The Sixth Western Novel

by Jackson Gregory

  They came together, body to body, in the human lane which had opened up a good ten feet wide in fear of flying lead, and the thing which bewildered all onlookers was that neither man reached for his gun. Presently that was understood. Bundy, it happened, didn’t have a gun on him, and as for Bill Dorn, his fists balled and his muscles crawled—and he forgot all about the weapon banging at his hip. He had never known such a murderous fury as the one gripping him now, and his whole urge was to get his hands on Bundy, to beat him to a bloody pulp with the good honest tools nature had given him.

  Bundy, with a muffled angry roar, had sprung forward to meet the avalanche bearing down on him, so the two men came together with an impact which jarred both to their bootheels. But at the outset no such wild unleashed motive powder drove Bundy as that which impelled Bill Dorn. The two went down, Bundy toppling backward, Bill Dorn coming down on top of him. A shout of approval went up from the churning crowed; some few voices were raised to cheer Bundy on, but for the most part they were yelling: “That’s the stuff, Bill! Knock hell out’n him.”

  That was exactly what Bill Dorn was striving to do. His rage, now that he had actually come to grips with the man he hated so newly and so violently, burst all bounds. He took a blow in the face which rocked his head, and did not feel it.

  “Damn you—if ever a man needed killing—” he panted, and got Bundy’s burly throat in the grip of both hands.

  A man standing close by muttered: “Look at Bundy’s eyes! They’re damn near poppin’ out! Dorn’s killin’ him shore.”

  The man scarcely overstated the fact. There was froth on Bundy’s gaping mouth, and in his eyes, starting from their sockets, a glaze of horror.

  Stock Morgan clawed his way through the crowd, getting himself heartily cursed yet making swift progress. He came to stand closest of all to the two battling men. He shook his head and pursed a long lower lip. Then, adroitly and with neatness and dispatch, he put an end to the fight. In a quiet, matter-of-fact way he drew out his belt gun, a big cumbersome black-barreled Colt, and rapped Bill Dorn smartly over the head with it. Dorn, to all intents and purposes, simply folded up and went to sleep.

  “Couldn’t have you gettin’ hurt tonight, Mike Bundy,” Stock Morgan said quite pleasantly. “Hell, no!”

  CHAPTER IV

  Until a long time after midnight Nacional was as hectic as a man tumbling in a high fever. But in the pale lemon dawn, with a sweet warm spring wind redolent of sage blowing up from the South, Nacional was hushed almost beyond imagining. Had a stranger chanced along, he might have mistaken the place for a ghost town.

  Bill Dorn felt the soft southern breeze in his face, shook his head, winced and fell to scowling because of the headache which awoke along with him and from a queer sense of not knowing where he was and what had happened to him. Then he remembered and sat up with a jerk.

  He discovered that he was on a bed in a bare room surrounded by adobe walls none too clean, the plaster cracking on them. There was a rickety table with a tin wash basin, a dirty towel on a peg over it, a tin bucket on the floor. He turned slightly, put his head into his hands with a groan, and thought: “Somebody cracked me over the head with a telegraph pole just as I was choking the life out of Bundy.”

  He heard a faint sound, lifted his head again, saw the one window through which the scent of sage-in-the-dawn came to him—and then discovered the girl sitting on a stool by the window.

  “You! But I thought—”

  “Sh! Please!” Her whisper began with a command and ended with pleading. Bill Dorn got his feet on the floor—they hadn’t taken his boots off—and sat staring at her. She rose swiftly and came to him. She looked rather boyish just then in her boots and riding breeches and loose coat and big hat pulled down over her curls.

  “What’s it all about?” muttered Dorn. “I don’t get this. How’d I get here? How’d you get here? Where’s everybody?”

  “Somebody hit you on the head while you were fighting Mike Bundy,” she explained hurriedly, still whispering. She paused to glance apprehensively over her shoulder at the closed door. “They brought you here. You are in the old hotel right next door to the Perez place. And they—I think they’re all gone.”

  “Who hit me?”

  “I couldn’t see.”

