Wild Western Tales 2: 101 Classic Western Stories Vol. 2 (Civitas Library Classics)

by Various

  From what he had heard, Bud decided that this robbery was to be the final coup of Morrissey's outfit before they left the territory, rapidly getting too dangerous for men of their calling. They knew that the rangers would sooner or later round them up. They were desperate, and Bud knew that he would, in all likelihood, have to shoot it out with the three of them, unless he could succeed in creeping up on them unseen and covering them.

  He saw daylight ahead of him, the outline of the side wall revealed at the end of the rift. He flung his torch away and went rapidly but cautiously on to where the end of the tunnel overlooked a tiny glen.

  Grass and bushes grew here, with a few stunted trees. Water fell from the cliff into a little pool. It was about ten feet to the floor of the glen, but clefts and ridges made the descent simple enough if he could tackle it without being seen and shot at.

  If he was discovered he would undoubtedly be riddled by the three men who were now squatting on the ground with their backs toward him. They were on the near side of a split that extended clear across the glen. It did not look like a particularly lengthy or impossible jump for active men, though Bud surmised, from Bill's remark, that the chasm was deep enough for a slip to kill any man falling into it.

  He could see no horses on the far side, but he made out a notch in the cliff which he imagined was a pass to some other basin where the horses would be grazing. He made a careful study of what might turn out to be a battle ground, squatting down in the mouth of the tunnel.

  There was a cloth in front of the trio--the blanket from Morrissey's foundered mount. His saddle and bridle lay to one side. He must have made two trips, Bud fancied, to have packed them in as well as the gold.

  The latter was in shining evidence on the blanket, glittering heaps of valuable metal. It was impossible to guess at the amount, save that there were many hundreds of the coins, which were divided roughly into three piles, one of which was much larger than the others.

  This division was evidently the cause of a discussion that bade fair to terminate in a violent quarrel.

  Black Morrissey was claiming the lion's share of the spoils he had collected. And the two others did not fancy their roles of jackals. Their voices came plainly to Bud. First the deep notes from Morrissey, mounting to a bellow.

  "We'll share as we allus hev," he declared. "Them thet takes part in the job gits more than the rest. Those skunks thet got cold feet an' cleared but last week when we got the tip the rangers hed us next on their list leaves all the more to you boys. You're gittin' twice as much now as you would ordinary. Close to five thousand apiece. An' thet's plenty, seein' I turned the trick alone, took all the risk. I hed to shoot one man as it was, an' thet might put my neck in a noose if they ketch me--which they won't."

  "I'm not so sure of thet," muttered Bud to himself beneath his breath, as he slipped off his boots and prepared to make a silent descent in his socks.

  It had to be done swiftly and surely, and he calculated every step so that his six-gun would be clear for action. He knew that they would not be able to hear him unless they turned accidentally, which was not likely, intent as they were upon the loot. But if he was to be a target, he meant to be a moving one.

  He was out of pistol range and he wanted to get in closer to them before he announced his presence or started any attack that might be necessary.

  Jim's voice sounded in a snarl.

  "Aw, to blazes with yore risks! This is the last job, an' we'll share even. We're goin' to separate after we git goin', an' we'll split alike."

  "Thet's right," said Bill, starting to rise to his feet, his hand on the butt of his gun. "I'm either goin' to git a third out of this or I'll git half, Morrissey. Understand that."

  Morrissey did not move from his position, squatting on his haunches, his big hands on his knees. Bud caught the gleam of his teeth in something that Morrissey may have meant for a smile, for an attempt to suggest a willingness to concede to their demands--anything to blind them to his real purpose. He alone of the three wore two guns. Bud saw that the holsters were open, and his hunch prophesied to him with startling rapidity what was about, to happen.

  Even as Bud descended, leaping lightly from a projection to the top of a boulder and then to the ground, the tragedy occurred--if the riddance of such rascals from the world could be so termed.

