He took his belt up a notch. “Morg, let’s move in on him together. Let’s take this over. There’s goin’ to be a fortune out there in that valley. You got a head on you. You take care of the business, an’ I’ll handle the rough stuff. Let’s take Sherman out of there. He’s framin’ to queer both of us.”
Morgan Clyde swung into the saddle. “No sale, Tom,” he said quietly. “Riding our trail, we ride alone. Anyway, I’m not the type to sell out or double-deal. When I’m through with Sherman I’ll tell him so to his face.”
“He’ll kill you!”
Clyde smiled wearily. “Maybe.”
HE TURNED HIS horse and rode away. So Sherman was a gunman.
Tom Cool was right, there was something very wrong about that. The man hired his fighting done, rarely carried a weapon, and no one had ever suspected he might be fast. That was a powerful weapon in the hands of a double-crosser. A man who was lightning with a gun and unsuspected—
After all, where did he and Cool stand? Sherman owed him ten thousand dollars for dirty work done, for cattle run off, for forcing men to leave, for a couple of shootings. Tom Cool was in the same position. Now, with Hallam out of the way and the nesters gone, he would no longer need either Cool or himself.
Suddenly, Morgan Clyde remembered Sherman’s broken teeth, his sly smile, his insinuating manner when he spoke of Hallam’s wife. Oddly, for the first time, he began to see himself in a clear light. A hired gun for a man with the instincts of a rat! It wasn’t a nice thought. He shook himself angrily, forcing himself to concentrate on the business at hand.
Vic Hallam was young, and he was green. He was, they said, a fine shot with a rifle, and a fair man with a gun when he got it out, but by Western standards he was pitifully slow. He was about twenty-six, his wife a mere girl of nineteen, and pretty. Despite his youth, Hallam was outspoken. He had led the resistance against Sherman, and had sworn to stay in Red Basin as long as he wished. He had every legal right to the land, and Sherman had none.
But Morgan Clyde had long ago shelved any regard for the law. The man with the fastest gun was the law along the frontier, and so far he had been fastest. If Sherman wanted the Red Basin, he’d get it. If it was over Hallam’s dead body, then that’s how it would be.
He had never backed out on a job yet, and never would. Hallam would be taken care of.
Morgan rode at a rapid trot, knowing very well what he had to do. Hallam was a man of a fiery temper, and it would be easy to goad him into grabbing for a gun.
Clyde shook his head, striving to clear it of upsetting thoughts. With the ten thousand he had coming, he could go away. He could find a new country, buy a ranch, and live quietly somewhere beyond the reach of his reputation. Yet even as he told himself that, he knew it was not true. A few years ago he might have done just that, but now it was too late. Wherever he went there would be smoking guns, split seconds of blasting fire and the thunder of shooting. And wherever he went he would be pointed out as a killer.
The heat waves danced along the valley floor, and he reined in his horse, moving at a walk. In his mind he seemed to be back again in the house he had built with Diana, and he remembered how they had talked of having the clock.
Then he was riding around the cluster of rocks and into the ranchyard at Red Basin. Sitting warily, with his hands loose and ready, he rode toward the house. A young woman came to the door and threw out some water. When she looked up, she saw him.
He was close enough then, and her face went deathly pale. Her eyes widened a little. Something inside of him shrank. He knew she recognized him.
“What—what do you want?” she asked.
He looked down at her wide eyes. She was pretty, he decided.
“I wanted to see Mr. Hallam, ma’am.”
She hesitated. “Won’t you get down and sit on the porch? He’s gone out now, but he’ll be back soon. He—he saw some antelope over by the Rim Rocks.”
Antelope! Morgan Clyde stiffened a little, then relaxed. He had hard work to make believe this was real. The girl—why, she was almost the size of Diana and almost, he admitted, as pretty. And the house—there was the wash bench, the homemade furniture, just like their own place. And now Hallam was after antelope.
It was all the same, even the rifle in the corner.…Something in him leaped. The rifle! A moment ago it had stood in the corner, and now it was gone! Instinctively, he threw himself from his chair—a split second before the shot blasted past his head.
