And as they rode they now and then looked back, all of them at one time and another, saving two men alone. Those who twisted their heads about to watch the angry red banners of flame standing sky high above the hay-filled barn, and after distance and rolling hills shut out sight of the flames to mark the blood-red glow in the sky, spoke among themselves seldom and always in undertones. Those who never once spoke and never looked back were Sudden Bill Dorn, every thought centered on Mike Bundy, and Bud Williams who had ridden so many a time to a fight or a frolic—they were much alike!—with Curly O’Connor at his elbow.
Straight to Mike Bundy’s big barn of a casino Bill Dorn led the way, and he and his following paid not the least attention to the crowd so swiftly gathering or to the storm of questions shouted at them. At the rear of the building Dorn slid from his horse’s back and began pounding on the door with the butt of his rifle. It was here that Bundy had his County Line headquarters.
The encamped gold seekers, adventurers and general riffraff that made up the place, continued to swarm out, some dressed with all on save the boots they had kicked off to tumble into their bunks, some in nightshirts or other odds and ends of night regalia, all with confused eyes and tumbled hair, many clutching guns. And though they continued to shout questions and got never a word of answer from the hard-eyed, tight-lipped little knot of mounted men, almost instantly word flew about:
“It’s Sudden Bill and he’s gunnin’ for Mike Bundy!—It’s Roll-Along Dorn with blood in his eye an’ a gang at his back, an’ they’re goin’ to lynch Bundy!”
Dorn hammered the door off its hinges and stepped inside, taking his chance with the inner dark and with Bundy’s swift assault, not stopping an instant for cool thought, caring for but one thing just then. The room was empty. He struck a match; Bundy’s bed hadn’t even been slept in.
As he stepped outside again, the crowd, indistinct figures in the faint uncertain light of just-before-dawn, their faces mere gray blurs, indistinguishable, he was greeted by a silence so heavy that you knew men had momentarily slopped breathing.
“Where’s Bundy?” asked Dorn. “Does anyone know where Bundy is?”
Out of the dark and from a distance a high-pitched voice sounding like an adolescent boy’s, spoke up:
“He ain’t here! He ain’t been in camp for two-three days.”
His voice broke like a young rooster’s that is learning to crow, and men laughed all about him. But they stopped laughing almost before they had started. Duke Jones muttered, angry and disgusted: “He’s hidin’ some place, the rat. Much good that’ll do him.”
He came jingling down from his saddle; Bud Williams struck ground together with him and both came the few steps to where Bill Dorn stood at the rear door of Bundy’s gambling place.
“The damn place burns, don’t she, Bill?” said Bud, already hunting for matches.
“You’re damn right she burns,” said Dorn. “Come ahead.”
He turned back into Bundy’s room, struck another match and lighted the lamp on a small marble topped table. Duke Jones found the door leading from this room into a sort of hallway between flimsy board partitions that reached half way to the ceiling, slipped a bolt back and led the way on into the big main room. To make their work easier they lighted a couple of other lamps; the yellow light made rather a mystery of the crude empty barnlike place but showed them the long pine bar, the barrels and bottles behind it, card tables, roulette wheels, various gambling layouts, and all the untidy clutter of such a place at such an hour.
Bud Williams stepped behind the bar. He selected with care the finest bottle of whisky he could find; he said in the odd voice of a man who speaks with his teeth hard set, “Here’s to Curly O’Connor!” and with the swipe of that one bottle he smashed a whole line of its fellows so that liquor gushed like water leaping among the clinking particles of glass.
By this time six or eight of the other Palm Ranch men had joined them, leaving their fellows to hold their horses and to keep an eye on the gawking, bewildered onlookers as yet rooted like so many trees in their places. They went to work busily and for the most part in silence. They gathered scraps of paper, smashed flimsy tables and benches, made neat little piles of inflammable materials in a dozen places where they would do the most good. There were a dozen kerosene lamps in the place; they emptied the oil on their fuel piles. One of them, a long-throated, thirsty-looking new hand named Phil Bowton, looked longingly at the array of bottles, then yielded to temptation and started to help himself. Duke Jones happened to be close by and knocked the thing out of his hand.
They did their work swiftly yet methodically. Never a fire was lighted until Bill Dorn said the word. His was the first match to start a rush of flame up a dry pine wall. He said, “All right, boys. Let her go.”