  “And you? I thought Hank Smith and Mex Fontana had you in tow—”

  “When they heard somebody yell out that you were killing Mike Bundy they seemed of a sudden to take more interest in that than in me. I felt their hands relax on my wrists. Then the crowd was surging every which way—and I broke loose and ran! I hid—and then I came here. I was sure nobody would look for me here with you.”

  He pondered heavily; he wondered dully whether his brain ever would grow clear again. He said, puzzled: “What do you mean by saying they’re all gone? All who? Gone where?”

  “There’s hardly a soul left in Nacional. They went storming out of town—Oh, it must have been an hour, two hours ago; maybe longer. They went like a lot of crazy drunken creatures, not men even. Mike Bundy and the two men who had held me and a few more like them were in the lead. It was like—like the Pied Piper of Hamelin! I couldn’t hear everything; I was hiding. But they had gone crazy with the hope of gold! Gold! As though they were going to roll and wallow in it.”

  “Where?” demanded Bill Dorn. “Which way did they go?”

  “I don’t know. But I heard, over and over, ‘Blue Smokes.’ I wondered what and where the Blue Smokes were.”

  “Mountains,” he told her. “Off yonder, north, sixty-seventy miles from here. Back in the States. But you? Why are you still here? A man would think that you’d have grabbed your chance and skipped out of town.”

  She looked at him in such a strange fashion that he could not begin to make her out. She was wearing a pair of gauntlets; she began stripping them off, began putting them on again. She said slowly, not looking at him: “You stood my friend tonight, Mr. Bill Dorn, though you did so like the brute it is in you to be. I thought that maybe you were dying; I wanted to help you. Now I’m going.”

  “Where?” he demanded, and stood up.

  She shrugged. “Out of Nacional. As fast and far as I can. Before they accuse me again of murder.”

  “Going south or north?” he asked. “Down into Mexico or up into the States?”

  “North. Do you think—”

  “Back home?”

  “No. Not back home.”

  “You haven’t any home. I’d bet a man!”

  “I doubt that he’d take your bet. If he did—you’d win.”

  “Got a horse here?”

  “No.”

  “How’d you get here? What have you got?”

  “Nothing, Mr. Nosey Bill Dorn.”

  “You’ve the money Perez gave you—”

  “But I haven’t. Either those thugs got it when they grabbed me or I dropped it. What I do have is a sunny disposition, a pleasant smile—and the clothes I stand in. Any more questions?”

  “None.” He stood up, found his hat lying on the floor, jammed it on, noted that they hadn’t taken his gun—that gun with which he was going to kill Bundy; funny how he had forgotten it—and said: “You’re coming with me. We ride together this morning.”

  “I—I was hoping you’d ask me,” she said, and smiled just a little. “As a matter of fact I am scared stiff.”

  “You’d better be,” he snorted. “With Smith and Fontana swearing they saw you shoot Perez, this is no place for you. Let’s go.”

  They went out through the window and into a cluttered alley, that seeming the simplest way. From the corner, peering out, Bill Dorn saw a deserted village, the adobe houses ghostly pale in the first daylight.

  “Not a soul in sight, except seventeen Injun dogs, two Mex babies and one lame burro,” he reported. “Here we go.”

  He led the way to the stab
le at the far end of the street, and she had to run to keep up with him. Not that she minded running! It was such a glorious morning, it was so glorious to be alive and free, and the glory of glories was the hope of being out of wicked little Nacional in a short time.

  At the stable they found a ten year old boy left in charge; that was because the boy was a cripple and could not follow the gold rush, and because his father had put him here. Dorn, going to saddle his own horse, asked to hire a nag for his companion. The boy shrugged and grimaced; all horses had been taken, except that one in the stall yonder, the big black. That was Señor Bundy’s horse, left here because he had ridden it hard yesterday—

  “I’ll take it,” said Dorn. “You can tell Señor Bundy that I’ve got it.”

  “Sure, Señor Beel,” said the boy.

  So Bill Dorn and his companion rode out of Nacional before it was yet full day, both of them glad to be out of the place. At first they rode south, Dorn leading the way, then eastward through the desert willows, and finally northward again through Puerta de los Chinos. Thus none saw them cross the border.

  “I’m heading up to the Blue Smokes,” Dorn said. “I’ve an unfinished job of work to get done. And you, Miss Stranger?”

