Big Jim 12

by Marshall Grover

  “Yes,” Magnus nodded wearily. “You’re right, of course. We’d best be getting home.” As he descended to his waiting horse, he voiced a thought that consoled him somewhat. “She’s Page’s wife by now—but I can damn soon arrange for her to be his widow.”

  In the hour after noon, Jim heard the familiar and urgent sound rising over the strumming of guitars, the loud laughter and congenial conversation surrounding the smiling bride and groom. To the big man, at this time, the drumming of hooves could mean only one thing. With Trish trotting after him, he strode out onto the patio. Darius McRowan was bringing his mount to a slithering halt. As Jim started towards the youth, he was hastily followed by the other McRowans, Quaine, Mooney and. the marshal. Young Darius said it quietly.

  “They’re on their way back. I saw their dust and I can tell you we got all the time we need.”

  “Moving slow, are they?” prodded Lomax.

  “Crawlin’,” grinned Darius.

  “Well, that don’t surprise me none,” drawled his father. “I’m thinkin’ they’ve been hustlin’ all over the territory—tryin’ to find a lost weddin’.”

  “All right, gents,” frowned Jim. “Time to move out. Pass the word in a hurry.”

  Despite their enjoyment of the festivities, the friends and relatives of the Garfields were more than ready to obey the command to vacate; they had been expecting it. In double-quick time they remounted their horses or clambered into the wagons, buggies and other rigs, to begin a fast retreat from the canyon. They waved farewell to the Mexican servants. By now, most of the male servants were much the worse for tequila; their womenfolk were beginning to clean up the debris.

  At speed, Jim led the wagons across the canyon floor, skirting the herd and racing on eastward. Out through the rocky portals they moved, to veer left and travel once again to the concealment of the timber atop the ridge.

  The big man and his volunteers waited only long enough to ensure that every person, animal and vehicle was completely hidden, before beginning another descent towards the canyon mouth. This time, they descended on foot breaking into a run at every stretch of level ground. Much to the bride’s alarm, the bridegroom had insisted on borrowing a six-shooter and joining the other volunteers. He caught up with Jim as the big man was running the last few yards to the canyon entrance. Throwing him a sidelong glance, Jim growled a reproach.

  “You should stay with your bride, Corporal.”

  “Not this time, Sarge,” muttered Nathan. “A lot of good men are about to risk their lives on my account. Well—I aim to be one of ’em.”

  They were hefting quite an armory, when they reached the canyon entrance and began climbing to the peaks to north and south of it. Jim toted his own Winchester as well as his Colt. Lomax hefted a shotgun, as did Quaine and Drury. Mooney had borrowed a Henry repeater, and the belligerent, vengeance-hungry McRowans were armed to the teeth. A half-dozen wedding guests had insisted on joining them, and all six hefted handguns.

  They took up their positions and were ducking down out of sight when the returning gunmen came into view. Into the canyon Magnus led his men, but slowly. Their horses had been spelled only for a short time and were again badly in need of rest. Squatting beside Nathan and Lomax, Jim watched the twenty-two riding westward towards the ranch buildings. Poker-faced, he asked, “Any sporting men here? Anybody want to bet how Magnus will take it?”

  “He looked sorer than a bull with a hide full of boils,” drawled the marshal. “I think he’ll explode like a dynamite-charge when his servants tell him the news. He won’t be thinking very clearly, if you know what I mean. Chances are he’ll only wait long enough for his outfit to saddle fresh horses—and then...”

  “And then,” breathed Nathan, “they’ll come charging across the canyon floor like a passel of rampaging Apaches.” Kane Magnus was actually dismounting by the patio before the terrible suspicion smote him. The first indication was the failure of any servant to come scuttling out to take charge of his horse. He stood beside the bay, his face florid and shining with perspiration. His dilated eyes suddenly perceived the litter of tequila bottles, plus three Mexicans sleeping off the effects of the liquor. He turned to snarl a command at the dumbfounded Storl.

  “Saddle fresh horses! Tell the men to be ready to move out again!”

  “What happened here?” frowned Storl.

  “I’m—not sure!” panted Magnus. “I only hope I’m wrong! I’d better be wrong!”

