Clattering Hoofs

by William MacLeod Raine

  “You’re Webb,” he said after a moment. The beard, the harsh lines etched in the lean cheeks, the steely hardness of the eyes, had to be brushed aside. They had been no part of the boy he had wronged. Bitter years in prison had brought them. But the bony contour of the head could belong only to the son of the Bob Webb who had been his partner.

  “Sloan is the name to you,” Bob corrected.

  “You’d better give up and come with me without any fuss,” Packard flung out shrilly. “All I got to do is shout and——”

  “No,” Ranger cut in sternly. “Temporarily Mr. Sloan is my guest. You’ll accept that fact.”

  “Or go out in smoke before yore friends arrive, Jug,” Fraser added genially. “And don’t think I’m loading you about that.”

  Packard whirled on Ranger. “You know what you’re doing, don’t you? Aiding and abetting the escape of a criminal wanted by the law. Do that, and you’ll go join Webb at Yuma, John.”

  “You haven’t proved that Sloan is Webb,” the cattleman differed.

  “You know he is. You know it doggoned well. I can bring witnesses up to swear to him. Uhlmann for one.”

  “But you are not going to,” Fraser said gently. “You’re going to sit down in a chair nice and friendly until we say ‘Depart in peace,’ like the Good Book has it.”

  “No, sir. You can’t keep me. I’m going down right now to tell the boys you’ve got this murderer here.”

  Ranger confronted him as he made for the door. “Don’t make a mistake,” he warned. “I didn’t invite you here, but since you came without being asked you’ll stay. If you open your mouth to cry out I’ll throttle you.”

  “You’ll go to the pen for this,” Packard gulped out.

  Fraser brought a chair to the mine owner. “Sit,” he ordered.

  Jug glared at him. He had been top dog for so long that it came hard on him to obey. “Do you no good to hold me,” he snapped sourly. “If I don’t go back the boys will come looking for me.”

  “So they will,” Fraser chuckled. “And find you tied up here nice and comfortable.”

  “You’ll never get away,” Packard prophesied spitefully. “We’ve got men back and front to check on you.”

  Fraser pushed him back into the chair. “Have to use the sheets to tie him,” he said.

  “We won’t tie him.” Webb had been watching the little plaza back of the hotel through the window. “Time to go. A friend is leaving two horses at the hitch rack for us. We’ll take Packard with us and see how he likes being shot at.”

  Stan Fraser stared at Bob. “Take him with us?” he repeated, puzzled.

  “Far as the horses. For his friends to make a target of, if they feel that way.”

  “Sure,” cried Fraser joyfully. “Jug has a kind heart. He will protect us like we were brothers.”

  “I won’t go a step of the way,” the mine owner announced shrilly.

  Sandra opened the door connecting with the next room. “Is everything all right?” she asked anxiously.

  “Everything is fine,” Bob answered. “We’re just leaving. Sorry we barged in on you and yore father this way and forced you to hide us.”

  The girl knew he was trying to safeguard them against any charge Packard might make that they had aided his escape.

  “Good-bye, Mr. Sloan,” she said, and shook hands with him. “I hope this silly mistake about you being that man Webb will be cleared up.”

  Bob smiled. “We’ll clear up the whole business,” he said.

  19. Guns on the Plaza

  WITH FRASER’S REVOLVER PRODDING HIS BACK, PACKARD announced again doggedly that he was not going downstairs.

  “Suit yoreself,” the little man drawled. “You can go or stay. If you stay, it will be with a head busted by the barrel of my gun. Not such an easy tap as I gave Uhlmann. But don’t let me influence you.”

  Packard shuffled down the corridor. “I’ll fix you some day for this,” he promised, his voice thick with fury.

  Ranger watched them go from the door of the room. On his face was a frown of anxiety. It was his opinion that presently they would hear the roar of bullets from below. His daughter stood beside him, white to the lips. She felt a panic fear choking her throat.

  Webb led the way down the stairs. He opened the back door a few inches and peered out. Several men were just emerging from the Legal Tender. One was Uhlmann. He had a revolver in his hand and was giving the others instructions where to take their posts. The two saddled horses were hitched to a rack a short distance from the hotel. A lank fellow in leather chaps and a blue shirt stood beneath a cottonwood carrying a rifle, evidently the guard posted to cover the back door. He called to Uhlmann that the black horse with white stockings belonged to Fraser.

