by Zane Grey
“I’ll remember thet, Madden;” rejoined Stone, in a surprise he did not show. “Thet’s straight talk. I didn’t think it was in you.”
They finished the meal, after which Stone smoked in front of the fire, where Madden presently joined him.
“Forgot aboot thet dead hombre out there,” he said. “We ought to have planted him.”
“Maddy, you’ve slept before where there was a dead man lyin’ around.”
“Shore. But I ain’t crazy aboot it.”
After a while, which was mostly silence, they sought their blankets. Stone’s bed happened to be in the corner just inside where Bambridge lay, and he could smell the blood. Sleep did not come readily, so presently he got up, and carrying his blankets to another unoccupied bough-couch in the cabin, he spread them in that. It was a quiet night, with no sound except a low moan of wind in the caverns of the great overhanging cliff. And some hours elapsed before Stone fell into slumber.
Next morning he was up with the sun, and something, as black and uncanny as the vanished night, had left him. Stone walked along the wall, as far as the intersecting canyon which the rustlers used as a corral for the horses. He reminded himself that he did this quite often. There seemed no sense in deceiving himself — would soon be riding away from the rendezvous and the brakes. Which presupposed that he did not mean to give Malloy a chance to kill him!
On his return he heard a halloa, and quickening his steps soon turned a corner of wall to see riders coming up the slope. Three — with pack animals!
Madden hailed him from the door. “Croak comin’ with Blacky an’ some fellar I cain’t make out yet.”
Stone, in action of which he was unaware, hitched his heavy belt, as if about to mount a horse or undertake something physical. As he went up the porch steps his quick eye took in the tarpaulin that hid Bambridge. The body looked like some covered packs.
“Maddy, no hurry aboot tellin’ Croak,” said Stone, indicating the dead man.
“All right, Boss. I’d jest as lief see Croak cheerful as long as possible.”
Then they both went into the cabin, Madden to bustle around the fire, and Stone to watch through one of the chinks between the logs. The three rustlers came very slowly up the slope, to halt before the cabin. A lean, dark rider, the stranger, sagged in his saddle. A bloody bandage showed from under his sombrero. He was the last to dismount, but they were all ridden out. Without speaking they threw saddles and packs, and left the weary horses standing.
“Wal, if thar’s anybody home they shore ain’t powerful glad to see us,” said Malloy, gruffly.
Madden ran out, his hands white with flour. “Howdy, men! We seen you comin’, but didn’t think it no call fer a brass band.”
“Haw! — I should smile not...Anybody hyar?” returned Malloy.
“Only the boss.”
Whereupon Stone stalked out, and a singular incomprehensible fact was that he was glad to see the gunman. Croak radiated the raw hard force of the range. He was, at best, an ally to depend upon in times that tried men. On the other hand, Stone certainly had a wavering thought — this was the moment! Nevertheless, he did not take advantage of it.
“Mornin’, Croak. How’s tricks?” he said, cheerfully.
“Hullo there, you old son-of-a-gun!” replied Malloy. “Got news fer you — an’ somethin’ else.”
Malloy limped. Something beside sweat and dust had caked on his worn yellow chaps — something dark and sinister. Stone’s sharp eye caught a bullet-hole in the leather. Malloy carried a rifle, saddlebag, and an extra gun-belt, minus shells. His leather jacket looked as if he had slept in wet clay that had hardened. His crooked face somehow appeared wonderful to look at, or else Stone’s mind at the moment was steeped in strong feeling. Malloy might have been wearing a death mask, yet his eyes were alight, and it seemed that in them was a smile. His boots dragged across the floor, his spurs jangled, as he went into the cabin, to deposit wearily what he carried.
“Howdy, you cook!” he called. “Then thet four-flush cattle thief didn’t come out?”
“Croak, I’ve shore got bad news,” returned Madden. “But s’pose you rest a little — an’ eat somethin’ — before I spring it on you.”
“Good idee. I’m glad as a tarantula wasp anyhow...I reckoned Bambridge wouldn’t come...An’ mebbe I like it jest as well as if he did. No more deals fer me with thet —— !”
“Sounds good to me, Croak,” returned Stone, with satisfaction. “Reckon I can give you a reason why you can’t take up any more deals with Bambridge. But it’s bad news. An’ suppose you have a shot at my bottle first.”
Malloy took a long drink of fiery liquor that made him cough huskily and brought colour to his ashen cheeks.