  As he squatted, the open ends of Morrissey's holsters touched the top of the grass stems. Bud himself, by dint of long practice and natural coordination, could draw and fire with such rapidity as to make it impossible for the eye to follow his movement.

  But he had never seen such a lightning draw as that made by Morrissey. He did not shift from his crouch, save to turn slightly at the waist, as his two guns streaked out flame and smoke.

  They were not the only ones that roared in that little glen. Bill had seen, or guessed, what his defiant statement would bring about. He had practically challenged Morrissey, hinted that he meant to kill him and share the loot with Jim.

  Jim was evidently of the same mind, but slower of movement. His gun never got more than halfway from leather.

  Bill was the first to fall, shot through the body from hip to hip, knocked down by the blow of the heavy slug. He sprawled backward on the grass, tearing up tufts of it in his death agony.

  Bud saw Jim slowly turning, the action ending in his knees crumpling as he pitched forward. Black Morrissey had shot him through the heart.

  Now Morrissey rose, his masking smile a grin of savage exultation. He caught sight of the ranger running toward him, and he fired one shot, even as Bud pulled the trigger.

  IV.

  The ranger saw Morrissey stagger and knew that he had hit the bandit, long though the range was for accuracy. At the same second he was spun about by the impact of a bullet that caught him high up in the left shoulder, breaking or splintering bone with a nerve shock that, despite all his will and courage, temporarily halted him, while his vision blurred.

  He caught instinctively at the trunk of a stunted piñon to steady himself, still holding his gun. Through a haze, while he summoned all his powers of recovery, the blood coming fast from his wounded arm, he saw Morrissey stoop and swiftly gather together the corners of the blanket that held the gold.

  With an effort the outlaw heaved the heavy bundle over his right shoulder and started for the crevice.

  Now Bud saw that his shot had struck the bandit in his right thigh. He ran lamely but made good progress, though once his leg seemed to buckle under him and a dark stain was spreading on his clothing.

  Bud got himself together and ran after him, firing a shot that he felt sure would be futile. For the outlaw was once more out of range. But Bud hoped it might halt the man in a surrender. Bud was playing that chance.

  It did not, however. The shot and perhaps the whine of the bullet only spurred the bandit on. Bud was conscious of growing weakness from his wound. His knees were none too steady, threatening to give way as he ran, stumbling a little over rough spots hidden by the grass. He was unable to gain.

  The outlaw paused on the brink of the crevice, the bag of gold still on his shoulder. He stooped a little as if to gauge a leap.

  Then he sprang, with Bud closing in on him, holding his fire. Morrissey had killed three men now, though two of them deserved it, and Bud wanted more than ever to take him in alive, to get him before he reached the horses. Two of these might still be saddled, but mounting would take time, encumbered as the bandit was with the gold he evidently meant to risk everything to keep.

  He risked too much. A slope led down toward the brink of the cavern, and now Bud could see the farther side of it, lower. He imagined the space to be some twelve feet. It was a long jump, but not impossible for athletic men. Bud did not mean to stop but to make the most of a running start.

  He checked himself after all, digging his heels into the turf when he saw what was happening.

  Morrissey's greed was literally his downfall. The weight of the gold, plus the wound in his leg, which mus
t have weakened the driving power of his muscles, was too much for him. Bud saw that he could never make it, that his feet would strike below the edge on the far side. He had overestimated his powers.

  Morrissey saw it, too. He let go of the blanket, which fell like a plummet to the bottom of the chasm, the glittering coins showering down. Morrissey let out a roar as he saw that he was doomed. With one last, despairing, prodigious effort, he tried to hunch himself as he struck the rim too low. He strove to clutch at a bush and actually ruffled it with his fingers before he went hurtling down. With a sickening thud he landed, his back broken, his skull smashed on the rocks amid the double eagles.

  For a moment Bud gazed down. Then he started to bind up his arm and stop the crimson flow as test he could before he went back through the cavern and the ravine to where Pepper was awaiting him.

  The dead men and the gold could wait until he had reported at camp. The buzzards might arrive before the detail reached them, but such matters were a part and parcel of what fate preserves for men like Morrissey and his comrades.

