philip Harbottle

  ‘ Got her ?’ Larry dropped from the saddle. ‘You don’t mean she’s — ’

  ‘They rode away with her. Got her all bound up so’s she couldn’t escape. Mr King got shot, an’ we got him to bed … ’

  Larry did not wait for any more. He twirled round and dashed for the porch steps. In a matter of seconds he was through the living room and in King’s bedroom. King was lying flat, a bandage about his head, and another on his muscular arm.

  ‘Glad you got back, son,’ he muttered, evidently still fully conscious. ‘Sure was some dust-up not so long ago — mebbe Galt’s men.’

  ‘No doubt of it,’ Larry retorted. ‘I’m going right after Val this moment. How are you fixed? Is it bad?’

  ‘I guess not. Flesh wound across the scalp and a chunk torn outa my arm. It left me sick for a while, and the boys put me in bed here. They put up the best fight they could. Look after yourself, Larry.’

  ‘I’m more concerned about Val,’ he answered, and hurried out again.

  Half-way across the living room he slowed down and looked at the table. He had just noticed a letter lying on it, the envelope addressed to him. He snatched it up and looked at the neat handwriting. Immediately he assumed it was Galt’s.

  He was right. The letter was brief, but very much to the point.

  Dear Mr Ashfield ,

  I would be glad if you would ride over to the Double - L , and bring with you your uncle’s will . I am sure we can straighten matters out satisfactorily , concerning Miss King , I mean .

  Simon Galt .

  ‘Not so smart as he thinks,’ Larry muttered. ‘This letter is black-and-white proof that there is a will.’

  He put it in his pocket — where the will still lay folded — and then hurried outside. He only paused long enough to tell the foreman to fetch Dr Barnes to attend to the injured; then he swung to the saddle and rode hell for leather down the trail to the Double-L. Within forty-five minutes he was in Simon Galt’s living room.

  ‘I thought you wouldn’t waste any time, Ashfield,’ Galt said drily, drawing at his cigar. ‘Have a seat.’

  ‘Never mind that. Where’s Miss King?’

  ‘Nearby, and quite comfortable — at the moment. I understand that my boys played rather rough down at the Bar-6. Believe me, that was none of my doing. I simply told them to fetch Miss King here, no matter what the consequences. Apparently, they interpreted my orders a trifle too literally.’

  ‘I suppose you didn’t tell anybody to shoot the mayor, either?’

  Galt smiled broadly and his chins expanded. ‘Matter of fact, I did. I can admit it openly since we have no witnesses in this room. I thought the mayor might weaken and sign that quit notice so I made sure.’

  Galt moved to a chair and sprawled in it. He dusted tobacco ash from the lapel of his gown.

  ‘Mr Ashfield, I am going to make you a proposition. I don’t want Miss King. I merely brought her here so she can become a lever for our little deal. I am prepared to hand her back to you, in perfect health, in return for your uncle’s will.’

  ‘You’re admitting, then, that this will has some danger value?’

  ‘Yes, I admit it. Forgive my earlier strategy, Mr Ashfield. Things worked out just as I had hoped. You went to the mayor’s office, and in that time I managed to remove Miss King, or, rather, my boys did. I took the risk that when the mayor was shot you would be shot too. Had that happened I would have returned Miss King to the Bar-6, found a way to get the will from your dead body, and so make myself safe. However, none of that came to pass. You are here — with the will, I assume?’

  ‘I have it, and I’m sticking to it … ’ Larry suddenly dropped his hand to his right gun, but Galt had anticipated the action and an automatic flashed up from his gown pocket and remained steady.

  ‘I shouldn’t be too impetuous, Mr Ashfield,’ he murmured. ‘So you intend to retain the will? You do not value Miss King’s life any more highly than that?’

  Larry gave a quick look about him. Galt chuckled.

  ‘Don’t waste your time looking for ways of escape. There is none. And now I intend to progress. Maybe you would like to see Miss King?’