“Uggh! — if I’d hed thet two days ago mebbe I’d never got hyar,” he said, enigmatically.
“Where’s Lang?”
“Ha! — Feedin’ the buzzards.”
“You don’t say,” returned the outlaw leader, coolly, though the statement had struck fire from him. Another of the original Hash-Knife gone! Lang was not loyal, but he belonged to the old school, and once he had been respectable.
Slow footfalls thudded up the steps outside, across the porch. The bar of light from the door darkened. Reeves entered with the lean-jawed stranger.
“Hed to shoot thet bay. She was bad crippled,” announced Reeves.
“Should have been done before,” replied Malloy. “Boss, shake hands with Sam Tanner...Cousin of Joe’s from up Little Colorado way.”
“Howdy, Tanner,” said Stone, civilly, though he did not move toward Malloy’s new man. Perhaps this omission was not noticed, as table and packs and also Malloy stood between. Tanner merely bowed his bandaged head, which, with sombrero removed, showed matted hair, and dark stains extending down over the left temple and ear.
“Must have jagged your haid on a snag or somethin’,” went on Stone.
“Nary snag. I got sideways to a lead slug,” returned Tanner. He had a low voice, and a straight, level look from his black eyes. Stone gauged men of the range with speed and precision. This fellow, since he was kin to Joe Tanner, and in the company of Croak Malloy, could be only another of their ilk, but he seemed a man to consider thoughtfully.
“Croak, I reckon you’ll be tellin’ me you’ve had a little brush with somebody,” said Stone, dryly.
“Brush? — Haw haw!” rejoined the gunman, and his flaring glance, his crisp query, and his deadly little croak of a laugh made Stone’s flesh creep. He guessed there were some dead men somewhere who would never tell the tale of what had happened.
“Wal, take your time tellin’ me,” drawled the leader.
“Come an’ get it,” yelled Madden.
“A good stiff drink with some hot grub — an’ a fellar’s able to go on,” he said, as he rose. “But I’ll shore sleep most like our pard Lang hangin’ down there on thet cottonwood.”
Stone did not reveal his curiosity; he knew he would soon be enlightened, and if his intuition was not at fault most weighty things had happened. But when Malloy drew a heavy roll of soiled greenbacks from his pocket and tossed it over, Stone could not hide a start.
“Bambridge sent thet money he owed you,” said Malloy. “Like the muddlehead he is he trusted it to Darnell...An’ I’m tellin’ you, pard, if it hadn’t been fer me you’d never seen it.”
“I reckon. Thanks — Croak,” replied the outlaw chief, haltingly. This was one of the surprising attributes of the little gunman. Vicious and crooked as he was, he yet had that quality which forced respect, if not more, from Stone’s reluctant mind.
Malloy laboriously took off his chaps and flapped them into his corner of the cabin. Then a bloody wet spot showed on the leg of his jeans. “Some hot water, Maddy, an’ a clean rag. I’ve a crease on my laig.”
“What’s the fellar got who gave you thet cut, Croak?” queried Stone.
“He got nothin’, wuss luck. I was shore damn near my everlastin’, Jed, an’ don’t yo
u overlook it...Sam, you better have Madden wash thet bullet hole of yours. He’s pretty handy.”
Stone curiously watched the deft Madden dress the wounds of the injured rustlers.
In due time the ministering was ended, after which Malloy asked for another drink. “Reckon I’d better get some of my news off my chest. Then after I hear yours I’ll have a nap of about sixteen hours...Boss, would you mind comin’ out on the porch where I can set down an’ talk?”
They went outside, and Stone experienced a qualm when Malloy hobbled to his favourite seat. The foot of his injured leg rested upon what he must have thought was a pack, but it happened to be Bambridge’s head under the tarpaulin.
“Jed, you know thet trapper’s cabin down hyar a ways — reckon aboot three hours’ stiff ridin’? — Thet old one under the wall, where a spring runs out by a big white sycamore?”
“Shore I know it. Slept there often enough. Full of mice an’ bugs.”
“Wal, it ain’t no more,” said Malloy, with a grim chuckle. “It’s a heap of ashes.”
“Burnt, eh? What you fellars doin’ — burnin’ all the cabins around?”
“Hell no. We didn’t do it. That darned Slinger Dunn!”
“Ah, I see...Wal, Slinger is a bad hombre. Too much like an Apache!...Hope you didn’t brush with the Diamond.”
