Six-Gun Crossroad

by Lauran Paine

  Logan stepped over and craned for a look at the dead man. “Sure enough Frank,” he said. “Well, it’s no big loss. He always wanted to be someone … now he is. But he had to get killed to get there.” Logan looked at Perc and settled flat down in his boots. “Why couldn’t you have just gone on being a nice cow-town deputy, Whittaker?”

  Perc heard the drag of disappointment in Logan’s voice and gazed at the smaller man. “Probably for the same reason you couldn’t stay retired, Sam. A man sees things he should do and he tries to do them.”

  Logan looked at Reed and gently inclined his head. Reed nodded as though whatever thought had passed between them hadn’t reached him unexpected. He shuffled forward with Perc’s gun in his massive fist. “Sorry, son,” he rumbled. “We don’t mean you any harm. Only like Sam said, if you’d just gone along minding your own affairs, things would’ve worked out a lot better all around.”

  Logan said, speaking sharply: “Whittaker …!”

  Perc turned. That was when Reed swung the gun barrel. Just for a thousandth part of a second Perc knew where he’d blundered, but before he could even gather himself to spring clear, the barrel crunched down across his head, blackness exploded from every direction, and he fell with a soft little rustling sound.

  * * * * *

  It was the cold that awakened him, the pre-dawn chill that seeped through the shed’s warped and cracked old walls. He had a throbbing pulse of steady pain inside his head, but when he rose up and looked around, he saw the dead man lying there and remembered all that had happened, and the pain seemed to lessen slightly.

  Still he was groggy for fifteen minutes after he got to his feet and sank down upon an old crate in the shed to wait for some of the dizziness to depart. His reflections were not very charitable. He’d pistol-whipped a few fractious souls in his time and resented the force of the blow that had struck him down. Even when he reasoned that a man as powerful as John Reed, when he lightly tapped someone over the head, was using as much force as a lesser man would possess when he swung with all his strength, didn’t make him feel a whole lot better.

  He finally felt well enough to stand up and was reaching for the door when it opened and Abigail appeared in the opening, looking white in the face and with her eyes as large as agates.

  “My father left a note that you were in here … that I should come down and … What happened to you, Percy?”

  He put out a hand to her. “Ask your father,” he growled, and let her lead him out into the chilly new day gloom. “He hit me over the head, that’s what happened to me.”

  She put a strong arm around his middle and guided him up the alley toward the Reed wagon. “You’ll feel better in a little while. I’ll make some fresh coffee and some …”

  “What else did that note say?” he growled. “Where those two old catamounts have gone this time and what they’re up to?”

  All she said was: “Come along now and lean on me, if you want. You’ll feel better after a while.”

  He did begin to feel better after he’d been moving. His headache faded a little, too, but he didn’t tell her so. She helped him up into the wagon. It was spacious and well furnished. At the forward end a partitioning length of bright cloth hung down, but in the rear of the wagon there was a crackling little iron stove. He stood with his back to that blessed heat while gingerly exploring the top of his head. She watched him do this while ladling water from a cask into an old graniteware coffee pot, and said: “It’s fortunate you have such thick hair, Percy.”

  “That danged old coot,” he growled, feeling the lump. “He didn’t have to hit that hard.”

  She was fully clothed but hadn’t bunned her hair yet. As she moved, it swirled in beautiful waves around her shoulders. He stopped feeling the bump and sank down upon a small bench.

  “Abbie, would you do something for me?” he asked.

  She turned from the stove without smiling but with a softness to her glance that was both a smile and a promise. “Yes. What is it?”

  “Don’t put up your hair. Just let it lie like it is now.”

  She laughed. Her whole face brightened with a soft pinkness. “But I’m a woman, not a girl, Percy. Women put up their hair.”

  “Just be a girl, then,” he said, smiling up at her. “It’s beautiful just like it is.”

  She turned back to the stove. “If you wish it,” she told him, then cast a sidelong glance over. “You aren’t mad at me?”

  “You? Why you?”

  “Well, it was my father who hit you over the head, wasn’t it?”