  Larry did not answer; so Galt got to his feet and motioned to the hall. He never relaxed his vigilance as he walked to a door and pushed it open, motioning Larry into the room beyond. It was a bedroom, neatly furnished. On the bed, her hands bound to the head of the bed and her ankles to the foot, lay Val. She turned her head as the two men came in.

  ‘Larry!’ she cried, struggling to free herself. ‘What — what happened to Dad?’

  ‘He’s alive. Just flesh wounds. I — ’

  ‘Stand still, Ashfield,’ Galt ordered. ‘One step nearer to Miss King and I’ll let you have it … As I told you,’ he continued, ‘Miss King is quite comfortable. I will release her and return her to you if you will give me the will.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Larry said bluntly. ‘You’ve got the gun. What’s stopping you taking the will from me?’

  ‘Nothing — but there is more to it than that. You will also write a letter abandoning all claim in the Double-L and the mine attached to it. I want you to do everything of your own — er — free will. Understand?’

  ‘Supposing I tell you to smash your head against a wall?’

  ‘I am afraid I would have to decline,’ Galt answered. ‘However, if you don’t do as I ask, let me show you what will happen.’

  He moved backwards, keeping his automatic at the ready. From a corner he dragged forth a large box, its top riddled with air holes. The further side of the box had a glass window inset, and through it Larry could dimly see something moving. When the box was brought nearer, so that it stood beside the bed, he could see the object clearly.

  ‘ A rattlesnake !’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Precisely,’ Galt agreed. ‘You will notice that the catch to the lid of this box has a string attached, so it can be pulled from a distance. The rattler has not had its fangs drawn … Miss King’s death from a rattler bite could never be called murder. Rattlers abound in this part of the world.’

  Galt paused and added coldly, ‘The decision is in your hands, Mr Ashfield.’

  Larry looked at the girl’s drawn, anxious face, then at the deadly rattler.

  ‘You win,’ he said. ‘Release her.’

  ‘Not yet, my friends. You will be kind enough to write the letter I shall dictate first. Come with me.’

  Larry went out of the room with Galt behind him. Val watched the door close and pulled hard on her bound wrists and ankles, but she could not budge them. She relaxed, breathing hard, cramped from strain. Her eyes travelled to the box at the bedside. The glass front was turned away from her but she could hear the slithering of the deadly reptile as it moved in its prison.

  It was the sudden thump of the lid rising and falling that made her look again at the box. She frowned; then her heart began to hammer violently as she saw the wicked head of the snake just emerging from under the lid. How it had come loose she did not know, unless in demonstrating the catch Galt had not closed it properly.

  ‘ Larry !’ Val screamed, lashing her body helplessly to try and get free. ‘ Larry ! The , snake — !’

  Nobody came in response to her shouts, probably because her voice did not travel through the closed door, across the wide hall, and through another closed door. Besides, the more she cried, the more the rattler was attracted to her. It slid gently out of the box and lay for a moment on the floor, like a shining length of multicoloured rope.

  Val lay rigid, staring at it, her fingers clenched above the ropes holding her wrists. Presently its head reared. Val shouted again, remembering that as long as the reptile was startled it would not strike. Its tail began to rattle in impatience, and as long as that continued she was safe.

  ‘ Larry !’ she yelled frantically. ‘ Larry !’

  The rattling stopped. The vile head was swinging in the air, the merciless eyes fixed upon her. She felt perspiration wet on her face
, trickling down on to the pillow. Hypnotically, the snake’s eyes held hers. It was all set for attack, its rattling tail still. Then the door clicked open and it fell back on its coils, rattling fiercely, again disturbed.

  ‘My God!’ Larry gasped — and ignoring Galt, the gun, and the danger, he dived forward.

  With a lightning movement, he seized the reptile by the centre of its body and flung it violently into the box, slamming the lid down on it. Galt said nothing for a moment as Larry fiddled with the box catch.

  ‘This is loose,’ Larry said bitterly. ‘Better get it fixed if you want to keep your filthy playmate.’

  ‘I’m sorry you were so inconvenienced, Miss King,’ Galt murmured. ‘An accident, believe me.’