“Jed, your hopes air only born to be dashed. Me an’ you left of the Hash-Knife, ‘cept Maddy hyar — an’ you can lay it to thet damned slick tracker Dunn an’ the outfit he’s throwed in with. You oughta have killed him long ago.”
“Not so easy to do as to say,” replied Stone, sarcastically.
“Ha — you’re talkin’. Wal, I had a chanct to kill Slinger, but it’d have meant me gettin’ it too.”
“You’re learnin’ sense late — mebbe too late, Croak...I hope to God, though, you didn’t raid this new stock of Jim Traft’s.”
“No, Jed, we didn’t,” replied Malloy, frankly. “I was sore at you fer talkin’ ag’in’ it, but after I got away an’ seen what a mess Bambridge an’ his card sharper got me into I changed my mind. Not that I wouldn’t of druv the cattle later! But this hyar wasn’t the time. An’ if Bambridge had come to meet me hyar, as he promised, with a new deal on fer this Diamond stock, I’d shore have taken the money, but I wouldn’t have made a single move. Not now.”
“Wal, you puzzle me. Suppose you quit ridin’ round in a circle,” declared Stone, impatiently.
“Fust aboot the money Bambridge sent you by Darnell,” began Malloy. “I seen he was flush at Tanner’s, an’ he was losin’ fer a change. Joe is pretty keen himself with the cairds. I set in till I was broke. We hung round Joe’s ranch fer a week, waitin’, an’ finally I got wind of this backhand game Darnell was playin’. He was the mouth-piece between me an’ Bambridge. But all the time he was hatchin’ a deal on his own hook. An’ this one was to make a raid on Blodgett’s range without lettin’ Bambridge in on it. Joe Tanner never was no smart fellar, an’ shore he was always greedy. So he double-crossed us, too. Wal, it was Sam hyar who put me wise. An’ after figgerin’ some an’ snoopin’ around I seen the deal. Funny I didn’t shoot Darnell. But I jest held him up. Then he swore the big roll he had was fer you from Bambridge. I reckoned thet was the truth...Wal, a day or so after they druv the lower end of the brakes an’ got some odd thousand head of Diamond stock up on the open range below Tanner’s. I was hoppin’ mad when I found out, but neither Darnell or Joe came back to Tanner’s. Sam’s sweet on the sawmill man’s daughter, an’ thet’s how he come to be out of what followed. He told me, an’ also thet Darnell, Joe, Lang, an’ some riders he didn’t know were comin’ up to get another whack at the Diamond cattle. Then I was a-rarin’ to get at them. I seen it all too late. Bambridge, by playin’ on my hopes, had got me in on his deals. He was aimin’ fer a big stake — then to duck out of Arizona. Now Darnell carried his messages to an’ fro, an’ he seein’ a chanct himself, double-crossed Bambridge an’, as I said, persuaded Joe Tanner to throw in with him.”
Malloy refilled his pipe and called for Madden to fetch him a light. After puffing thoughtfully, his cramped, wrinkled brow expressive of much, he went on:
“I took their trail with Sam. Night before last, jest before sundown we come damn near gettin’ run down by a stampede of cattle. We rustled to thet trapper’s cabin, an’, by Gawd! we hadn’t hardly hid our horses an’ slipped in there when hyar come Joe, Lang, Darnell, an’ his seedy-lookin’ outfit. Some of them had sense enough to ride on. But both Darnell an’ Tanner had been shot an’ found ridin’ hard. I never seen a madder man than Tanner, nor a scareder one than Darnell. We’d jest started to have hell there — with me readin’ it to them, when we found out who an’ what was chasin’ them...No less than the Diamond outfit, Jed, led by Slinger Dunn an’ thet Prentiss cowpuncher — Dog-gone, I’d always wanted to run ag’in’ him!...Wal, there they had us, an’ you can bet we didn’t sleep much thet night. When daylight come I took a look out, an’ was surprised when the bullets began to fly. Them darned punchers all had rifles! An’ there we was, with only our guns, no shells to spare, little grub, an’ no water at all. We was stuck, an’ you bet I told them.
“It wasn’t long after thet when I smelled smoke,” resumed Malloy, after a pause. “Thet damned redskin Dunn had set fire to the cabin roof. It was an old roof of shacks an’ brush, an’ shore dry. Burn? You should have heerd it! We didn’t have a hell of a lot of time. Fire began to drop on us. Lookin’ out, I seen thet the cowboys had bunched over at the edge of the woods, jest out of gunshot. I seen also thet the smoke from the cabin was blowin’ low an’ gettin’ thicker. ‘Men,’ I says, ‘we’ve got one chanct an’ a slim one. Take it or leave it. I’m gonna run out under cover of thet smoke, an’ make a break fer cover. Anyway, it’s better to be shot than burn up or hang. Take your choice. But whoever’s comin’ with me start when I yell.’”