  He dashed into the house yelling at the servants, cursing the suddenly startled women who were working so hard at tidying up the debris. He almost burst into tears of rage when he barged into the salon and found the piano missing. A few moments later, locating that precious instrument in the dining room, he observed the littered table, the many discarded glasses, and was forced to the obvious conclusion. What Lend of Satan had done this to him? Who would dare? He roused a slumbering Mexican, dragging him off a sofa and back-handing him till be begged for mercy. In answer to his shouted query, the servant shrugged helplessly and explained:

  ‘Was a boda, patron. One beautiful wedding—muy bello. The Señorita Garfield and the Señor Page—and many gringos...”

  “No...!” wailed Magnus.

  And this anguished cry carried clear to the men out front. The hirelings of the would-be despot were transferring their saddles to fresh horses, when he bounded out of the house and came running to the corrals.

  “Get mounted—get mounted! They’ll be back in town by now! I want Nathan Page—and every local man who lent him aid! I’ll execute them personally—hang them in the main street...!”

  Of all the employees of this irate megalomaniac, only Perry Storl was plagued by foreboding, as the twenty-two again raced their mounts across XL range. He realized what had happened here, was forced to acknowledge that his astute and far-sighted leader had, for once, been outsmarted and out-maneuvered—and in no uncertain terms. Defeat was complete. From this day on, the name of Kane Magnus would stand for naught but derision in San Rafael. Already, Storl was wishing he could quit; he hankered to be many miles away from his enraged employer at this moment.

  They were less than ninety feet from the canyon entrance when Jim Rand cut loose with his Winchester, triggering the shot that was to be a signal for the wedding party as well as a warning to the hardcases. His well-aimed bullet kicked up dirt in front of the first horse, the animal ridden by Magnus. Startled, the horse reared so quickly that Magnus lost control. Over its rump he back-somersaulted, crashing to the ground in a flurry of dust, cursing obscenely. The other riders reined up hastily. Hands flew to holsters, then froze, as the parade-ground bellow of the big ex-sergeant echoed across the flats.

  “Keep your hands away from the hardware! You’re under our guns, and we’ll open fire if we have to!”

  “Rand!” yelled Magnus, lurching to his feet, “I should’ve guessed it’d be you—you double-dealing son of a...!”

  “One warning, Magnus!” boomed Jim. “That shot was a signal. The wedding party is coming down off the ridge now—and heading for San Rafael.”

  “They’ll not get away with this!” cried Magnus, gesticulating wildly.

  “They’ve gotten away with it, Magnus!” Jim retorted. “We held the wedding at XL! We’ve proved you can be licked!”

  “You...!” raged Magnus.

  “And now you’ll quit, if you know what’s good for you!” declared Jim. “Tell your men to unstrap their guns and move back to the ranch!”

  “The hell I will!” shouted Magnus.

  “Magnus, this is the marshal!” called Lomax. “I want you for the murder of Burton McRowan Junior—and I want the scum who actually pulled the trigger!”

  Shocked to the core, Magnus was silent for a whole ten seconds. But, when next he spoke, he was still defiant.

  “Trying to sound brave, Lomax?” he jeered. “You’ve managed to stay sober for a few hours—so you think you’re a man again?”

  “Kane Magnus!” boomed Burt
McRowan. “You stand responsible for the death of my youngest son—and I demand your surrender!”

  “Go to Hell!” snarled Magnus.

  From under his coat he whisked a six-gun. It roared and belched fire in the general direction of the old man’s voice, and this rash act prompted his men to follow his example. They filled their hands, and the area about the canyon entrance seemed to explode in a thunderous storm of gunfire. Storl pitched from his mount, his gun-arm broken and useless, his gun only half-drawn. Magnus, weeping from the agony of the two bullets fired into him by the McRowan’s, stumbled five yards and collapsed to die with his face in the dust.

  Moss, Gribbon and Hillary had ascertained Jim’s position and were riding fast for the base of the rock-wall, rising in their saddles, cutting loose with their six-guns. Their lead whined and smacked about the peaks behind which Jim, Nathan and the marshal crouched. Grim-faced, they returned fire. A bullet actually gashed Nathan’s face and the impact sent him lurching against Jim, but gamely, he straightened up and resumed shooting, yelling a heated reproach that seemed out of character in so peace-loving an ex-soldier.

  ‘Lousy, good-for-nothin’ skunks—turning a man’s wedding into a shootin’ match!”

  “Keep your head down, Corporal,” growled Jim, as his barking Winchester accounted for Moss.

