“Feel free, Noonan,” offered Dreyfus.
“You can spare this man,” declared Noonan. “Yes, indeed. You can certainly spare this man. If he wants to follow Valentine on a wild goose chase—let him.”
“We think alike,” beamed Dreyfus. “I had exactly the same idea.” He nodded to the deputy. “All right, Jake, have it your way. Follow Valentine to Three Springs.”
“Sure,” nodded Jake. “I reckon that’s what I’ll do.” He ambled to the street-door, unlocked and opened it, then squinted back at the boss-Pinkerton. “A wild goose chase, you call it?”
“Absolutely,” said Noonan.
“Well,” said Jake, “I hope I’m around to see the look on your face—if them wild geese turn out to be the Stark gang.”
~*~
Thanks to bright moonlight, Larry could afford to postpone selection of an overnight campsite. He had checked the map given him by Linus Margolies and had decided that their first stop should be the hogback ridge to the south. From that lofty vantage point, in dawn’s first light, he would be able to survey much of the territory described on his chart, and select the best shortcuts.
Floyd Bryson proved to be a congenial travelling companion. He seemed at home in the saddle and almost as tireless as his tall escort. While they climbed to the summit of the ridge, he talked of his brief career in Pelham City.
“It isn’t really flattering, you know,” he complained. “I guess there’s many a man would enjoy being pursued by so many women, but ...”
“But you ain’t one of ’em,” grinned Larry, “and neither am I. No siree, boy. Not by a long shot.”
“I’m glad we see eye to eye,” said Floyd.
“Doc,” said Larry, “I’d as lief take my chances with a dozen scalp-hungry Comanches—than one man-hungry female.”
And now it finally occurred to Floyd to wonder about his guide’s professional background.
“Exactly what is your trade, Larry? Judging from your rig, I’d say you’re a cattleman. You certainly aren’t a lawman, yet I get the impression law-breakers are your sworn enemies. Our esteemed Sheriff Dreyfus called you a troublemaker. Was that an impulsive accusation?”
“For my money,” shrugged Larry, “Dreyfus is just another Texas-hatin’ badge-toter. Me and my partner—his name’s Stretch Emerson and you’ll be meetin’ him later—we never yet hunted for trouble.” He pondered that assertion, then felt obliged to add, “But we find it anyway, more often than not.”
“About this crisis in Three Springs,” demanded Floyd, “how did you become involved?”
“Didn’t have much choice,” drawled Larry. “That marshal I told you about—the feller you call a hypo—hypo …”
“Hypochondriac,” supplied Floyd.
“Yeah, him,” nodded Larry. “It happens he’s a Texan—which makes it worse. No Texan ought to act thataway.”
“Ah.” Floyd nodded knowingly. “Lone Star pride.”
“Buck oughtn’t be restin’ his hide on a couch and playin’ sick,” opined Larry. “Somebody has to snap him out of it, and that somebody has to be a regular sawbones—like you.”
“If he really is a sick man,” said Floyd, “I’ll damn soon tell you whether or not his illness is incurable. If he isn’t sick ...”
“He’d better know it,” growled Larry, “and muy pronto.”
Along the wind-swept ridge, they found shelter in the cleft between two box-shaped, giant-sized rocks. While Larry looked to the comfort of the horses, the doctor made himself useful by kindling a fire and preparing coffee, as well as breaking out their blanket-rolls. Later, as they squatted on their saddles, swigged coffee and stared into the dancing flames, Floyd cheerfully remarked:
“This is a new experience for me—and a welcome one. I feel like an escaped prisoner, or a small boy playing hookey from school. Pelham City was beginning to get me down. Those gushing spinsters and their doting mothers—crowding me from all sides ...”
“Hold it,” grunted Larry.
Floyd threw the Texan a quick sideways glance. He was sitting bolt upright. The mug was in his left hand, his right was full of .45, cocked.
“What is it?” whispered Floyd.
“I heard somethin’,” said Larry, softly. “You freeze, Doc. Don’t twitch a muscle.”
As silently as a marauding redskin, he turned and crawled away from the firelight. When, a few moments later, the newcomer walked his mount into the cleft and nodded a greeting to the medico, Larry was invisible, and potentially lethal. From the darkness, he called his challenge.
“You’re covered.”