Catlike, he came to his feet. He had twisted the rifle from the girl’s hands before she could shoot again. Coolly, he ejected the shells from the rifle and dropped them on the table. He looked at the girl, smiling with an odd light of respect in his eyes. He noted there wasn’t a sign of fright or tears in hers.
“Nice try,” he said quietly.
“You came here to kill my husband,” she said. It wasn’t an accusation; it was a flat statement.
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Maybe so.”
“Why do you want to kill him?” she demanded fiercely. “What did he ever do to you?”
Morgan Clyde looked at her thoughtfully. “Nothing, of course. But this land is needed by someone else. Perhaps you should move off.”
“We like it here!” she retorted.
He looked around. “It’s nice. I like it too.” He pointed to the corner across the room. “There should be a clock over there, a grandfather’s clock.”
She looked at him, surprised. “We—we’re going to have one. Someday.”
He got up and walked over to the newly made shelves and looked at the china. It had blue figures running around the edges, Dutch boys and girls and mills.
He turned toward the window. “I should think you’d have it open on such a nice morning,” he said. “More air. And I like to see a curtain stir in a light wind. Don’t you?”
“Yes, but the window sticks. Vic was going to fix it, but he’s been so busy.”
Morgan Clyde picked up the hammer and drew the strips of molding from around the window, then lifted it out. Resting one corner on the table, he slipped his knife from his pocket and carefully shaved the edges. He tried the window twice before it moved easily. Then he replaced it and nailed the molding back in position. He tried it again, sliding the window up. A light breeze stirred the curtain, and the girl laughed. He turned, smiling gravely.
The sunlight fell across the rough-hewn floor, and when he raised his eyes, he could see a man riding down the trail.
Morgan Clyde turned slowly, and looked at the girl. Her eyes widened.
“No!” she gasped. “Please! Not that!”
Morgan Clyde didn’t look back. He walked out to the porch and swung into the saddle. He reined the black around and started toward the approaching homesteader.
Before Hallam could speak, Clyde said. “Bad way to carry your rifle. Never can tell when you might need it!”
“Clyde!” Hallam exclaimed sharply. “What—”
“Good morning, Mr. Hallam,” Morgan Clyde said, smiling a little. “Nice place you’ve got here.”
He touched his heels to the black and rode away at a canter. Behind him, the man stared, frowning.…
It wasn’t until Clyde was riding down the street of the town that he thought of what was coming. This is it, he said to himself. You knew there would have to be an end to this sort of thing, and this is it.
The Earle brothers were still in the bar. They looked up at him as he passed, their eyes hard. He stepped to the door of the office and opened it. Sherman was seated at the desk, and Tom Cool was tilted back on his chair against the wall. Nothing, apparently, had changed—except himself.
“I’m quitting, Sherman,” he said quietly. “You owe me ten thousand dollars. I want it—now.”
Sherman’s eyes narrowed. “Hallam? What about him?” he demanded.
Morgan Clyde smiled thinly, with amusement in his eyes. “He’s taken care of. Very nicely, I think.”
“What’s this nonsense about quit
ting?” Sherman demanded.
“That’s it, I’m quitting.”
“You don’t quit until I’m ready,” Sherman snapped harshly. “I want to know what happened out there.”
Clyde stepped carelessly to one side so that he could face Tom Cool, too. “Nothing happened,” he said quietly. “They had a nice place there. A nice couple. I envied them, so I decided to let them stay.”
“You decided?”
He’s faster than I am, Clyde’s brain told him, even as he moved. He’ll shoot first, anyway, so—
Morgan Clyde’s gun roared, and the shot caught Tom Cool in the chest, even as the gunman’s weapon started to swing up to shoot him. Clyde felt a bullet fan past his own face, but he shot Cool again before he turned. Something struck him hard in the body, and then in one leg. He went down, then staggered up and emptied his gun into Sherman.
Sherman’s body sagged, and a slow trickle of blood came from the corner of his mouth.
Turning, Clyde got to the office door, walking very straight. His brain felt light, even a little giddy. He opened the door precisely and stepped out into the barroom. Across the room, the Earles, staring wide-eyed, jerked out their guns.
