by COLE JACKSON
Farther south and to the west another man fought the storm, a tall man mounted on a splendid sorrel horse. The sorrel’s glorious golden coat was streaked and smeared with the gray dust, his ears and his mane were furred with it, but he held his head high and snorted defiance to the stinging clouds. With rare instinct he avoided the snarls of sage and scrub, planting his hoofs daintily on the yielding silt. North by east he forged ahead, the wind blasts ruffling his tail and tossing his mane, apparently untired despite the hundred miles he had put behind him in the past two days.
The rider was as noteworthy as the horse he rode. Tall, broad of shoulder and lean of waist and hip, he rode with the easy grace of one born to the saddle. His hair, where it was not dusted with the gray alkali, was crisp and black. His face was lean and bronzed with a wide mouth and level gray eyes.
Those eyes were the most striking feature of the man’s face. To oldtimers they called to mind other eyes, the eyes of men who had walked through the smoke-misted West with courage — unafraid, in whose presence other men were wont to speak softly and move their hands with care.
“All steel and hickory and coiled-up chain lightnin’,” a critical observer would have said, “and when he goes after those two guns, there’s nothing for the other fellow to do but die gracefully!”
The two guns hung low in carefully worked hand-made holsters, their long barrels tapping against the rider’s muscular thighs, the black butts flaring away from his lean hips. A heavy Winchester swung in the saddle boot.
Through the clouds of dust there suddenly came the hissing deluge of icy rain. The sorrel snorted explosively at the sting of the water, but the rider grunted relief.
“Don’t be kicking, oldtimer,” he admonished, “it’ll lay this dust, and that’s something to be thankful for. My lips are cracked open and my eyes feel as though I’d been rubbing sand in them. And I guess you’re in about the same fix. This’ll wash us off and make us feel a big sight better — you see if it doesn’t!”
The sorrel snorted again, and shook his head as if in disagreement. Abruptly he shied, jolting his rider by his unexpected sideways leap.
“Easy, Goldy,” growled the man. “What’s eating you?”
The sorrel snorted again, capering nervously and rolling his eyes toward a low mound which appeared to be just another dust-covered clump of sage.
Jim Hatfield had long ago learned to trust the instinct of his big mount. Anything that appeared out of the ordinary to Goldy, he had learned, would bear investigation. The tall Ranger Lieutenant halted the sorrel, quieted him with a soothing word and gazed at the silent mound with speculative eyes. He could just distinguish its outlines through the rain, which was now descending in wind-whipped sheets.
Lithely he swung to the ground, shaking the water from the brim of his hat. A long stride and he reached the motionless form. Another instant and he was kneeling beside it, brushing away the sodden dust, to reveal a dark-faced little man who lay limp, something clutched to his scrawny chest. It was a task to break his grip on the heavy rifle with its rag wrapped lock.
For an instant the gun drew Hatfield’s attention from the man. He examined it with growing curiosity, recognizing it as a latest model United States Army rifle. His gaze shifted back to the man.
“Now where in blazes did a little half-starved Mex get hold of a gun like this?” he wondered. “Got about as much business with it as a hog with a hip pocket!”
He felt of the unconscious man’s heart, found that it beat with fair strength.
“Just knocked out by the dust and heat,” he decided. “He ought to snap out of it before long. The rain’ll help. I’d better get him to some place where I can make a fire. Hot coffee will be just the thing when he comes to.”
He picked up man and rifle with no apparent effort. Just as easily he mounted, cradling the limp form in front of him. He spoke to the sorrel and the big horse moved on, evidently as little affected by the burden as was his master. Another hour of battling the rain and the wind and they struck the first slopes of the Tamarra Hills.
In a sheltered canyon, beneath the overhang of a tall cliff which formed a perfect protection from the rain, Hatfield built a fire. The little Mexican still lay silent, but his breathing had become regular and his pulse beat stronger.
“Just tuckered out,” Hatfield diagnosed the case. “Sleeping now. He’ll wake up in a little and be okay.”