As flames caught everywhere the Palm Ranch men made haste to retreat as far as the doorways. There they stood a while watching. Dorn lifted his rifle and started shooting holes in whisky barrels. It was too rare a sport not to be entered into by the others. Bullets raked down lines of glittering, rosily flushed bottles, and the tongues of fire lapped up the spilled liquor and seemed to go drunk on it.
“Let’s go,” commanded Dorn, and they hurried out just as a tremendous roar burst from the no longer sleepy-eyed, no longer mystified and uncertain denizens of County Line. They saw what they knew now to be a pretty severe body blow directed at Mike Bundy, and scarcely a man of them cared about that; it was a joke on Bundy for them to guffaw over. But in the same act, once their awakened brains started functioning, they saw a punch in the thirsty midriffs for themselves. Where in blue thunder were they going to get the next drink? Many were the throats which already, in anticipation of the first morning glass, grew scratchily dry. And so their complacency of one moment became an angry resentment of the next.
“Let’s high-tail the hell out’n here,” admonished Cap’n Jinks. “We’ve done our noble deed an’ done it manful, but something sort of whispers in my good ear this ain’t no fit place to linger in!”
They went to their horses and mounted, and for a moment the fourteen of them, in a small compact knot bristling with rifle barrels that shone emphatically in the enormous bonfire already bursting out everywhere through flimsy walls and shaky roof, sat where they were. They were going in a moment, but they were not exactly anxious to run away from anybody. If any here were over eager to start some-thing, that must mean that they chose to side with Bundy. Bueno; let ’em start something.
The crowd, grown angry, yet lacking any motivating community spirit, lacked any leader to mold the flare of their wrath into one red-hot spearhead, and so they simply shouted and then muttered and all the while watched Dorn’s party narrowly.
There was light aplenty now, and in it Dorn waved his hat over his head in a command for attention, then made the curt explanation which he deemed these men had coming to them.
“Tonight Bundy burned us out over at Palm Ranch,” he told them. “One of his crowd killed Curly O’Connor. We had the luck to kill Hank Smith. Now we’re burning Bundy out here or anywhere else we can find him.—Come ahead boys; let’s go.”
“Hi!” yelled a voice, and a man came elbowing, ramming his way forward. “Wait a shake, Bill.”
It was Stock Morgan. He was wearing a long-tailed white flannel nightgown and a pair of boots and a rifle. Close behind him came Ken Fairchild, fully dressed save for hat and boots.
“You say they killed Curly?” asked Morgan when he and Ken had come close. Dorn nodded curtly. Morgan held his silence a moment, perhaps in brief tribute to a man for whom he had a great fondness, perhaps thinking what to say next. Before he spoke further, Dorn asked, “It’s true that Bundy isn’t here, Morg?”
“Yes, Bill. He’s been keepin’ himself under cover for a couple of days. We might have known he had something like this on the fire. Say, Bill, wait a shake for us wall you? Until I can get some cloth
es on? Me and Ken are ridin’ with you; so I reckon are Johnnie Sharp and ol’ Middleton.”
“We won’t wait here,” said Dorn. “We’ll ride out a mile or two and wait there for you.”
“Which way, Bill?”
“Toward Palm Ranch until we fork off. I’ll tell you when you join us, Morg.”
“Bueno,” said Morgan, and went elbowing back through the crowd, the tail of his nightgown held up daintily in one hand like a lady’s train, his hairy shanks showing about the tops of his cowboy half-boots. With him went Ken Fairchild without having spoken a word.
And now when Dorn said again, “Let’s go,” the crowd opened up a lane as he headed his horse out of camp, and he and his following went out of County Line as they had come, with the drum-roll of hammering hoofs. They splashed across Silver Creek and headed back down the valley and this time not a man of them, with neither Bill Dorn nor Bud Williams excepted, failed to turn his head and look back with grim satisfaction on the work their hands had wrought, a lovely giant flower of red and yellow fire in full blossom against the most beautiful cloud bank of smoke any man of them had ever seen, smoke as black as midnight, as white as snow, streaked in one place with rose lights, become opalescent in another, as crimson as blood where a certain petal of fire incarnadined it.
“I only hope Bundy was hidin’ somewhere aroun’ camp,” sighed Cap’n Jinks. “I’d hate for him to miss seein’ this.”
The new hand, Phil Bowton, crowded his horse up alongside Duke Jones’.
“What’n hell did you want to do that for?” he asked petulantly. And when Duke didn’t know what he was talking about he added, “Why’d you knock that bottle o’ hooch out o’ my hands?”
