The End of the Trail

by Brett Halliday

  Pat darted back and got his own horse, led him off and tied him with the others out of sight, and hastily unstrapped a canteen of water from behind his saddle. He tossed it over to Karen and told her matter-of-factly, “You can start workin’ on her some with that.” He started to trot forward through the aspens to join the ambush against the outlaw gang, but Karen stopped him with a single word, “Wait.”

  Her tone made him turn back. She was holding her six-gun out to him and there was a queer smile on her lips. “Here’s six extra bullets. I’d like to have them … used.”

  He strode back to take the gun from her hand.

  As he moved forward again, staying off to the side of the road, he heard the thunderous pound of hoofbeats surging into the stretch leading through the grove of silvery aspens.

  He trotted on a hundred yards, until he was opposite Sam and Ezra who had stationed themselves well back among the trees, and then dropped to one knee behind a small bush and peered up the road cautiously.

  They were coming at a wild gallop. Five of them all right. Strung out a little more than Pat liked. The two riders in the lead were abreast, with the other three trailed out behind with gaps of a hundred feet or more between them.

  He knew Sam and Ezra would take their cue from him, would hold their fire until he started the ruckus. Now, more than ever, he desperately wanted to take at least one of the leaders alive.

  He knew he couldn’t trust either Sam or Ezra to help him much along that line. When they started shooting they’d be aiming to kill.

  He hoped the two riders in the lead were the Runyon brothers. He had no way of knowing as he waited for them to reach the ambush. They were both big men, quirting their horses savagely as they tried to overtake the girl who had fled from them.

  Pat let them thunder past unsuspectingly in front of him. He raised his guns and took a bead with Karen’s revolver in his left hand on the head of the horse nearest him.

  He waited as long as he dared before pulling the trigger, until the third rider was opposite Sam and Ezra, and the others not too far behind.

  The stricken horse dropped with a squeal of anguish and his rider hurtled over his head in the road.

  Pat fired at the other rider with his right-hand gun at almost the same instant. He swayed in the saddle and slumped forward.

  A racketing hell of gun-fire broke out from the other side of the road and behind Pat.

  He didn’t take time to glance back in that direction. Sam and Ezra would have to deal with the other three.

  He leaped forward onto the road and ran toward the unhorsed outlaw. The man was rising on one elbow, trying to level a gun.

  Pat threw another bullet from his gun held hip-high as he ran. The man sank back to the ground with a groan.

  The other horse was still racing madly down the road with his rider slumped in the saddle but staying on his back. Pat didn’t know how badly he was hit.

  He took a moment to bend over the outlaw whose horse he had shot, found him breathing but unconscious with a bullet through his shoulder and a broken leg doubled back under him.

  He raced into the aspen thicket and mounted his horse, swung out down the road to overtake the horse running with loose reins.

  The other horse was badly winded from his run down the mountain, and Pat overtook him a quarter of a mile away.

  His rider was dead, still in the saddle twisted over the saddle horn. It had caught his belt and held him in position.

  Pat grimly gathered up the reins and trotted back, leading the horse with its dead burden behind him.

  Sam was standing over the live outlaw when he got back. The wiry little man grinned cheerfully and reported, “We got one live one back yonder. Ezra’s bringin’ him in. Other two never will beat any more gals I reckon.”

  Pat nodded soberly. “That makes three to bury right here. Will this one stay live long enough to reach Fairplay?”

  “Don’t see why not,” Sam said cheerily. “Lily says he’s her Uncle Cleve. Sort of the boss. That’n in the saddle behind you is her Uncle Art. What in tunket’s holdin’ him in thuh saddle anyhow? Ain’t he dead?”

  “His belt caught the saddle horn when my bullet slapped him in the back of the head.” Pat dismounted wearily and walked over to where Karen was bathing Lily’s discolored face with cold water from the canteen.

  Karen looked up to ask, “Did you … use my gun?”

  Pat looked down at the gun in his left hand. He’d forgotten he was carrying it. He remembered that the bullet that killed Art Runyon had come from his own gun, but he didn’t see any reason to tell Karen that.

  He laid it down beside the widow and said, “You can rest easy tonight. If I hadn’t had your gun one of ’em might have got away.”

  17

  It was late dusk when the trail-weary cavalcade led by Pat Stevens reached Fairplay. There were six horses strung out behind Pat. Karen had agreed to come to care for Lily and help her make the grueling ride in to medical attention. The girl was in a dazed condition, her back terribly lacerated by the quirting she had received from her uncles, her heart sick with realization of the truth as it had been revealed to her.