  A ricocheting slug tore Lomax’s shirt at the left side, gashing his flesh in the process. He turned pale, as the force of the bullet spun him round. He had lost his grip oil his shotgun and was now emptying his holster. But for Jim’s restraining hand, he might have pitched forty feet to the canyon floor. Righting himself, he choked back a cry of pain, squinted along the barrel of his Colt and squeezed trigger. He had the satisfaction of seeing Hillary plummet from his horse before oblivion claimed him. Almost simultaneously, Jim got a bead on Gribbon and knocked him out of his saddle with a bullet that embedded in his shoulder.

  Cliff McRowan fell unconscious by his father’s knee, but the old man had the satisfaction of perceiving that the wound was not critical; a wild bullet had carried Cliff’s hat away, shallowly creasing his scalp in the process. Darius, like his father, was still wreaking havoc with his rifle.

  Anse Drury was destined to be off duty from the reception desk of his hotel for some little time. Wounded in left shoulder and right arm, he flopped behind a rock and lost consciousness.

  Of the men trading shots with the gunfighters from the heights above the canyon gate, the only fatality was Jefford Mooney. He slumped beside the patriarchal Quaine and, as the blacksmith mumbled a prayer over him, grinned weakly and said:

  “One thing I never expected, Jeb. I never—expected—I’d die sober...”

  Almost as suddenly as it had begun, the battle came to an end. Caught out in the open, the mounted hardcases were at a severe disadvantage. Many a horse was riderless now. Many a once-formidable gunman lay sprawled in the dust, wounded mortally or superficially, or dead—a sacrifice to the greed and fury of the man who had lusted for a woman promised to another. The survivors dropped their guns and raised their hands. Loudly, Jim called orders to them:

  “Dismount! Step clear of your horses—and keep your hands up! You’ll be covered for every minute it takes the rest of us to climb down there!” To Nathan, now dabbing at his face with a kerchief, he drawled a gentler command. “Climb down slow and careful, Corporal. Then find your horse and ride on after your bride.”

  “Jim,” breathed Nathan, “I’m thanking you from the bottom of my heart…”

  “Glad to do a favor for an old army man,” grinned Jim.

  “Whole damn territory’s in your debt, Rand,” mumbled Lomax.

  “You still awake, Marshal?” asked Jim, winking at Nathan. “I’d have thought you’d lost consciousness long before now.”

  “I’ll stay awake long enough to climb down,” predicted Lomax.

  But he closed his eyes and collapsed into Jim’s arms a few moments later, and was carried down to level ground draped over Jim’s shoulders. Young Darius was on his way back to the ridge with two unscathed wedding guests, to fetch the horses. The dead Mooney and the other wounded were carefully brought down from the heights and, in response to Jim’s commands, a couple of volunteers commandeered two of the XL horses and rode to the ranch to harness a wagon. The rig was to be used to transport the dead and wounded to San Rafael.

  At sundown of that day, when Jim approached the front gate of the Hayward house, he was hailed by the excited Trish. She came scampering towards him in tomboyish fashion, waving, smiling her cheery smile, wrinkling her freckled nose at him. He paused by the gate in the picket fence, doffed his Stetson to her and suggested:

  “You ought to be home with your folks. It’s about time for your mother to start wailing about losing a daughter. That’s how the mother of the bride usually takes on, isn’t it?”

  “Mother’s fine and so is Dad,” she chuckled. “And it has finally occurred to them that Kane Magnus was a menace to the community. But that isn’t why I came looking for you, Jim. I was just down at the jailhouse to talk to Marshal Lomax. He took a statement from Perry Storl—the XL foreman.”

  “And?”

  “At least we know the answer to an important question, Jim. It was something you were curious about, remember? You wondered just how rich a man like Magnus could hope to become—here in sleepy old San Rafael?”

  Jim leaned against the fence, began rolling a cigarette.

  “I’ll allow I was a mite curious about that,” he nodded. “It looked like he spent a fortune to turn the XL ranch house into a palace and hire an army of gunslingers, and now those gunslingers are wiped out—all but the seven in the town jail.” He stared pensively along the quiet side street. “At the end, Magnus didn’t have much to show for all his scheming, did he?”

  “Wait till you hear why he wanted to control our town, why he tried to buy a share of every saloon, every store...” began Trish.