  He stopped smiling. “Yes it was the consarned old bushy-faced coot. But he did it, you didn’t.” He reached for the cup she held out to him. The coffee was black and it was hot. It was also some kind of liquid magic for within minutes after downing it his headache diminished until it was scarcely noticeable.

  “Where did they go?” he asked, and knew from the way she went on working at the stove as though she hadn’t heard that she wasn’t going to answer.

  “All right. What’s their tie-in with Ringo and Jim Howard?”

  This time she answered. “It’s not what you think, Percy. It really isn’t. But, as I’ve said before, this is their affair. I can’t interfere and you shouldn’t interfere.”

  “Abbie, honey, there’s a dead man in that shed down the alley. There’s nothing very funny about a dead man. This thing’s got to come out into the open before there are more dead men.”

  She paled, but all she said was: “Fetch the bench over closer. Breakfast is ready.”

  Chapter Twelve

  He had scarcely begun to eat when a little insistent rap came on the door of Abigail’s wagon, and she went to see who it was. He recognized the voice instantly and gulped the last of his coffee, arose, and stepped over to look out. Perhaps under different circumstances Ab Fuller would have looked inquisitive or shocked or just plain interested in the spectacle of those two at the door of the Reed wagon, but now he wasn’t. He was anxious-faced and disturbed.

  “Come along,” he said when Perc appeared. “I’ve got to talk to you.”

  Perc edged around Abigail, felt for her fingers, squeezed them, let go, and sprang down out of the wagon. Ab turned at once and paced down the alleyway toward his barn. He didn’t say a word until they’d turned up into the runway, then he spun around and said: “Perc, two horses were stolen from me last night. Taken right out of the barn.”

  Perc was interested at once but he didn’t understand how Ab’s thoughts were running until the liveryman pointed across at the two empty stalls. Both stalls were near the rear of the barn, close to the alleyway exit, and side-by-side. It looked to Perc like the case of a pair of men entering together, taking the first two horses they found that were side-by-side, and riding out.

  “I figure it was John Reed, Deputy,” stated Fuller. “He’d have reason to take the horses, and besides that, this here alleyway exit is right handy to his wagon.”

  Perc turned and looked up and down the opposing rows of stalled animals. There was not a gray among them. “Ab,” he said, “why would Reed take two horses, why would he steal horses at all? You rented him the gray and you’d have rented him another one or two if he’d wanted them.”

  Fuller didn’t attempt to argue with the lawman’s logic; he simply shifted his mental stance and said glibly: “All right, it wasn’t Reed then. It was Sam Logan.”

  Perc stepped to a wooden saddle rack, straddled it, and looked skeptically at Fuller. “You’re shooting at the moon,” he grumbled. “You’ve got a phobia about Reed and Logan, so anything that happens you’re going to blame on them.”

  Ab blinked and lowered his brows. “What’s a phobia?” he demanded, not quite sure he wasn’t being grossly insulted.

  “Never mind,” evaded Perc, looking over where those empty stalls were. “Where was your night hawk?”

 
; “Asleep in the harness room.”

  “Just how good were those two pelters?”

  “Plenty good, Percy. I keep my best animals back down here so folks coming to rent a mount see the worst ones first. One of those stolen horses was a fine chestnut. The other was a blazed-faced bay with four white stockings halfway up his pasterns, as neat and flashy as anything you ever saw. Good, sound, expensive horses, and, by God, I want ’em back in as good a shape as when they were stolen, too.”

  Perc stood up slowly, speculating on someone’s need for two fresh mounts. It wasn’t difficult to imagine who, besides Reed and Logan, would have use for such animals. “I’ll look around,” he told Ab. “You rig out my horse. I’ll be back for him in a little while.”

  He walked outside and saw Everett Champion unlocking his saloon doors across the road and northward. He speculated on the possibility of Everett’s knowing something but gave it up because, as popular as the Golden Slipper was, he thought it very unlikely any outlaws who considered it likely they might be under surveillance would go there.