  Karen had another reason for riding into Fairplay with them. After two years of mental agony, she was determined not to miss the final act in the tragedy that had taken her husband’s life. She wanted to see the final round-up of the entire gang, and Pat had promised her that would take place in Fairplay. She and Lily rode right behind Pat as they entered town at dusk. She was half-supporting the girl who rode close beside her, and her eyes were clear and shining with the realization of a fulfilled resolution.

  Behind the two women, Sam and Ezra each led a horse carrying the body of a man securely strapped in the saddle. Back on the Pass, they had taken time to set Cleve Runyon’s broken leg with a rough splint, and to tie up his wounded shoulder. He was unable to sit in the saddle, so they had him tied across it belly-down, and he was near-hysterical with jolting pain as they neared town. Twice during the long ride in he had lapsed into intervals of unconsciousness, but none of them had made any effort to alleviate his suffering. He was a proven cold-blooded murderer and their only concern was to get him in to the sheriff alive.

  The other living member of the outlaw gang went by the name of Pokey Dallgren. He was a big dull-witted man who had thrown up his hands in instant surrender as soon as the shooting started, and had come out of the ambush unwounded.

  His hands were lashed to the saddlehorn and his feet tied in the stirrups with a rope under his horse’s belly. He was happy to be alive and had answered all questions about the gang’s activities freely, seeming not to realize that he was due to feel a hangman’s noose about his neck for his part in those activities.

  The Fairplay jail was a square stone building with iron-barred windows built on the hill just behind Main Street. Pat led the way there and stopped in front of the jail, turned to yell back at his partners, “Wait right here till I get the sheriff.” He told Karen, “You an’ Lily come on with me to the sheriff’s house next door. Mrs. Hartly’ll take care of her till we can get a doctor.”

  The three of them rode on to a little frame house just beyond the jail. Pat swung out of the saddle and stepped back, holding up his arms to catch Lily as she slid down when Karen released her.

  Sheriff Hartly came to the door, picking his teeth after an early supper, as Pat came up the walk bearing the girl in his arms. Lily’s eyes were shut and she was limp but conscious.

  The sheriff’s eyes widened with amazement at the sight, but he jerked the door open without asking questions and called in to his wife, “Show Pat Stevens into the front bedroom, Ma. He’s got a girl that looks hurt bad.”

  Mrs. Hartly was a motherly gray-haired woman. Like her husband, she wasted no time with questions. She showed him a bed where he could lay the girl, and whisked her young son off for a doctor. Pat left Lily with Karen and Mrs. Hartly and went out to tell the sheriff, “Sam an’ Ezra are waitin’ back a
t the jail to lock up a couple of prisoners.”

  The sheriff hastily buckled on a gun and got his hat and coat.

  “Cleve Runyon and one of his gang, name of Pokey Dallgren,” Pat told him matter-of-factly. “When the doctor gets through fixing up Lily, you can bring him over to the jail to work on Runyon. He’s in sort of bad shape.”

  “So you went after that reward after all?” Hartly chuckled and poked Pat in the ribs.

  “It sort of come after me,” Pat said soberly.

  He went on to the group in front of the jail while the sheriff hastily unlocked the door, and told Sam and Ezra, “See the sheriff locks ’em up tight, an’ then you-all ride down to the livery stable an’ bring Five-Fingers Martin back up here. We’ll finish this off tonight.”

  “Where you goin’?”

  “To the Elite Hotel. I won’t be long.” Pat strode away on foot down the slope toward Main Street where the saloons were just beginning to light up and get ready for the night’s business.

  The hotel clerk was alone in the lobby when Pat stalked in. He said, “Howdy, Mr. Stevens,” with an ingratiating smile, but Pat passed him toward the stairway with only a nod.

  Upstairs, he went directly to the room where he had been interviewed by the two members of the syndicate three nights previously.

  He turned the knob and flung the door open. O. Manley Raine was alone in the rocking chair by the window, with his waistcoat open and his shoes off. He got up slowly with a portentous frown at Pat. “I understood you were in Sanctuary Flat.”

  “I was,” Pat said tersely. “Where’s Van Urban?”

  “He has the room next to mine. Am I to understand …”

  Pat went out without telling the Denver banker what he was to understand. He tried the door of the adjoining room and found it locked although light showed through the crack under the door.

  He knocked loudly. It opened after a time, and the railroad engineer stood in the doorway blinking at him like a man just awakened from a nap.

  “It’s Mr. Stevens?” He sounded surprised and not too pleased. “What are you doing back so soon?”

  “We’re finishin’ up that Sanctuary Flat job tonight,” Pat told him. “Get a coat an’ come over to the jail with me. There’s one man still loose that’s got to be identified.”