  Val couldn’t speak. She was breathing hard, her face white and glistening. Larry took out his penknife and slashed through the ropes holding her. She stirred slowly and rubbed her cramped limbs.

  ‘You are at liberty to leave whenever you wish,’ Galt said. ‘Mr Ashfield and I have come to quite a satisfactory understanding.’

  ‘From your point of view only,’ Larry retorted.

  He lifted Val from the bed and set her on her feet. She began to move shakily, his arm about her waist. Galt held the door open for them, smiling only with his lips.

  Without a word Larry led the girl through the hall and to the porch. Once in the fresh air she began to recover.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Larry said, nodding towards his horse, and Val preceded him down the steps. He raised her to the saddle, swung up behind her, and then rode the animal quickly away to the trail.

  ‘Does this mean that Galt’s gotten all he wanted?’ Val asked at last, when the journey was half over.

  ‘For the moment,’ Larry acknowledged. ‘It was that, or the end of you. Only one answer, I guess … But it isn’t the finish. Not by a long way.’

  8. Snake Vengeance

  Once Larry and Val returned to the Bar-6 they had their hands full keeping things in order, several of the men in the outfit being too hurt to work, and King himself resting up until he had recovered from his flesh wounds. Dr Barnes called for the second time during the afternoon, dourly remarked that all the victims were progressing satisfactorily, and that he ought to move in permanently as a resident physician; then he departed with the assurance that he would look in again the following day.

  It was therefore around eight before Larry and Val had a settled opportunity to discuss matters over supper.

  ‘I can’t help but feel that it’s my fault that you’ve lost everything you’ve been fighting for, Larry.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’ He patted her hand as it lay on the table. ‘You are the most valuable possession I have — and Galt was smart enough to realize it. I wrote a letter under his dictates, by which I gave up all claims in the Double-L and the gold mine, and I handed him the will — but I also took good care to notice where the safe was at the same time.’

  ‘You mean you’re going to risk trying to get the letter and will back?’ Val shook her head. ‘That’s just what Galt will be expecting, and the spread will be bristling with guns. And even if you could get to the safe, how will you open it? If it comes to that, where’s the guarantee it will contain what you’re looking for?’

  ‘It will: I’m sure of it. Galt wouldn’t trust his most important papers to anything less than a safe. As for opening the safe, that won’t be difficult. I kept back half of the sticks of that dynamite we found in Makin’s office — they’re still in my saddle-bag. They made short work of Makin’s safe, and will do the same for Galt’s.’

  ‘But how are you going to actually get into his living room? His ranch is crawling with men … ’

  ‘I’ve got it all mapped out, Val, and it’s going to be a one-man job. I must handle it in my own way. I propose to set fire to several of the outhouses and start plenty of activity in that direction. Galt will be bound to join the fire-fighters, and when that happens I’ll get busy and recover those documents.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’Val said uneasily. ‘He strikes me as being much more dangerous than anybody we’ve yet come up against.’

  Larry only smiled and went on with his meal. When the meal was over he made the final preparations for his one-man raid on the Double-L. He removed the spare dynamite from his saddlebag and packed it in a satchel, which could be easily carried on his shoulder. He also packed some thin rope.

  When real darkness came he set off, his guns loaded and his belts full of cartridges, the satchel tied to the horn of his saddle. Those men who were fit were left in the Bar-6 outfit, ordered to remain on guard in case anything was attempted on Val and her father, though this seemed unlikely now that Galt had got what he wanted.

  The Double-L was in darkness when Larry approached it. He dismounted perhaps half a mile from it, standing for a long time with his horse in the deep shadow of a cedar tree. Carefully he surveyed the ranch, looking for any men who were possibly hidden about it.

  Securing his horse’s reins, he took down the satchel on to his shoulder, lifted his right-hand gun and then made a swift, crouching circuit of the ranch so that he eventually came to its rear. From this point he began to advance, the only sound he made coming from the dry grass beneath him. After a while a dog barked somewhere on the spread, a deep and powerful baying that reminded him of the Alsatians guarding the Bar-6. But he was confident he could handle the animal if he had to.