  “I told you that I didn’t have any home. But maybe I have. Anyhow I hope to know in a few hours, if I can find the place. Perhaps you can help me? Do you know where the Palm Valley Ranch is?”

  “I’ll tell a man,” said Dorn, and regarded her from a fresh angle of interest. “Know anybody up there?”

  “My aunt—”

  “Mrs. Kent! So Nellie Kent is your aunt. Well!”

  “You know her? Well, I am—I am Lorna—Lorna Kent. And what is so strange about my being Nellie Kent’s niece?”

  “Somehow,” said Dorn drily, “I can’t quite figure Mrs. Nellie Kent’s niece being a border dance hall girl.”

  “Oh! You make me sick,” said Lorna.

  “Seems to me I’ve heard you say that before.”

  “Will you tell me where her ranch is? I expected her to meet me in Nacional. She didn’t come; she didn’t send any word. I can’t understand that. And I’m so anxious to find her.”

  He extended a long arm, pointing northward. Far off across the billowy sweep of desert and grass lands beyond she saw the hazy blue mountains standing up into a brightening sky.

  “Those are the Blue Smokes,” he told her. “Up there somewhere, it would seem, they’ve found gold; the spot might be sixty, seventy or even eighty miles from here. That’s where I’m heading. And about half way to the Blue Smokes is one of the loveliest and loneliest oases that you ever saw. That’s the Palm Valley Ranch. And if my company doesn’t make you too darned sick, Miss Lorna, I’d be glad to ride along that far.”

  “You’re a dear,” said Lorna and beamed at him. “Let’s go, Here-We-Go Dorn! About thirty or forty miles before breakfast—nothing at all for two old-timers like us.”

  “By thunder, I never thought a word about eating!” he said ruefully. “I didn’t wake up with any hungry wolf’s appetite this morning.”

  “Who cares about eating anyhow?” said Lorna Kent. She lifted her chin; he saw the stretch of her soft round throat, saw how her breast rose to a deep intake of the clean morning air. “Who wants food when there’s life and freedom, and a gorgeous morning like this!”

  So they rode into the north with the day brightening all about them, with the sun soon rolling up as genial as a florid guest at a banquet. The sky from a deep velvet blue turned a steel gray and the sun grew hot and the desert stretches of sand grew whiter and whiter, a burning glare in their eyes.

  Sand rustled faintly under the horses’ hoofs, Dorn’s spurs and the bridle reins jingled, softly musical, and there was at times a half-heard creak of saddle leather; these were small sounds shut in by a vast silence. As far as they could see nothing on earth moved except themselves; the dawn wind had sighed itself away and the world was breathless. High above, spiraling in the sky, were a few turkey buzzards. They made Bill Dorn remember Jake Fanning.

  They came to a ragged, rocky hill standing up emphatically and seeming all out of reason in the flatness all about. “Let’s ride up there and see what we can see,” he invited. From the barren crest they looked back; Nacional had vanished in the earth’s folds and creases; the way they had come stretched empty, sun-smitten. They peered, eyes squinting, into the northern distances.

  “There they go!” said Lorna. “See yonder? Way off—”

  “Yes.” Scarcely more than dots in the distance, yet not to be missed by a keen eye in all this brilliantly clear country, a string of mounted men pushed on toward the barrier of blue mountains in the still farther distance. “They’re going by way of Palm Valley, too. Most folks go that way, headed for the Smokes. There’s water there and shade, and as much hospitality in the heart of that aunt of yours as there is water in the ocean. They’re a good many miles ahead of us; we wouldn’t even have seen them but for the sun being just right.”

  She asked suddenly: “Aren’t you interested in the discovery of gold? You don’t act like it. You seemed the only man in Nacional who wasn’t half mad over it.”

  “Let’s ride,” said Dorn. “It’s getting hot and we’ll be getting hungry and thirsty too. We didn’t even bring a canteen along! That shows the sort of addlepates we are.”