The Mexican was, in fact, stirring before the coffee had boiled. Abruptly he opened wide, bewildered eyes and stared about him. Stark terror filmed the eyes as they rested on the tall form of the Ranger. Hatfield’s quick glance caught the expression of fear, and he smiled.
“Take it easy, amigo,” he said, “you’re all right now. Just a minute and I’ll have something hot for you to get inside you. That’ll fix you up pronto.”
The little man stared at him dazedly and Hatfield repeated the words in fluent Spanish. The Mexican found his tongue.
“Gracias, señor, gracias!” he exclaimed. “The English I understand eet,” he added, a trifle proudly. “Eet I speak also, but not well.”
“Fine!” Hatfield nodded, “but don’t try any talking in either lingo just yet. Here, surround this cup of coffee while I cook us up some supper. I’ve got some ham and eggs in this saddlebag, if the eggs aren’t smashed up. No, they’re still in one piece. The hen that laid ‘em did a good job on the shells. Hope the insides are as good. Uh-huh, they look fine,” he added as he broke the eggs into the frying pan.
Jim Hatfield, usually a very silent individual, knew that nothing was more effective in putting a frightened man at his ease than just such rambling small talk. A few minutes later the little Mexican was sitting up, eating hungrily.
“Now, I wonder,” the Ranger mused, studying the other while he ate. “I wonder just what he was doing out there in the desert, carrying a Government rifle? I’d better find out about that rifle, if I can.”
He had already found that the gun was unloaded and that the Mexican had no ammunition in his possession.
He rolled a cigarette with the slim fingers of one hand, passed it to the Mexican and rolled another for himself. The smokes were almost consumed when Hatfield offered a casual comment and an equally casual question.
“Nice looking gun you have there, amigo. Where’d you happen to get it?”
Again the beady eyes filmed over. The dark face contorted.
“I — I f-found it, señor.”
The voice that mumbled the words was a thick stutter. The little man’s thin fingers balled into nervous fists, straightened, worked convulsively.
Hatfield, whose steady gaze missed nothing, spoke again in the same casual manner.
“You’re lucky. I’ve always wanted a gun like that. What say you sell it to me? How much?”
Sweat beaded the Mexican’s haggard cheeks and Hatfield could see the palms of his hands grow moist.
“I — I would rather not sell it, señor.” He spoke little above a whisper.
“Aw, come on,” Hatfield replied jovially, apparently taking no note of the other’s agitation, “I’ll give you a good price. More than you’ll get from anybody else.”
He poised a gold piece temptingly on his forefinger as he spoke.
The Mexican shook his head vehemently, although his eyes glowed at the sight of the gold.
“I — I can — I — I will not sell, señor. I too have long wished for an escopeta like this one.”
Hatfield nodded with well-feigned regret.
“Okay. If you won’t, you won’t,” he resigned himself. “Well, I’d better take these pans down to the creek and scrub ‘em up a bit. Back in a minute.”
He picked up the tin plates and the cups and sauntered to the bank of the little stream which flowed through the canyon. It was just within the range of the firelight, less than a dozen paces distant. As he scoured the plates with sand, he pondered the Mexican’s reaction to his questioning.
“Started to say ‘cannot’ inst
ead of ‘will not sell,’ ” he mused as he bent over the water. “That is funny. Seems like that gun doesn’t belong to him, even from the findings keeping’s angle. Looks like he’s scared of letting it get away from him. He wanted that twenty dollars, and wanted it bad. I could see it in his eyes. More money than the poor devil ever saw before, chances are. Something that looked bigger than the twenty dollars kept him from taking it, and the only thing what would look bigger is something he’s scared to death of. Now what could that be? Nice combination — scared Mex and a brand-new Government rifle. There isn’t an army post within fifty miles of here, and I can’t figure where else a gun like that one would come from. I suppose I ought to hang onto this fellow, but how am I going to do it and do the job I come up here to do? I’d be a dead give-away. I — ”
A sudden clatter of loose stones brought his head around with a jerk. He caught a fleeting glimpse of a dark figure vanishing from the circle of firelight. By the time he had straightened up, not even the whisper of the rope sandals could be heard above the beat of the rain. A glance told him that the rifle also had vanished.