“Guessed I would be, Texas,” grinned Georgia Jake, as he unhurriedly dismounted. “I’d swear I snuck up quiet, but trouble-shooters’ve got sharp ears, huh, amigo?”
“Larry,” said Floyd, “this is Deputy Rillerby from Pelham City—better known as Georgia Jake.”
“Did Dreyfus send you?” demanded Larry, as he returned to the fire and sheathed his Colt.
“No,” grunted Jake. “Taggin’ you was my own idea.” He began off-saddling.
“How’d you know we’d be headed this way?” prodded Larry.
He resumed his perch by the fire, eyed the deputy enquiringly. Slowly and deliberately, Jake continued his chore of off-saddling his rangy charcoal and staking it beside the other horses.
“That Pinkerton jasper told Barney what you told him,” he explained, “about Three Springs, I mean. You foller me?”
“Noonan claims I’m talkin’ wild,” Larry pointed out.
“So does Barney,” drawled Jake. “But not me. I ain’t scientifical like Noonan and his dude pards. I’m just a old-fashioned badge-toter with no calluses on my brain, but plenty on my backside and my trigger-finger—if you know what I mean. What do I know ’bout the scientifical approach, if that’s what Noonan calls it? All I know is Brett Stark is bad medicine, and he’ll be itchin’ to get square with the feller that gunned his brother.”
“So,” frowned Larry, “you hanker to hit Three Springs in time for the party?”
“All I hope,” said Jake, “is it ain’t started ’fore we get there.”
“Larry,” smiled Floyd, “you may rely on Jake. Our sheriff is a show-off, and a mite too bumptious for his own good, but Jake is an old-time lawman—who could teach Dreyfus plenty.”
“Nobody teaches Barney nothin’,” sighed Jake. “He’ll have to learn by his mistakes—and I calculate he’ll end up feelin’ foolish. If this Texas gent figures Stark is gonna raid Three Springs, that’s good enough for me.” He nodded affably to Larry. “I’m with you, bub.”
“Tag along, and welcome,” grinned Larry. “The doc don’t tote any hardware, and we might need an extra gun.”
~*~
Mid-morning of the following day, while Larry and his new allies were moving steadily southward, Brett Stark’s scouts returned to Flagg Mesa to report their findings.
“Nary a sign of a posse,” Wyatt assured his chief. “The low country is clear—all the way to the river.”
“Bueno,” grunted the boss-outlaw. Then, to his lieutenant, he gave the eagerly awaited order: “Roust out the whole outfit, Slim. I want every man saddled up and ready to move inside the quarter-hour.”
“It’ll take us quite awhile to reach Three Springs,” opined Slim Goddard, “but it’ll be worth it, huh, Brett?”
“It’ll be worth it,” muttered Stark, with his eyes blazing. “It’ll be a sight to see, I promise you. Me with my gun on that yeller-livered marshal—and him beggin’ for mercy.” He gathered up his gunbelt, strapped it about his loins. “Pass the word, Slim.”
Exactly fourteen minutes later, the two dozen cutthroats began their descent of the winding mountain track, led by Stark and Goddard.
Meanwhile in Three Springs, Stretch Emerson was concluding his inspection of the town’s defenses. Escorted by the mayor, he had checked the camouflaged lookout-posts, the weapons and ammunition cached at strategic points along the side alleys that opened in
to the main stem and, more importantly, the rope-ladders by means of which volunteer riflemen would make a hasty ascent to certain rooftops in the heart of town, the better to cover the advance of an invasion party.
They retired to the shaded front porch of the Rialto Saloon, where Stretch propped a shoulder against a post, lit a cigarette and commented, “You’ve sure done your best, Mayor Gilhauser. If Stark does show, you and your volunteers’ll give him a real bad time.”
“It would have been better,” Gilhauser sadly assured him, “if these preparations had been supervised by our marshal. I’m doing my best, as you say, but I’m a politician, not a fighter.” He stared wistfully in the general direction of the law office. “I wish you could have seen Buck—I mean the real Buck Craydon—before that sneaking pill-peddler got to him. You’d have been proud of him, being a fellow-Texan. He was old, getting fat and lazy but, in any emergency, he was ready to take over. He proved it, by Godfrey, when Clay Stark and those other three thieves robbed our bank.”