Through the door behind him they could see Sherman’s body sagging in death. They moved as one man. Gritting his teeth, Morgan Clyde triggered his gun. He shot them both.…
Morgan Clyde almost made it to his horse before he fell, sprawling his length in the dust. Vaguely he heard a roar of horse’s hoofs, and then he felt himself turned over onto his back. Vic Hallam was staring at him.
Morgan Clyde’s breath came hoarsely. He looked up, remembering. “My place,” he muttered thickly through the blood that frothed his lips. “There’s a clock. Put—put it—in the corner.”
There was sympathy and a deep understanding in Hallam’s face. “Sure, that’d be fine. When you get well, we’ll move it over together—on condition that you’ll go partners on the homestead.…But why didn’t you wait, man? I’d have come with you.”
“Partners,” Morgan Clyde said, and it seemed good to be able to smile. “That’d be fine. Just fine.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
THE MOGOLLON RIM
ALSO IN THE Mogollon Rim country is the Double-Circle Ranch, established about 1880. On the ranch are the graves of four train robbers. Hiding from the law, they had taken jobs on the Double-Circle and were trailed to the ranch by a posse accompanied by two Texas Rangers. The outlaws made their fight, and four of them were buried where they fell.
No ranch in the area was safe from Apache raids, and outlaws were numerous. Black Jack Christian operated in the area and had a hideout in a cave in Cole Creek Canyon, about twenty miles from Clifton. Christian was killed not far from the cave.
Not far from the cave is a place known as Murder Camp, where Felix Burress was killed. His murderer was traced to a line cabin in the mountains and captured. He was sentenced to fifteen years in the Yuma prison.
DEATH SONG OF THE SOMBRERO
STRETCH MAGOON, SIX-FOOT-FIVE in his sock feet and lean as a buggy whip, put his grulla mustang down the bank of the wash, and cut diagonally across it toward the trail up the bank. His long, melancholy face seemed unusually sad.
When the grulla scrambled up the bank, Stretch kept him to a slow-paced walk. The sadness remained in his eyes, but they were more watchful, almost expectant.
The ramshackle house he was approaching was unpainted and dismal. Sadly in need of repair, the grounds around were dirty and unkempt, the corral a patchwork of odds and ends of rails, the shed that did duty for a barn was little more than a roof over some rails where three saddles rode.
Magoon’s eyes caught the saddles first, and the hard bronze of his face tightened. He reined up in the space between the shack and the shed. A big man loomed in the door, a bearded man with small, ugly eyes. “Howdy,” he said. “Wantin’ somethin’?”
“Uh-huh.” Stretch dug out the makin’s and began to build a smoke. “Wantin’ t’ tell you all somethin’.” He finished his job, put the cigarette in his mouth, and struck a match on the side of his jeans. Then he looked up. Two men were there now; the bigger man had stepped outside, and a runty fellow with sandy hair and a freckled, ugly face stood in the door. One hand was out of sight.
“As of this mornin’, come daylight,” he said, “I’m ramroddin’ the Lazy S.”
“You’re what?” The big man walked two steps closer. “You mean, you’re the foreman? What’s become of Ketchell?”
Stretch Magoon looked sadly down at the big man. “Why, Weidman, Ketchell did what I knowed he would do sooner or later. He was a victim of bad judgment. Ever’ time that man played a hand of poker, I could see it comin’.”
“Get t’ the point!” Weidman demanded harshly. “What happened?”
“We had us a mite of an argument,” Stretch said calmly, “an’ Ketchell thought I was bluffin’. He called. We both drawed a new hand an’ I led with two aces—right through the heart.”
“Y’ killed Burn Ketchell?” Weidman demanded incredulously. “I don’t believe it!”
“Well”—Stretch dropped his left hand to the reins—“dead or not, they are havin’ a buryin’. I reckon if he ain’t dead he’ll be some sore when he wakes up an’ finds all that dirt in his face.” He turned the mouse-colored mustang. “Oh yeah! That reminds me. We had the argument over suggestin’ t’ you that your Sombrero brand could be run mighty easy out of a Lazy S.”