  Bein' on the Texas Rangers' list may be a distinction fer some hombres among their shady acquaintances, but it ain't one that they exactly crave. And when Bud Jones happens to be the ranger selected to go after 'em, they ain't likely to be lackin' excitement. Bud and the rangers will be back in WILD WEST WEEKLY soon in another story of their adventures.

  Contents

  A CRISIS FOR THE GUARD

  By John Fox, Jr.

  The tutor was from New England, and he was precisely what passes, with Southerners, as typical. He was thin, he wore spectacles, he talked dreamy abstractions, and he looked clerical. Indeed, his ancestors had been clergymen for generations, and, by nature and principle, he was an apostle of peace and a non-combatant. He had just come to the Gap--a cleft in the Cumberland Mountains--to prepare two young Blue Grass Kentuckians for Harvard. The railroad was still thirty miles away, and he had travelled mule-back through mudholes, on which, as the joke ran, a traveller was supposed to leave his card before he entered and disappeared--that his successor might not unknowingly press him too hard. I do know that, in those mudholes, mules were sometimes drowned. The tutor's gray mule fell over a bank with him, and he would have gone back had he not feared what was behind more than anything that was possible ahead. He was mud-bespattered, sore, tired and dispirited when he reached the Gap, but still plucky and full of business. He wanted to see his pupils at once and arrange his schedule. They came in after supper, and I had to laugh when I saw his mild eyes open. The boys were only fifteen and seventeen, but each had around him a huge revolver and a belt of cartridges, which he unbuckled and laid on the table after shaking hands. The tutor's shining glasses were raised to me for light. I gave it: my brothers had just come in from a little police duty, I explained. Everybody was a policeman at the Gap, I added; and, naturally, he still looked puzzled; but he began at once to question the boys about their studies, and, in an hour, he had his daily schedule mapped out and submitted to me. I had to cover my mouth with my hand when I came to one item--"Exercise: a walk of half an hour every Wednesday afternoon between five and six"--for the younger, known since at Harvard as the colonel, and known then at the Gap as the Infant of the Guard, winked most irreverently. As he had just come back from a ten-mile chase down the valley on horseback after a bad butcher, and as either was apt to have a like experience any and every day, I was not afraid they would fail to get exercise enough; so I let that item of the tutor pass.

  The tutor slept in my room that night, and my four brothers, the eldest of whom was a lieutenant on the police guard, in a room across the hallway. I explained to the tutor that there was much lawlessness in the region; that we "foreigners" were trying to build a town, and that, to ensure law and order, we had all become volunteer policemen. He seemed to think it was most interesting.

  About three o'clock in the morning a shrill whistle blew, and, from habit, I sprang out of bed. I had hardly struck the floor when four pairs of heavy boots thundered down the stairs just outside the door, and I heard a gasp from the startled tutor. He was bolt upright in bed, and his face in the moonlight was white with fear.

  "Wha--wha--what's that?"

  I told him it was a police whistle and that the boys were answering it. Everybody jumped when he heard a whistle, I explained; for nobody in town was permitted to blow one except a policeman. I guessed there would be enough men answering that whistle without me, however, and I slipped back into bed.

  "Well," he said; and when the boys lumbered upstairs again and one shouted through the door, "All right!" the tutor said again with emphasis: "Well!"

  Next day there was to be a political gathering at the Gap. A Senator was trying to lift himself by his own boot-straps into the Governor's chair. He was going to make a speech, there would be a big and unruly crowd, and it would be a crucial day for the Guard. So, next morning, I suggested to the tutor that it would be unwise for him to begin work with his pupils that day, for the reason that he was likely to be greatly interrupted and often. He thought, however, he would like to begin. He did begin, and within half an hour Gordon, the town sergeant, thrust his head inside the door and called the colonel by name.