“A Texan as salty as that.” Stretch grimaced in disgust. “Lettin’ himself get played for a sucker by a consarned medicine-man.”
“In every other way,” frowned Gilhauser, “Buck is a practical man. But, when it comes to his health, he has too much imagination. That’s why ...” He broke off, stared along the street and muttered an oath. “Drat that boy!”
“What’s the matter?” asked Stretch.
Gilhauser didn’t answer. He was gesturing to the small boy trotting up the street towards them, a nine-year-old Mex boy in floppy camisa, pantalones and sandalias.
“Pepi Mendarez—come here, boy! If I have to fetch you, I’ll tan your hide!”
“Si, Alcalde,” piped the boy.
He hustled across the saloon porch, doffed his straw sombrero and stared up into Gilhauser’s stern countenance.
“Boy,” growled Gilhauser, “doesn’t your father know any better than to let you quit the farm? My orders apply to all the local granjeros, as much as to the townfolk. I warned your father he’d have to stay close to his farm—be ready to get you kids under cover—in case …”
“But, Alcalde,” frowned the boy, “my sister Margarita ...”
“What about Margarita?” demanded Gilhauser.
“She is muy enfermo,” Pepi dolefully reported, “and my mother fears she will die.”
“Well ...” Gilhauser gestured helplessly, “I’m sure sorry about that.”
“I go to the mission,” the boy explained. “There must be a padre for my sister, if she will die.”
“Yeah, sure,” sighed the mayor. To Stretch, he quietly pointed out, “It’s always this way, any time a Mex is seriously ill. They send for a priest—even before they worry about getting a doctor.”
“I don’t reckon you could stop a priest from goin’ to ’em,” Stretch opined.
“The Mendarez farm,” fretted Gilhauser, “is damn near a half-day’s ride from town, too far out for my liking. I don’t relish the idea of a priest riding out at a time like this. No telling how soon Stark will arrive. On the other hand, I have to go along with the religious beliefs of these Mexicanos. I’m not of their faith, but I know how they feel about it. If I forbade the priest to leave town, I’d be voted out of office.” He shrugged resignedly, nodded to the grave-faced boy. “All right, Pepi, go ahead.”
A short time later, beside one of the shrines in the mission gardens, the Padre Superior bent an attentive ear to the pleas of young Pepi Mendarez. The boy sadly described his sister’s condition, and the old priest nodded sympathetically.
“There will be a padre,” the old priest assured him. The priest summoned by Padre Pasquale to run this errand of mercy was tubby, moon-faced and jovial, not pure Castilian like his superior, but Mexican-born, of humble peon stock. His name was Padre Ricardo and his good humor was infectious. The boy smiled for the first time, as the fat Franciscan came waddling towards him, leading a mule. For a few moments, the priests conversed in their native tongue, while the fat one nodded respectfully to the warnings of the older priest. Then, taking the boy’s hand, he said:
“Come, niño. We go now. You will ride with me.” He boosted the boy astride the mule and swung up behind him. Through the gateway they rode, and along Main Street. As they drew level with the Rialto, Mayor Gilhauser descended from the porch to offer a few words of warning.
“Travel cautiously, Padre. You know what Tres Agua is up against.”
“Si,” frowned Padre Ricardo. “I know you wait for evil things to happen—and I pray you are wrong in your expectations, and that Tres Agua will be spared.”
“Stay clear of the regular trail,” warned Gilhauser. “On your way to the Mendarez farm, stick to the brush and the timber—every inch of cover you can find. Life is cheap to those bandidos, Padre. They’d think nothing of shooting a priest.”
“I will take care,” the priest promised.
The tubby Franciscan got the mule moving again. As they resumed their progress along Main Street, Pepi politely doffed his sombrero to all and sundry. Stretch grinned mildly, and remarked, “Nice kid.”
“A kid—and a priest,” muttered Gilhauser. “They’d be no match for the Stark gang, and that mule couldn’t outrun a bullet. It’s a helluva thought, Stretch, not knowing just how soon those buzzards will arrive.”
“What’s your guess?” prodded Stretch.
“It could be days—or only hours,” opined Gilhauser. “I’ve heard it said he has a secret hideout just across the border, in the Arizona Territory. Well, all he has to do is ford the river and keep heading west. He could do it in less than two days—much less than two days.”