  At length he gained the first outhouses and felt in his pocket for lucifers. Just as he was doing so, a shadowy figure came into view carrying a rifle — obviously one of the Double-L outfit on patrol. Larry did not wait to have the rifle levelled at him. He lashed out the butt of his heavy gun and struck the man behind the ear before he had fully grasped what was happening. With a grunt he buckled to the ground, his rifle clattering from him. The noise of it set the dog barking again, this time from a much nearer point, and apparently coming nearer still.

  Larry looked about him quickly, struck his lucifer, and put the flame under the piles of straw just inside the outhouse’s open doorway. Then, as the fire instantly kindled, he swung round to see the green eyes of a dog bobbing towards him as the animal hurtled forward.

  The dog leapt straight at him — a mastiff, and what it lacked in training it made up for in ferocity. Larry found himself stumbling backwards, the heavy, snarling head only a few inches from his face. He flung up his left hand and closed it round the dog’s bottom jaw, holding it in a steel grip so that it could not bite. Then, still clinging on by sheer muscular effort, he twisted the gun in his right hand and slammed it down again and again on the back of the brute’s head. It growled and groaned by turns, writhing at each blow and striving to close its jaws. Larry struck yet again, and this time he stunned the creature into unconsciousness. It relaxed across him. He dragged out his saliva-fouled hand from the sharp teeth and staggered to his feet.

  There were sounds of hurrying footsteps. He bounded away from the blaze into the darker shadows at the opposite side of the yard and watched intently what happened.

  The men of the outfit, attracted by the barking of the dog, and evidently seeing the fire, came on the scene in another moment or two. They rushed in and out of the smoke for a while, then orders were shouted, and the men began the job of transporting water and fire-fighting equipment. Larry grinned as he watched them, then, as the fire got a stronger hold and consequently increased its glare, he escaped round the back of the ranch and, by degrees, worked his way to the side of it where the living room lay.

  He made no immediate moves. He stopped where he could watch the porch, and it was not long before he saw Galt himself appear, hastily dressed in shirt and riding-pants, his gross figure outlined against the blaze, followed by his half-breed servant. He shouted instructions to his servant who ran on to join the fire-fighters. Had Galt then gone with him, Larry would have carried out his plan of breaking into the living room through the window and doing his utmost to ransack the safe before Galt came
back. But instead Galt stopped and looked about him, which — from Larry’s point of view — made things all the easier.

  He quickly vaulted the rail round the porch and sped across to where Galt stood. Galt swung round at the sounds of Larry’s approach and snatched at his gun — then he gasped and reeled as iron knuckles slammed under his jaw. Unable to keep his balance, he rolled into the hall through the front doorway. Instantly Larry was after him, stopping only to bolt the front door behind him. The hall was dark, but the flames from across the yard cast a faint reflection through the hall window.

  ‘Get up!’ Larry commanded, prodding Galt’s dim figure with his gun. ‘And I’ll take that … ’

  He took Galt’s .45 from him and put it into his belt, then he sent the fat rancher stumbling forward into the living room. Again Larry secured the door, then he looked at Galt steadily. Everything in the room was brightly visible without the need of the oil-lamp, thanks to the flames from the raging outhouse.

  ‘Maybe I should have expected this, Ashfield,’ Galt said, fingering his bruised chins.

  ‘I’m surprised you didn’t,’ Larry retorted. ‘Or maybe you thought your patrols and mastiff were sufficient? I can think up strategy the same as you can. Now sit down by the safe over there.’

  Having no alternative, Galt obeyed, keeping his hands up. Once he had got him into the chair Larry lowered his satchel from his shoulder and used some of the thin rope within it to bind Galt hand and foot.

  ‘I brought this to deal with your servant,’ Larry said, ‘but it’ll do nicely for you.’ When the man was secured Larry holstered his gun.

  ‘If anybody comes chasing you, Galt — as they probably will if the blaze doesn’t die down — you’ll not answer,’ he said. ‘In fact, I’ll make sure of it.’

  Next he used his own kerchief to make a gag, leaving Galt glaring at him fixedly.