  To make the run from the back door to the horses, with half a dozen guns trained on them, would be suicidal. Webb saw that at once. A plan jumped to his mind, one made possible by the unwilling co-operation of Packard. There was a dark closet near the entrance where buckets, brooms, and mops were kept. Given luck, it might serve the hunted men nicely.

  Bob sketched in three sentences what he had in mind, explaining curtly to Packard his part in it. “You’d better make it good,” he added grimly. “If you let them suspect it’s a ruse you won’t live long enough to enjoy tricking me. Just one suspicious move, and I’ll drop you.”

  “You figuring on killing me?” Packard asked, gimlet orbs drilling into those of his enemy.

  “If we’re discovered. You’ll kick off before we do.”

  The prisoner started to protest, looked into Webb’s bleak eyes, and decided it was not worth while. “I’ll play yore game, because I can’t do anything else,” he said, sullen anger in his voice.

  Packard was to call his men and tell them he had discovered the hiding place of Webb. He was to head them up the stairs, bringing up the rear himself. Every foot of the way he would be covered by the guns of the two men in the closet.

  “Don’t get crazy and start anything,” Fraser advised. “All we’d have to do is crook our fingers.”

  “I’m not a fool,” snarled Packard. “You’ve got the drop on me right now, but inside of forty-eight hours you’ll both be laid out cold.”

  Webb spoke, in his voice the low harsh grating of steel: “You murdered my father, Packard. I’m not forgetting that. You robbed my mother and lied me into prison. Pay day is coming for you soon. I’m telling you this now so that you’ll know if you lift a hand or let out a word to betray us I’d as lief shoot you in the back as I would a wolf. Better not forget that for a moment. Speak yore piece now—and make these men believe it if you want to go on living.”

  Bob’s revolver pressed against Packard’s ribs as the man put his head through the door opening and called to Uhlmann. He spoke urgently but not loud.

  “Hi, Rhino, I’ve found Webb. He’s upstairs. Bring the boys and keep ’em quiet.”

  “Right away, Jug.” Uhlmann spoke to those with him, turned, and lumbered across from where he stood to the back door of the hotel. Three men trailed at his heels. Hawkins remained where he was, at the door of the Legal Tender. The man in chaps under the cottonwood held his ground.

  “Did Ranger tell you where he was?” Uhlmann asked in a sibilant whisper.

  Webb drew back to join Fraser in the darkness of the closet.

  “Heard him talking with Fraser—in a room upstairs,” Packard answered. “Walk soft, boys. We want to surprise them.”

  The old treads creaked beneath the weight of their heavy bodies. They went in single file, Uhlmann leading. Jug flung a look of bitter hate toward the closet and moved along the passage to the stairs. He knew that the revolver of his enemy covered him every foot of the way and did not feel sure that a bullet would not crash into his back. There was a bend in the staircase half-way up. If he could get past that he could shout out an alarm and send his men charging down on those below. The steps of the flight seemed interminable. Four more—three—two. He took the last at a leap an
d from the landing screamed at the others to come back.

  “Holy Mike, what’s eatin’ you?” Uhlmann demanded.

  Already the men hidden in the closet were bolting for the door. As they raced for the horses they heard the pounding of feet down the stairs. The cowboy beneath the cottonwood woke up and yelled, “What’s going on here?” Neither Webb nor Fraser paid any heed to him. He started to run to the hitch rack, stopped, and raised his rifle.

  A bullet from the door of the hotel whistled past the running men, and before the crash of the explosion had died away a second and a third shot sounded. One of them came from the gun of Hawkins. Webb pulled the slip-knot of a bridle rein and swung to the saddle of his mount. Fraser was already in motion, a few yards ahead of him. He jumped his horse to a gallop and jerked it to a sudden stop. The black had given a scream of pain and collapsed, sending its rider flying to the ground.