Hatfield grinned a trifle ruefully, but with a distinct sense of relief.
“Running like a scared rabbit,” he chuckled, “and there’s no chance of catching him in the rain and the dark. There won’t be any tracks to follow by dawn, the way the water’s coming down.
“Well, that solves the problem. I didn’t want to let him go without finding out something about where he got that gun, but doing that was liable to ball things up for me. We’ll just forget him for a while.”
He would never forget the little Mexican’s face, however, nor the mysterious rifle. The big Ranger was just putting both into the back of his mind, to make room for more pressing matters.
Back beside the fire, in the shelter of the cliff, he smoked thoughtfully. The rain ceased as abruptly as it had begun and the wind died down. Soon a watery moon peeped through the clouds and cast a wan light over the wild landscape. Hatfield glanced about speculatively, nodded and got to his feet.
The sorrel horse came at his whistle and Hatfield saddled up.
“We’ll just mosey on a spell,” he told the horse. “According to directions, three or four more hours ought to bring us to where we’re heading for. Then we’ll take a good rest after we look things over and find out what’s what. Okay by you?”
Goldy nodded his head and sneezed. Hatfield chuckled as he slipped the bit between the sorrel’s teeth.
“Don’t go trying to tell me you’re catching cold,” he bantered. “Fact is, I believe you’re too darn slow to even catch that, you spavined old mud turtle.”
Goldy’s answer to this outrageous slander was an indignant snort and an apparently vicious snap at his tall master’s high bridged nose. Hatfield swore at him affectionately and swung into the saddle.
East by north he rode in the pale moonlight. Less than four hours later the sorrel was daintily picking his way along the crest of a long ridge. The southern slope of the ridge was gentle, but the northern side dropped sharply toward the floor of what appeared to be a wide box canyon cutting the hills from east to west.
“This ought to be it,” Hatfield mused, glancing keenly about him. “The Huachuca Trail cuts this hogback somewhere ahead, according to what those two fellows said, and right across from the notch is where he is. Huh! that looks like the notch down past those white rocks.”
A few minutes later he reached the lip of the notch and glanced into the shadowy depths. The sides of the gash were almost sheer, the trail a score or more feet below the crest of the ridge. Where it dipped sharply down the northern slope of the ridge, it was bathed in the pale moonlight. Hatfield stiffened as he glanced in that direction.
Down the winding trail moved a long string of loaded pack mules, with mounted men beside and behind them. Just in time the Ranger caught the warning glint of quickly shifted metal. He was going out of the saddle when the rifle cracked. He heard the bullet scream through the space his body had occupied a second before. The rifle blazed a second time.
An instant later Jim Hatfield’s limp body was sliding and rolling down the steep side of the notch. It thudded onto the hard surface of the trail, quivered convulsively for a moment and lay still. In the dark depths of the canyon, fast hoofs thudded, swiftly dying to a mere whisper of sound and ceasing altogether.
The moon slid farther toward the west, poured questing beams into the notch. They crept along inch by inch until they rested upon the Ranger’s blood-streaked face, crept on and left the motionless form to the silent dark.
On the lip of the notch, the tall sorrel horse whinnied dejectedly, pawed the earth with a dainty hoof and stared downward with great, questioning eyes.
CHAPTER 4
THE sun was rising in the east and the western peaks were crowned with pale light when Jim Hatfield groaned, groped about him with uncertain hands and opened his eyes. A white stab of pain caused him to close them quickly and for some minutes he lay fighting a deadly nausea before he dared try it again. The light had strengthened greatly by then and he could make out the crumbling sides of the notch.
A small stone tumbled down and thumped in the dust beside him. He glanced up and saw Goldy outlined hugely against the brightening sky. Painfully he sat up, raised a trembling hand to his head and felt the lump he found there. There also was a slight cut just above one cheek bone and his face was stiff with crusted blood. Somewhat shakily he got to his feet and stood swaying uncertainly for a moment.
As strength returned, he recalled the events of the night before.