  "Come on," he said; "they're going to try that d--n butcher." And seeing from the tutor's face that he had done something dreadful, he slammed the door in apologetic confusion. The tutor was law-abiding, and it was the law that called the colonel, and so the tutor let him go--nay, went with him and heard the case. The butcher had gone off on another man's horse--the man owed him money, he said, and the only way he could get his money was to take the horse as security. But the sergeant did not know this, and he and the colonel rode after him, and the colonel, having the swifter horse, but not having had time to get his own pistol, took the sergeant's and went ahead. He fired quite close to the running butcher twice, and the butcher thought it wise to halt. When he saw the child who had captured him he was speechless, and he got off his horse and cut a big switch to give the colonel a whipping, but the doughty Infant drew down on him again and made him ride, foaming with rage, back to town. The butcher was good-natured at the trial, however, and the tutor heard him say, with a great guffaw:

  "An' I do believe the d--n little fool would 'a' shot me."

  Once more the tutor looked at the pupil whom he was to lead into the classic halls of Harvard, and once more he said:

  "Well!"

  People were streaming into town now, and I persuaded the tutor that there was no use for him to begin his studies again. He said he would go fishing down the river and take a swim. He would get back in time to hear the speaking in the afternoon. So I got him a horse, and he came out with a long cane fishing-pole and a pair of saddle-bags. I told him that he must watch the old nag or she would run away with him, particularly when he started homeward. The tutor was not much of a centaur. The horse started as he was throwing the wrong leg over his saddle, and the tutor clamped his rod under one arm, clutching for the reins with both hands and kicking for his stirrups with both feet. The tip of the limber pole beat the horse's flank gently as she struck a trot, and smartly as she struck into a lope, and so with arms, feet, saddle-pockets, and fishing-rod flapping towards different points of the compass, the tutor passed out of sight over Poplar Hill on a dead run.

  As soon as he could get over a fit of laughter and catch his breath, the colonel asked:

  "Do you know what he had in those saddle-pockets?"

  "No."

  "A bathing suit," he shouted; and he went off again.

  Not even in a primeval forest, it seemed, would the modest Puritan bare his body to the mirror of limpid water and the caress of mountain air.

  * * * * *

  The trouble had begun early that morning, when Gordon, the town sergeant, stepped from his door and started down the street with no little self-satisfaction. He had been arraying himself for a full hour, and after a tub-bath and a shave he stepped, spic and span, into the street with his head
steadily held high, except when he bent it to look at the shine of his boots, which was the work of his own hands, and of which he was proud. As a matter of fact, the sergeant felt that he looked just as he particularly wanted to look on that day--his best. Gordon was a native of Wise, but that day a girl was coming from Lee, and he was ready for her.

  Opposite the Intermont, a pistol-shot cracked from Cherokee Avenue, and from habit he started that way. Logan, the captain of the Guard--the leading lawyer in that part of the State--was ahead of him however, and he called to Gordon to follow. Gordon ran in the grass along the road to keep those boots out of the dust. Somebody had fired off his pistol for fun and was making tracks for the river. As they pushed the miscreant close, he dashed into the river to wade across. It was a very cold morning, and Gordon prayed that the captain was not going to be such a fool as to follow the fellow across the river. He should have known better,

  "In with you," said the captain quietly, and the mirror of the shining boots was dimmed, and the icy water chilled the sergeant to the knees and made him so mad that he flashed his pistol and told the runaway to halt, which he did in the middle of the stream. It was Richards, the tough from "the Pocket," and, as he paid his fine promptly, they had to let him go. Gordon went back, put on his everyday clothes and got his billy and his whistle and prepared to see the maid from Lee when his duty should let him. As a matter of fact, he saw her but once, and then he was not made happy.

  The people had come in rapidly--giants from the Crab Orchard, mountaineers from through the Gap, and from Cracker's Neck and Thunderstruck Knob; Valley people from Little Stone-Gap, from the furnace site and Bum Hollow and Wildcat, and people from Lee, from Turkey Cove, and from the Pocket--the much-dreaded Pocket--far down in the river hills.