  He thought he knew who’d taken Ab’s horses, but it disturbed him that Ringo and Jim Howard had had the guts to be in town last night. Possibly, while he’d been lying unconscious, they’d been within a few yards of him. One thing he was sure of. Reed and Logan hadn’t taken those animals. He thought he’d better start looking now in earnest. First, he’d make a sashay around Snowshow range, then he’d head on up north again, as he’d done the day before, and scout up Rainbow’s range. Somewhere out there, for some reason he could only speculate about, Reed and Sam Logan were perhaps doing the same scouting.

  He turned to go back after his mount, but a pair of range men trotting in from the north, leading a pair of horses turned him quickly back around again. He didn’t know the riders except by sight; they’d hired on last spring with Mexican Hat, which controlled the eastward range. He knew just that much about the riders and no more.

  They saw him standing out front of the livery barn and angled over to draw up in front of Fuller’s tie rack. One of them bent, whipped a lead rope’s shank around the rack, and said: “Deputy, couple of tucked-up strays we found northeast of town on Hat range. They sure had the hell ridden out of ’em. Looked to us like they was abandoned maybe last night.”

  Perc went forward and walked silently around the pair of horses. They were, as the Mexican Hat rider had stated, tucked up in the gut and flank, had brush scratches on them, and showed all the signs of having been pushed to the limit of their endurance and strength. “Where exactly did you come onto them?” he asked the cowboys.

  “Northeast of town, maybe a couple of miles, but we backtracked ’em a lot closer to Ballester. We figured, whoever set ’em loose, probably did it right here … maybe from the edge of town. They both got Arizona brands.”

  Perc looked up. “How do you know they’re Arizona marks?” he demanded.

  The Mexican Hat rider pointed at the shoulder of the nearest stray. “That there’s Cross-Quarter-Circle, Deputy. I’ve seen it often enough. I used to work just north of the line down near Saint George. That Cross-Quarter-Circle outfit runs cattle on both sides of the line, but have their headquarters a few miles east of Wolf Hole, which is …”

  “In Arizona,” stated Perc dryly. “I know. Thanks a lot for bringing them to town, fellows. Next time we meet, I’ll stand the drinks at the Slipper.”

  Both cowboys broadly grinned, nodded, and spun their mounts. Perc stepped back and gazed at the Cross-Quarter-Circle horses. For perhaps the hundredth time since taking the assignment as deputy sheriff at Ballester he wished the town possessed a telegraph office.

  “Hey! Whose half-dead beasts are those?” Ab Fuller croaked, stepping out through the front of his barn, leading Perc’s saddled horse. “People who’d abuse horses like that ought to be shot.”

  “I think, Ab, that’s why they abused ’em like that. So they wouldn’t get shot.”

  “What’d you mean by that?”

  “Outlaws, Ab. Outlaws rode those horses hard and fast to escape a posse.”

  Fuller relinquished the reins of the horse he was holding to Perc and swung his wide-open eyes from the tie racked horses to Perc as the lawman checked his cincha, turned his horse once, and stepped up over leather. “You mean … say, Perc, I lost two, and someone abandoned two …?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been thinking the same thing. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  “You going hunting for them?”

  “Had that in mind, Ab. Take those poor devils inside. Stall ’em, cuff ’em down, and give ’em a good feed. I’ll stand the cost.”

  Fuller turned and walked up closer to the tied animal. He locked his hands behind his back and walked back and forth, making a horseman’s experienced appraisal. “You know, Perc, these’ve been darned fine beasts, young and tolerably sound and … by golly, I think I’ll slap a line on ’em just in case.”

  “You do that,” the deputy said, reined out, and swung to his left. The roadway was empty. Those two Mexican Hat riders had long since loped back toward their own range. It was too early in the morning for traffic yet. Some of the stores hadn’t even been opened for business.

  He reached the end of town, lifted his horse over into a comfortable lope, and pushed steadily ahead for a mile before swinging off westward. The sun was up but its heat hadn’t risen as yet. There was an azure tint to the spotless sky, a good freshness to the air, and he scarcely remembered being struck over the head by John Reed the night before, with his own pistol.