Malloy took another long pull at his pipe, and his wonderful eyes, flaring with lightning, swept down over the wild brakes and along the wandering grey wall of rock.
“I waited till a thick lot of smoke rolled off the roof,” went on Malloy, “an’ then I yelled, ‘Let ‘er rip!’ An’ I run fer it, a gun in each hand. To do ’em credit, every last man in the cabin charged with me. But what’n hell could they do?...Wal, I got a bullet in the laig fust thing, an’ I went down. But I got up an’ run as best I could. You’d thought an army had busted loose — there was so much shootin’. An’ bullets — say, they was like bees! But we had the smoke with us, or not one man jack of us would have escaped. Shore I was shootin’, but bein’ crippled an’ on the run, I was shootin’ pore. I nailed one of them punchers, though, an’ I seen another one fall. Thet one was daid before he hit the ground. But someone else allowed fer him...I got to the timber an’ fell in the brush, where you bet I laid low. I reckoned my laig was broke. But I wasn’t even bad shot, an’ when I got it tied up I felt better. The shootin’ an’ yellin’ soon ended. I peeped through the brush...an’ what do you reckon I seen?”
“Some rustler swingin’.” returned Stone, hazarding a guess.
“Nope. It was thet caird sharp, Darnell. But when I seen him fust they hadn’t swung him up. I could hear him beggin’. But thet Diamond bunch was shore silent an’ swift. They jerked him clear, till he kicked above their haids. I seen his tongue stick out...then his face go black...An’ next went up Lang an’ Joe Tanner. They had their little kick...I watched, but seen no more rustlers swing. But shore Prentiss an’ Dunn would have nailed some of them on the run. I crawled away farther an’ hid under a spruce thet had branches low on the ground. I lay there all day, till I was shore the cowpunchers had rid away. Then I went into the spruces where me an’ Blacky had hid our horses. His was gone, but mine was there. I sneaked him off into the woods, an’ worked round to the trail. All night! This mawnin’ I run into Blacky, who’d got away without a scratch. An’ Sam, who hadn’t been in the cabin, seen us from his hidin’-place, an’ whistled...An’ wa
l, hyar we air.”
“Croak, you might have reckoned on some such mess as thet,” said Stone gravely.
“Shore I might, but I didn’t. Jed, I’ve had too damn much money lately. Thet gambler het up my blood. I’m sorriest most thet I didn’t plug him. But it was a hell of a lot of satisfaction to see him kick.”
“No wonder. I’d like to have been there...So the Hash-Knife is done! — Croak, what do you aim at now?”
“Lay low an’ wait,” replied the gunman. “We shore can find men to build up the outfit again.”
“Never — if young Traft got killed in thet fight,” retorted Stone, vehemently. “Old Jim would rake the Tonto with guns an’ ropes.”
“Course I don’t know who got shot, outside the two cowboys I see drop. The one I shot wasn’t young Traft, an’ neither was the other. An’ they wasn’t Slinger Dunn or Prentiss, either...Boss, have you seen Sonora?”
“No. He hasn’t been in fer days,” replied Stone.
Malloy held his pipe far away from him and sniffed the air.
“Damn it, am I loony, or do I smell blood?”
“I reckon you smell blood all right, Croak, old boy,” returned Stone, jocularly.
“How so? I’m shore washed clean.” Suddenly, with his gaze on Stone, narrowing and shrewd with conjecture, he felt with his foot the pack upon which it had rested. “What the hell?”
“Bambridge!” he exclaimed, in cold and ringing speculation. “Boss, you done for him?”
“I reckon, He throwed a gun on me, Croak,” replied Stone, rising to go to the wall, where he poked a finger in a bullet hole in one of the yellow logs. “Look here.”
“Ahuh...Wal, you saved me the trouble, mebbe...Shot yestiddy, I reckon. What’d he have on him?”
“Ask Madden. He searched him.”
“Hyar, Maddy, come out pronto,” he yelled, and when the cook ran out breathless and anxious, he went on. “This was your bad news, eh?”
“Nope, I didn’t reckon thet bad. But he had only aboot five hundred on him, an’ some papers.”