“Y’ accusin’ us o’ rustlin’?” Weidman demanded. His eyes flickered for an instant, and Stretch felt a little shiver of relief go through him. He knew where that third man was now. It had had him bothered some. The third man was beside the corner of the corral.
His eyes dropped, and his heart gave a leap. The sun was beyond the corral, and he could see the shadow of that corner on the hard ground. He almost grinned as his eyes caught the flicker of movement.
“I ain’t accusin’ you o’ nothin’. I ain’t sure. If I was sure, I wouldn’t be settin’ here talkin’. I’d be stringin’ your thick neck t’ a cottonwood. What I’m doin’ is givin’ you a tip that the fun’s over now. You can change your brand or leave the country. I ain’t p’tic’lar which.”
“Why, you—” Weidman’s face was mottled and ugly, but he made the mistake of trusting too much to his dry-gulch attempt, and when Stretch Magoon drew, it was so fast he didn’t have a chance to match him. He was depending too much on that shot from the corral corner.
Magoon’s eyes had been on the shadow, unnoticed by Weidman. Stretch had seen the rifle come up from past the corner of the corral, had waited it out, waited until it froze. Then he drew and fired in the same instant.
He fired across his body, and too quickly. It had to be a snap shot because he needed to get his gun around and on the other two men. As it was, his bullet struck the man’s hand just where his left thumb lay along the rifle barrel.
Very neatly it clipped the tip of the thumb and continued past to cut a furrow in the man’s cheek, cut the lobe from his ear, and bury itself in the ground beyond. It had the added effect of a blow behind the ear, and the marksman rolled over on the ground, knocked momentarily unconscious by the blow.
Weidman’s gun was only half out, and Red Posner had not even started to draw when Magoon’s gun swung back in line. Weidman froze, then, very delicately, spread his fingers and let his gun slip back into its holster. His face was gray under the stubble of beard.
“No hard feelin’s,” Stretch said quietly, “but I’m repeatin’. Change your brand or git!”
He swung his horse and, watching warily, rode to the wash. Then, instead of following the trail up the other side, he whipped the mustang around and rode rapidly down the wash for a quarter of a mile. There it branched away to the left, and he took the branch. Well back in the cedars, he rode out of the wash and cut across country toward town.
Despite himself, he was disturbed. Something about the recent action had not gone as he had expected.
Barker had sent for him two weeks before, when the missing cattle from the Lazy S had begun to mount rapidly in numbers. In those two weeks, Stretch had ascertained two things: first, that Lazy S cattle were being branded, and then, while the brands were still fresh, drifted into the breaks across the range near the Sombrero spread of Lucky Weidman.
Second, he had trailed Burn Ketchell and had actually caught him in the act of venting a brand. The change from a Lazy S to a Sombrero was all too simple for a handy man with a running iron.
It was merely a matter of making an inverted U over the top bend of the Lazy S to make the crown of the Sombrero, and then running a burned line from the top of the S around and down to the lower tip. It was simple, perfectly simple.
Burn Ketchell had been the brains behind the rustling. With Burn out of the way, Stretch had believed the rustling would be ended. Now, because of that attempted killing, he was not so sure.
Lucky Weidman was crooked and he was dirty, but he was no fool. He would never have taken a chance of having Magoon killed on his place after rustling had been discovered, unless he had friends—and friends in places to do him some good.
Tinkerville was an unsightly cowtown sprawled on a flat at the mouth of Tinker Canyon. Recently silver had been discovered up the canyon and the town had experienced a slight boom. With the boom the town had received an overflow of boomers, a number of whom were from the East and new to Western ways. One of these was the tall, precise, gray-mustached man who became sheriff, Ben Rowsey.
Another was the tall, handsome Paul Hartman.
New to the country himself, Stretch Magoon, itinerant range detective, had looked the town over when he arrived. Paul Hartman, only six months a resident of Tinkerville, was the acknowledged big man of the town.
He had loaned money to Sam Tinker, who owned the Tinker House and had founded the town in Indian days. He bought stock in the mining ventures. He grubstaked three prospectors, he started a weekly newspaper and he bought a controlling interest in the Longhorn Bar.
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