  Bob swung round and rode back. His one idea was to pick Stan up and get away from the heavy fire centering on them. But in the second during which he faced the blazing guns his eyes took in a dozen details of the panorama in the plaza. Three or four men were strung along the wall of the hotel firing at him. Pete McNulty was drawing a bead on him from back of a drinking trough. Packard shrieked shrill orders to get him—get him. A dozen yards from the hitch rack the cowboy in chaps lay face down, his outflung hands still clinging to the rifle he would never use again.

  Fraser scrambled to his feet and ran limping to his friend. He flung himself on the horse back of Bob, who whirled the cow pony in its tracks and touched it with a spur. The animal shot across the plaza like a streak of light and raced down a dusty street past the old convent. Behind them sounded the fire of the drumming weapons.

  “You didn’t get hit?” Bob asked.

  “No. I kinda sprained my ankle when I lit after my horse went down.” Fraser grinned exultantly. “We sure fooled them that time. I reckon Jug would sell himself right now for two bits.”

  “We’ll have to pick up another horse somewhere.”

  “Yes, sir. On the q.t. I can see how this will make you or me out a horse thief.” The little man chuckled. “I’ve been most everything else in my time. We’re lucky to have got away whole.”

  “One man didn’t—the man in chaps with the rifle. He was drawing a bead on me just before I reached the hitch rack. I didn’t see him again till I stopped to pick you up. He was lying on the ground spraddled out, face down. Someone must have shot him by mistake for us.”

  Fraser could not understand that. The cowboy had not been in the line of fire. “Looks like one of Jug’s warriors must of got buck fever,” he hazarded. “But I’ll bet my boots they lay the blame on us.”

  Bob thought that was very likely.

  20. Who Killed Chuck Holloway?

  PACKARD TORE A SUSTAINED AND SHAPELESS HAT FROM HIS head, slammed it on the ground, and stamped on it furiously. “They got away. Goddlemighty, you lunkheads had twenty cracks at them—and missed. That devil Webb rode back again, and still you couldn’t hit him.”

  “Must be one among us who can hit the side of a barn,” Hawkins jeered. “Someone killed a horse.”

  “Yeah, and then let Fraser climb onto Webb’s horse and ride away. After you had him on the ground practically surrounded. I never saw such crazy shooting in my life.”

  “We’d have got them all right if you hadn’t dragged us upstairs,” Uhlmann grumbled. “You fixed it nice for them to reach their horses, Jug. Don’t cuss us. You’re the one most to blame.”

  Rip Morris was kneeling beside the prostrate cowboy in chaps. He looked up and called to the others. “Quit yapping, boys, and come here. They got Chuck Holloway. He’s dead.”

  “Dead!” McNulty looked down at the man lying on the ground. “When did they kill him? Far as I could see neither of them fired a shot.”

  “That’s right,” Uhlmann agreed. “Unless it was before I got outa the hotel.”

  “It couldn’t of been before that,” Packard objected. “I saw Chuck with his rifle raised to fire. But Pete is right. Neither of these fellows fooled away any time shooting back at us. They went straight for their horses and lit out. If that’s so, one of us . . .”

  The mine owner did not finish the sentence. He looked round on a group of startled faces. The gaze of each shifted from one to another, and none of them liked what they saw in the eyes staring at them. Chuck must have been killed by one of their own group.

  Rip Morris put into words the thought that was in the minds of all of them. “He was standing off to the right. I don’t see how any of us could have done it—unless someone got jumpy and took him for a friend of Webb.”

  “Must have been that,” Hawkins agreed. His glance went coolly round the circle. “ ’Fess up, fellow, whoever it was. We’ll have to stand by you.”

  Each denied his guilt, some profanely and some with corroborative explanation, but all explicitly and with, vigor.

  “Just up and shot himself, seems like,” the San Simon man murmured ironically.

  Morris raised another question. “Did Chuck have any enemies?”

  Uhlmann stared at Rip a long time, while the meaning of the inquiry seeped into his dull mind. “Holy Mike, you don’t think one of us—on purpose——”

  “Maybe it wasn’t one of us,” Morris suggested. “Someone could of slipped out from a house on the other side of the plaza and plugged him.”