  Two things inclined him to believe the sorrow Reed had expressed the previous night about doing that to him. One was that note he’d left for Abigail, instructing her to help Perc. The other was the fact that, after belting him, Reed had replaced Perc’s .45 in his hip holster. Neither act had been the move of an angry or antagonistic man. Rather they had been the acts of a man haunted by remorse and regret.

  As he rode, he pieced together what he’d thus far figured out. It still left a big blank space, however, and the most logical conclusion he could use to fill that blank space in with was a rather obvious and unpleasant conviction that the old outlaw and the ex-lawman were definitely mixed up with a band of notorious renegades.

  That’s why, just before leaving town, he’d wished again for access to a telegraph office. He’d have wired Wolf Hole or its nearest adjoining town, which was St George, over the line in Utah, and ascertained if any lawless act had been committed in that area, by whom it had been committed, and perhaps learned if Charley Ringo and Jim Howard were involved in it.

  He thought he knew the answer even without sending such a telegram. There had been some lawless act committed down there, and not only were Ringo and Howard involved, but so also were dead Frank Rawlings and the unknown outlaw with whom Rawlings had come north, and who had killed Rawlings at that Rainbow water hole.

  The only fact he had trouble accepting was the illegal association of Sam Logan with a band of notorious murderers and thieves. Where John Reed was concerned, all he could do was earnestly hope. He didn’t do that for Reed’s sake; he did it for Abigail’s sake. But still, deep down, he was almost certain Reed had lied to him about reforming, had also lied to Abbie, but with greater success. She believed in her father, a very natural thing, a sad thing, Perc thought as he headed for the upcountry range above Snowshoe’s headquarters ranch. She’d had all the disappointments and anguish she deserved for one lifetime. When he met up with John Reed again, he meant now to tell him all the things he’d thought before but had refrained from saying to him.

  The land lay dazzlingly clear and golden as far as he could see in all directions. Northward from Snowshoe, where the range began to heave and break up somewhat, there were more trees and clumps of sage and chaparral than occurred southward. But everywhere he looked, there was just the endless hush and stillness. Twice he spotted bunches of cattle drowsing in the shad
e, and once he startled a small band of pronghorn antelope. The handsome little goat-like creatures raised their flags, bristled their white rump hair, which was their warning signal, and sped away. The fastest horse living couldn’t have even kept them in sight once they were alarmed.

  He watched the antelope run, scuffing up a thin little banner of dust, slowed his mount to a walk after a mile of loping, and looped the reins to create a smoke. Suddenly he sighted distant movement far to the north of the disappearing pronghorns and froze. It wasn’t a mounted man and it wasn’t a four-legged critter. It looked to be somewhere in between. There were a few bears in the country but never this far southward from the mountains this time of year. Bears couldn’t stand the scorching heat of midsummer without plenty of shade and water, of which there was not enough of either on the plains.

  He forgot about the smoke, picked up the reins, and angled off to intercept whatever it was out there moving slowly southward. It was a man on foot. He saw that at about the same time the man sighted Perc and faintly called out at the same time, waving with both arms. He pointed his animal dead ahead and finally recognized old Boots, the Snowshoe cocinero and wrangler. Even before he was close enough for them to speak he could hear old Boots’s fierce profanity.

  He halted, swung down, and walked the last hundred yards, leading his horse. Boots was stumping along on his spindly, saddle-warped legs mad as a hornet but seemingly otherwise unhurt.

  Perc stopped and let the cocinero cover the last hundred feet. “What are you doing out here on foot?” he asked, and triggered another withering blast of wrathful cursing.

  “Pickin’ posies,” snarled the red-faced and sweaty wrangler.

  “You get bucked off, Boots?”

  “Yes, I got bucked off, dad-rat it. But if I’d had half a chance, it never’d have happened. There was a couple of fellers in a draw. I never seen ’em until they jumped up out of the arroyo like they was popping out of the ground. The consarned colt I was straddling took one look, bogged his head, and took to me like a brother. I lost one bucket, then the danged other one. I tried to find the horn but it was ’way downhill and I never got it, so I sailed away like a confounded bird and them two strangers like to fell down laughing, dang their mangy hides.”