  But he knew where water was to be found even in these arid wastes, brackish, almost steamy-hot water, to be sure, but welcome enough to man and maid and beast when they reached it. Also he showed her how a hungry man can knock a young jack rabbit over with a lucky pistol shot. He made a tiny fire of brushwood; he spitted the fore and hind quarters of his game and turned them over blaze and coals; he dusted the meat over with dried sage leaves ground powder-fine between his palms, and they dined sumptuously. Then Bill Dorn lay back and had his cigarette—and grinned at her. It startled her, the way of a sudden his white teeth flashed at her and his dark eyes crinkled at the corners and the hard line of his mouth vanished in a humorous quirk.

  “It’s a darned fine old world after all, huh?” challenged Bill Dorn.

  For some queer reason, or for none at all, she found herself flushing. Under her breath, not for him to hear, she said, “Darn you!” Here of a sudden, all without warning, her brute of Nacional showed himself a downright human, likable young man.

  “It’s the finest world there is!” said Lorna, and started digging in the sand with a bit of dead stick.

  “If your aunt expected you,” he said meditatively, not exactly calling her a liar yet making clear that he was open-minded, “it’s kind of darned funny she didn’t meet you or send someone. She knows what Nacional is like.” He began sifting sand through idle fingers. “Unless, of course,” he added coolly, “she planned to allow you time for your bit of fun, dancing at One Eye’s!”

  “I was in Nacional three days,” said Lorna. “My aunt had written, saying she would meet me. I came down from the East; I wrote ahead, telling her when I would arrive. I got to Nacional with a dollar and ten cents left. I tipped a boy a quarter for carrying my bag; I lived like a queen for an hour or two, spending royally. Then when no word came from Aunt Nell I began to get scared. I’ve been scared ever since.”

  “You couldn’t find a better little town to get scared in,” he conceded her.

  “I couldn’t even pay for my hotel room. I kept telling myself that at any moment I’d have word from my aunt. That didn’t keep me from getting hungry. And there weren’t any nice young men bringing me barbecued rabbit, either.”

  “So you went to work, dancing for Perez?” His hat was pulled low down, against the sun, but she knew without looking that one eye was on her.

  “Yes,” she said shortly. “You think I’m lying, don’t you? All right. Let’s start on, shall we?”

  “Sure.” He stuffed his cigarette butt down into the sand. “About that
suitcase of yours: did you forget it?”

  “As soon as you made that man give me my money I ran to my room and changed, stuffed my things into my suitcase and started to go somewhere, anywhere out of Nacional. I heard the pistol shot; I started running; those two thugs grabbed me. Whatever happened to my suitcase, I don’t know, Mr. Will Dorn. Anyhow there were no pearl necklaces and diamond brooches in it.”

  He stood up and went for the horses. He offered her his hand to help her up; she slipped her toe into it and rose lightly into the saddle.

  “It’s kind of too bad you lost your black mask,” he said as he mounted. “You did look like a real bandit woman wearing it.”

  She whipped it out of her shirt pocket and fluttered it before his eyes, a mere scrap of black silk with scissored holes for the eyes.

  “The badge of my profession,” she warned him, and pocketed it again.

  “Why did you wear that thing?”

  “Do you suppose that I’d want it ever known that I had had to dance in a place like that?”

  Climbing up out of the hollow in which the pool was, they struck into a wagon road thick with fresh sign of many horses passing recently. But the riders themselves, whom they had glimpsed once, had vanished in the more broken country leading up to the foothills of the Blue Smokes and were not seen again. It was a couple of hours later that from a gently swelling eminence they saw the lower end of Palm Valley.

  It was a place of beauty, all the lovelier for its setting in the heart of desolation, an expanse of green pastoral beauty, quiet and gentle and smiling when one first caught sight of its broad level lowlands bright with alfalfa like a carpet of emeralds. For there was gushing water in plenty in Palm Valley.

  They came to a gate in a barbed wire fence; on the gate post was a sign, looking as fresh as though written yesterday, big black penciled words on a piece of cardboard: “Private Property. Keep out.”

  “That’s funny,” said Bill Dorn as he stooped from the saddle to open the gate. He had spoken of Mrs. Nellie Kent’s hospitality, as boundless as the sea. “I’ve been here many a time; rode this way less than a month ago; you’d think she’d be the last one to put up a sign like that. Wonder what’s come over her?”