  “I’m waiting,” he grunted, “just as patiently as I know how. Go ahead. Tell me.”

  “It’s all very clear now,” Trish told him. “We’re going to be part of the Santa Fé and Northwest Railroad. It turns out Magnus bribed one of their big shots and got some inside information. Only Magnus knew the railroad would be laying track in this area, running a spur-line clear through San Rafael. Our town will come alive in a big way, Jim. Every local merchant can expect extra business now, and a fair share of the profits.”

  “I figured there’d be a good reason,” mused Jim, “why Magnus would want a piece of every business in a small town. Well …” He shrugged philosophically, “it goes to prove there’s an explanation for everything.”

  She changed the subject now, wistfully glancing up to the porch of the doctor’s house.

  “You’re going in to check on Benito?”

  “I owe him a visit,” he nodded.

  “It’s a terrible thing to say,” she confided, “but I almost hope Benito is laid up for a long time. The longer the better, Jim. The longer you stay in San Rafael, the older I’ll get, and you won’t be able to call me a foolish little girl, and...”

  “The older you get,” he good-humoredly reminded her, “the older I get.” He jerked a thumb. “Go on now. Skedaddle. I’ll stop by the store to say howdy, after I’ve visited with the Mex.”

  A few minutes later, in the front parlor, he was querying the physician regarding his patient’s progress. Was it only his imagination, or did Dr. Hayward seem unduly perplexed?

  “Your small friend will enjoy a fairly rapid recovery,” Hayward assured him. “After three weeks, the wound should be almost healed, but I wouldn’t advise his beginning any kind of journey until at least four weeks from now.”

  “Well, thanks, Doc,” acknowledged Jim. “And is it okay if I look in on him now?”

  “If—uh—if you wish to take the risk,” shrugged Hayward.

  “Risk?” prodded Jim.

  “I’ve handled all manner of cases since I graduated from medical scho
ol,” muttered Hayward, mopping at his brow, “but I swear I’ve never—and will never again—encounter such a classic case of kleptomania. He’s unbelievable! Only fifteen minutes after he aroused from the anesthetic, I went into his room and found it stripped almost bare. The articles—useless things—I found secreted inside his nightshirt and under the mattress...”

  ‘It sounds like the little feller is starting to feel healthy again,” drawled Jim.

  “I can’t swear to this,” said the awestruck Hayward, “but I have a feeling he tried to pick my pocket while I was dressing his wound—and I’m certain he was unconscious at the time!”

  “A pickpocket as busy as Benito,” Jim gravely told him, “isn’t apt to stop stealing just because he’s unconscious.”

  “I—beg your pardon?” blinked Hayward.

  “Let it pass, Doc,” said Jim.

  Quietly, he opened the door of the room occupied by his buck-toothed shadow. The swarthy little man opened one eye, bared his teeth in a bland grin.

  “Saludos, Amigo Jim!”

  “Saludos yourself,” nodded Jim, entering the room. “Como esta usted?”

  “Muy bien, gracias,” declared Benito.

  “That’s a lie and you know it,” accused Jim. “You look like hell.”

  “Is all finish—the fighting?” Benito demanded.

  “All finish,” said Jim. He paused by the window, raised his eyes to the starlit sky. “Soon as you’re fit to ride, we’ll be moving on again.”

  “Always we will travel,” Benito philosophically supposed, “until we find this Jenner, eh?”

  “Por cierto,” agreed the big man, nodding slowly. “Until I find Jenner.”

  About the Author

  Leonard Frank Meares (February 13, 1921 - February 4, 1993)

  Sydney born Len Meares aka Marshall Grover, published around 750 novels, mostly westerns. His best-known works feature Texas trouble-shooters Larry and Stretch. Before starting to write, Meares served in the Royal Australian Air Force, worked in the Department of Immigration and sold shoes. In the mid-1950s he bought a typewriter to write radio and film scripts. Inspired by the success of local paperback westerns, he wrote Trouble Town, which was published by the Cleveland Publishing Company in 1955. His tenth yarn, Drift! (1956), introduced Larry Valentine and Stretch Emerson. In 1960, he created a brief but memorable series of westerns set in and around the town of Bleak Creek. Four years later came The Night McLennan Died, the first of more than 70 westerns (sometimes called oaters) to feature cavalryman-turned-manhunter Big Jim Rand.