His last conscious recollection had been of his boot heels skidding on a smooth stone as he had hurled himself from the saddle.
“Hit my head on the rock as I came down. Knocked myself out and rolled over the edge of the notch,” he growled. “Lucky I didn’t break my neck on the way down! Gosh, I feel as though I’d been pulled through a knot hole and hung up to dry!”
He was stiff and sore in every joint and his head ached abominably, but he had apparently suffered no serious injury. A few minutes later he scrambled up the side of the notch and reached his worried horse.
“This is turning out to be some trip!” he told the sorrel. “Who do you suppose those men were who started throwing lead the minute they set eyes on us? Smugglers, the chances are — those mules were all loaded and they were heading up the Huachuca from the south, like they might have come from the other side the Line.
“Funny looking loads they were carrying — long wooden boxes. Certainly weren’t rawhide aparejos, the kind of pack sacks the Mexicans generally use. Couldn’t have been silver dobe dollars they were packin’.”
He considered a moment before he made an impatient gesture with one hand.
“I’ve got to put them off until later, too,” he said. “Right now I’ve got other things to look after. But I’d like to even up for this busted head with that gun slinging gent, but it’ll have to wait.”
His head felt better as he turned the sorrel’s nose to the north and rode down the steep slope. Soon he reached the floor of the canyon, glanced about keenly and rode slowly toward a low cliff with a decided overhang. In the shadow of the rock he dismounted, and approached the cliff.
The ground at its base was thickly grown with grass and prickly pear. High on a single stem, a cluster of drooping white yucca blossoms swayed in the breeze. To right and left, tall tree trunks, widely spaced, soared up like the columns of some great cathedral.
And here indeed was Death’s cathedral. Something shone whitely beneath the green of the prickly pear. It was a skull, topping a skeleton which lay among the tatters of rotting clothes.
For long minutes Jim Hatfield stood staring down at the skeleton. Silently he removed his wide hat and bared his dark head.
The gray eyes were somber now, and as he stared at the holes in the bullet battered skull, they turned cold as the shimmer of snow-dusted ice under a gray and wintry sky. The lean face grew bleak and the
good-humored mouth tightened to a thin, merciless line.
Jim Hatfield was looking down at the pitiful remains of a Ranger slain — slain in the performance of his duty.
He recalled the day, less than a week before, when two weather-beaten miners had walked into Ranger headquarters at Franklin and handed a silver star set on a silver circle to Captain McDowell. Patiently, they had answered the Captain’s questions, describing in painstaking detail the location of the skeleton they had stumbled upon at the base of the cliff.
“Haid was shot fulla holes,” Bill, the taller one, had said. “Rifle right beside him, bones of one hand still over it. Nope, we didn’t touch nothin’ — didn’t see nothin’ of his outfit if he had one. Shine of his badge caught Curt’s eye and that’s how we knowed what he was.
“Callated we’d oughta mosey over here and tell you fellers ‘bout it. Somethin’ oughta be done, we figgered. Decent fellers like us don’t favor Rangers gettin’ blowed out from under their hats that-a-way. Nope, we didn’t go tell the sheriff. We had a ruckus with him over to Helidoro, the new minin’ town, and he told us to get out and not come back. Curt and me was scairt he might do somethin’ to make trouble for us if we come tellin’ him ‘bout findin’ a murdered Ranger, so we decided to come over here.”
Captain McDowell thanked the miners warmly and shook hands with both. Bill and Curt had partially cleared up a mystery which had puzzled two Ranger posts for many months.
When the stern old commander, the man who “would charge hell with a bucket of water,” turned to Jim Hatfield, there were tears in his eyes. Cap’n Bill loved his “boys” as a father loves his sons.
“It can’t be anybody but Ed Shafter,” the Captain said. “Poor Ed! He was with me for a couple of years when I was stationed in the panhandle. I brought him up in the Rangers. Later he was transferred to Brooks’ company. You recollect Brooks sent him to San Rosita about a year back to look into the killing of young Dick Webb by Cartina, the bandit. Was there about a week and talked to a lot of fellows; then all of a sudden he disappeared.