It was dusk, when the priest and his small escort arrived at the adobe hacienda of the Mendarez family, to be greeted with sheepish smiles and humble apologies. Within an hour of Pepi’s leaving, his sister had rallied. It was painfully obvious that her illness amounted to no more than an old-fashioned bellyache.
Padre Pasquale accepted this news with characteristic good humor, gave all nine Mendarezes his blessing and prepared to head back to town, but was dissuaded by the farmer.
“No, Padre, you cannot go back in the darkness. Has not the alcalde warned us? There are bandidos. In the night, they may not see you are a padre, and maybe they will shoot you.”
“Pablo is weary,” the priest reflected. “It might be more charitable if I let him rest, until the morning.”
“Consuela will prepare the supper,” beamed Mendarez, “and you will sleep ...”
“In the barn,” insisted Padre Ricardo.
“Never!” Mendarez was shocked. “You will have the room of my sons, Pepi and Josito, who will sleep in the kitchen.”
And so it was decided. The jovial Padre Ricardo brightened the lives of his host and hostess that night, sharing their humble fare, congratulating a blushing Consuela on her cuisine, delighting the niños with stories of his childhood in far-away Matehuala.
Very early on the morrow he tiptoed past the still-slumbering boys in the kitchen, moved out to the spring to bathe his face and hands, then took the mule from the barn and began his return journey.
As on the previous day, he travelled cautiously. The regular trail to Three Springs he avoided, for as long as he could. Then, nearing the fringe of a stretch of mesquite, he paused to scan the terrain to east and west. All seemed quiet.
“This caution,” he decided, “is unnecessary. There are no bandidos to trouble a harmless priest of the Church.”
He ambled the mule out onto the trail, blissfully unaware that he had been sighted by the most dangerous bandido of all. From his perch on the limb of a cottonwood some two hundred yards to the east, Brett Stark was scanning the terrain through high-powered field glasses. His attention was drawn to the slow-moving mule and its pudgy rider.
The boss-outlaw’s unprepossessing countenance wore a mirthless grin, as he climbed down to rejoin his men. They sat their mounts, eyed him expectantly.
“Well?” prodded Goddard.
“You see anything?”
Chapter Seven
The Hostage
Stark lit a cigar and, before answering his henchman, drawled a query at Jimmy Holroyd.
“Jimmy—how much further?”
“Not far,” frowned Holroyd. “We’re inside Craydon’s area already.”
“I just spotted one of those sin-killers,” muttered Stark. “A fat jasper on a mule. And now I’m gettin’ me an idea.”
“You’d be wastin’ your time robbin’ one of them padres,” opined Goddard. “They don’t carry cash-money.”
“Jumpin’ this padre wouldn’t be no waste of time,” Stark countered. “You can bet he’s from that mission in Three Springs.”
“And so?” prodded Goddard.
“Slim,” said Stark, “I’ve had time to think. Do you suppose we’ll find that town asleep, with no guns waitin’ to bark at us?”
“Well ...” frowned Goddard.
“They found out who Clay was—that’s for sure,” opined Stark.
“I reckon so,” Goddard agreed. “There were wanted dodgers on Clay all over the southwest.”
“That lousy marshal,” growled Stark, “knew I’d never let him get away with it. He’s expectin’ trouble. Uh-huh. Wouldn’t surprise me if that burg is all primed and layin’ for us—guns staked out all along the main street.”
“Hell,” breathed the grim-faced Lembeck. “We could ride clear into a trap!”
“We could,” grinned Stark, “but we won’t—because I’ve thought of an easier way. You, Lembeck, you, Jimmy, and you, Wyatt, circle around and move onto that trail from the south. The rest of us’ll move right ahead, but slow.”
“Well—what ...?” began Holroyd.
“I want that preacher,” said Stark, bluntly. “No need to rough him up—’less he turns leery. Just grab him and hold him till we catch up with you. I got plans for the sin-killer.”
Holroyd, Lembeck and Wyatt hustled their mounts to movement and broke from the timber, heading for the high grass south of the regular trail. The hoofbeats were muffled, inaudible to the slow-riding priest until some ten minutes later. Frowning nervously, he jerked the mule to a halt. Three hard-faced strangers were ambling their horses out onto the trail a short distance ahead. In their right fists, they held cocked six-shooters.
Larry and Stretch 8 Page 7