  “Or Ranger from the window of his room,” Packard said with acrid spite. “He was hiding Webb. Why wouldn’t he help him make a getaway?”

  “Might of,” McNulty agreed. “But that won’t go down so good with the public. John is a solid fellow, popular with all the cattlemen and well liked in town. I don’t reckon we better hang it on him.”

  “That’s right.” Packard came to swift decision. “Webb did it. He had me covered with his gun when I called you fellows into the house. It was in his hand when he ran out to the plaza. When he saw Chuck in his way he cut down and let him have it. That’s how it was, boys. I saw it. Who else did?”

  “I did,” Uhlmann assented promptly. “Just before he got on his horse. You saw him too, Pete.”

  McNulty showed his teeth in an ugly grin. “Sure I saw him. I remember now.”

  “Then that’s settled,” Packard concluded. “Webb has killed another man.”

  “Not quite settled.” The words came crisp and clear from a speaker standing back of the mine owner. “If Bob Webb was carrying a gun he did not have it out when he ran to the hitch rack. I was watching from the window.”

  Packard slewed his head round and glared at John Ranger, who had stepped out from the hotel quietly and joined them. “So it’s you? Butting in again. If you’re so sure Webb didn’t kill this boy maybe you know who did. Maybe you had a gun out if the convict didn’t.”

  “My daughter was standing beside me at the window,” Ranger said. “She can testify I didn’t fire a gun, and both of us can swear that Webb didn’t.”

  “That goes with me, Mr. Ranger,” Hawkins answered. “If you were standing at the window, perhaps you can tell us who did shoot this boy.”

  “No, I can’t, though I saw him fall. Several guns were fired about that time within a second or two.”

  “It may go with you, Hawkins, but not with me,” Packard cried vindictively. “Ranger was in cahoots with these scoundrels. He threatened to strangle me if I called out to you that Webb was hiding in his room. He has played in with him ever since he met the killer in the cañon. Why wouldn’t he lie for him now?”

  McNulty nodded vigorously in assent. “Right, Jug. I dunno what his game is, but he has taken a great shine to the jailbird.”

  “I like his nerve myself,” Hawkins replied. “Jug hates him for some reason. That’s his privilege. And I can understand why Pete doesn’t like him. But why should the rest of us get all het up to bump off the fellow or send him back to Yuma? Me, I’ve busted a lot of laws in my time. I’ve lived in the brush enough myself to favor anyone
on the dodge rather than the ones hunting him.”

  “Is that why you were pumping lead at Webb a couple of minutes ago?” snapped McNulty.

  The smile on the face of Hawkins was a little sly and mysterious. It suggested a secret source of ironic mirth.

  “You got me there, Pete,” he admitted. “I reckon I was some carried away by the Fourth of July you boys were pulling off.”

  “We’d better get poor Chuck into the Legal Tender and notify the sheriff,” Morris said. “Looks to me like he’s going to have a nice time finding out who did kill him.”

  “Carry him in, and somebody go for the sheriff,” Packard ordered. He turned bitterly to Ranger. “Don’t think you’re going to get away with this. You aided and abetted a criminal. First you hid him, then you prevented me from getting him arrested. That’s a penitentiary offence, you’ll find out.”

  “If you can prove it.” Ranger smiled blandly at the mine owner. “Your story and mine might differ. Have you any other witnesses to back the charge?”

  John turned on his heel and walked back into the hotel. His daughter was waiting for him in his room. She had lit a lamp and stood tall and slender beside the table. The color had not yet washed back into her cheeks.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “I don’t think either of them was hurt,” he replied. “One poor boy who rode for Uhlmann was killed. Nobody seems to know who shot him. Probably somebody mistook him for Webb. Jug Packard was fixing to tie it to Bob when I showed up and rather spoiled his plan. Later he said very likely I did it.”

  “He would like to get even with you.”

  “Yes, but I don’t see how he can prove anything against me. He has no witnesses except himself to show that we hid Webb.”

  “Or that we knew Cape Sloan is Bob Webb.”

  “No.”

  “The papers will be full of this,” Sandra said. “You’d better see Mr. Davis again and make sure the Star gets the story right. Jug Packard will try to make it seem that Bob killed this boy.”