  “I don’t know how I can help.”

  “I’m purty sure you can help a lot. You want to see it cleaned up right, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” Van Urban sputtered. “If you’re certain …”

  Pat said, “I’ll wait right here while you get yore coat on.” His voice was grim and uncompromising.

  Van Urban said, “Very well.” He turned and put on a heavy coat, donned his hat and blew out the lamp. He and Pat went downstairs together.

  As they climbed the hill toward the jail, Van Urban asked a lot of curious questions, but Pat answered none of them directly. He merely said, “Wait’ll we get to the jail. You’ll see what I mean.”

  Sheriff Hartly met them at the jail door. He looked at Pat’s companion curiously, pulled the door open and said gruffly, “The others are inside.”

  The front of the jail was fixed up as the sheriff’s office. Sam and Ezra stood against the opposite wall with Five-Fingers Martin between them. Five-Fingers’ face was pallid and he didn’t look happy in this environment which was all too familiar to him.

  He looked at Van Urban and nodded to Pat. “That’s him. It was his hawse that was rode far an’ fast that night like I tol’ yuh.”

  “What is this?” Van Urban demanded waspishly. “Where’s the man you wanted me to identify?”

  “I reckon you misunderstood me,” Pat growled. “Yo’re the one I wanted to get identified out loud by Five-Fingers in front of Sheriff Hartly. Van Urban’s the man back of all this killin’, Sheriff. Runyon has already told us, but I wanted to tie him in from every angle ’cause he’s liable to be a slippery cuss when he comes to trial.”

  “You must be insane,” Van Urban said with sweat beginning to trickle down his forehead. “What sort of absurdity is this?”

  “Tell you what,” said Pat easily. “Nex’ time you write a threatenin’ note on a sheet of paper with a lead bullet an’ try to make it sound like a man that don’t know how to spell, don’t make the mistake of writin’ ‘specially’ with ‘es’ in front of it. That’s maybe the dictionary spellin’, but nobody but a book-taught engineer from the east would spell it that way.”

  “I don’t know what on earth you’re talking about,” faltered Van Urban, collapsing suddenly in a chair in front of the sheriff’s desk.

  “I knew all the time it mighty near had to be one of you members of the Syndicate tippin’ the killers off when the Burns detective an’ Nate Morris got killed,” Pat told him acidly. “I didn’t know which one. Couldn’t see why one of you would want to chase the Syndicate’s cattle out. Not till Runyon spilled it all this morning,” he added significantly.

  “Cleve Runyon told us about them coal claims you own jointly with them in the upper end of the Flat, an’ how they weren’t worth nothing without a railroad to haul the coal out, but worth a plumb fortune with the railroad built. You didn’t have money to finish the road, but when your crowd went broke you got the Syndicate to finance it so they could make their cattle-breedin’ experiment. Then all you had to do was to discourage ’em so they’d give up the breedin’ … an’ there you were. With a railroad ready-built to haul out the coal.

  “Yo’re a worse murderer than them, Van Urban. You sat back an’ pulled the strings to get men killed, an’ double-crossed yore own pardners after they’d put up the money to build the railroad. I’d tear you apart right now with my bare hands, ’cept I’d rather see you hang.” Pat’s voice was harsh and shaken with wrath. He turned abruptly and strode out into the cold night air.

  He was leaning against the outside of the jail puffing violently on a cigarette when Hartly came out a few minutes later. “You shoulda stayed to watch it, Pat. He busted down an’ cried like a baby.”

  “If I’d stayed in there with him another minute, you wouldn’t of had him for a hangin’,” Pat confessed. “I’m losin’ control of my temper as I get older, Hartly.”

  “You’re not too old yet to get a job done,” the sheriff commended him. “There’s a five thousand reward comin’ to you for breakin’ up the Runyon gang.”

  “I told you from the first we didn’t want that money,” Pat reminded him angrily. “It rightly belongs to those two gals over at yore house. See that it’s split between ’em.”

  He turned away from the sheriff as Sam and Ezra came out with Five-Fingers. “An’ I owe you a drink,” he told Martin. “Le’s go down to Happy Jack’s an’ hoist one together while Sam feeds ’em back that money he won by mistake last time.”

  About the Author

  Brett Halliday (1904–1977) was the primary pseudonym of American author Davis Dresser. Halliday is best known for creating the Mike Shayne Mysteries. The novels, which follow the exploits of fictional PI Mike Shayne, have inspired several feature films, a radio series, and a television series.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1945 by Jefferson House, Inc.

  Cover design by Andy Ross

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-2496-9

  This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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