“Belonged to Bundy,” said Duke. “He’s no friend of ours.”
Out of sight of County Line, a mile or two on their way as Dorn had promised, they stopped to wait for Morgan and Fairchild and any that might elect to join their party. Some of the men smoked and talked among themselves; Dorn neither smoked nor spoke but sat apart brooding. Again and again he turned his eyes toward the ruddy skyline over County Line, but the red glow there could no longer wipe out of his memory the destructive flame back at the ranch.
He pulled himself up out of a gloomy reverie only when he heard horses coming on. Here were Morgan and Ken, and with them were both Sharp and Middleton. Every man carried a rifle as well as his belt gun and on their faces was the same look that had stamped itself on the faces of the men already with Dorn; the day was bright enough now to read their expressions, and they boded no great good to Mike Bundy. Every one of these men, in one way and another, was interested in making a going concern of Palm Ranch and its freight lines.
As they pressed on again, eighteen men strong now, Stock Morgan rode at Dorn’s side and the two had much to say to each other, talking steadily for a good half hour. Morgan wanted full details of the happening at the ranch and got them succinctly and in such fashion from a man whose blood was boiling that the hearer’s blood began to simmer as well.
“Bundy wants killin’,” said Morgan. “A trick like that—”
“I heard a horse squealing, Morg. I’m afraid some of our stock got burned to death in the barn.”
They rode in the fresh new day, with the skies turning a soft light blue, to a spot within half a dozen miles of Palm Ranch. There they found the other set of wheel tracks, a sandy road running down through the low hills to the southwest, the new road made by Bundy’s teams hauling from Liberty and Nacional, skirting the southern end of the ranch. They reined into Bundy’s road.
“They camp overnight at the old Grapevine place, you know,” said Morgan. “It’s the only water they can get at handy on that pull.”
Dorn nodded; yes, he knew. It was toward the Grapevine that they rode now. They didn’t hurry; there was no call for haste, and their horses had already carried them a long journey; further, the men who rode without saddles were feeling themselves over for sore spots, although now and again their companions spelled them, swapping mounts.
Dorn had asked where Bundy was; Morgan didn’t know. Bundy, with Hank Smith and Mex Fontana, had ridden out of County Line one late evening two or three days before and none of the three had returned, so far as Morgan knew.
“He’s makin’ himself an alibi, the fox! Mos’ likely he’ll have a dozen lyin’ polecats to swear he was down to Nacional or some such place las’ night and a coupla nights before.”
“Sure,” nodded Dorn wearily. “Sure.”
They jogged along for a couple of hours and the sun was high and hot when far off beyond the billowy sand ridges they saw the dust cloud.
“If we was playin’ this hand Bundy’s way, if you’d played it his way at County Line, we’d wear masks for this job,” said Morgan.
Dorn didn’t even trouble to nod or shake his head. Already his eyes, beginning to show flecks of red, were straining into the distance, trying to make out the laboring teams. He was hoping that Bundy’s whole string of wagons was on the road this morning, that every wagon was high heaped with a cargo of value. Most of all he was hoping that Mike Bundy himself might be returning with his teams.
The wagons swung into view, a long line of them, Bundy’s entire string of seven freighters, each pulled by six sweating horses. They were strung out over a mile of sandy road; from the way the horses shoved their necks into their collars and strained in the traces it was clear to see that the fleet of big Studebakers was heavy-loaded. Across the distance could be heard the lazy swearing voices of the drivers and the pistol-like cracks of their writhing blacksnakes.
The first driver stopped his team when he saw that the riders who were almost on top of him had no intention of turning out. The sun was in his eyes and it was a moment before he made out any faces that he recognized. Then he said, “Oh, hello, Morg. Hello, Bill.”
While the others stopped, Morgan and Dorn rode one on each side to have a word with him. He was a man both knew well, Jim Bedloe who had worked for other men all his life, easy-going, unambitious, generally dependable and likable.
“The wagons don’t go any farther this trip, Jim,” said Dorn. “Better get down and unhook your team.”
There was a rifle on the seat by Bedloe. He must have understood from Dorn’s tone and from the look on his face, if not from his words themselves, yet he made no gesture toward his weapon. It is unlikely that he even thought of such a thing.
“What’s up, Bill?” he said, puzzled.
“Bundy has asked for a showdown. He’s getting it. Where is Bundy, Jim? Do you know?”
“He was in Liberty when we left yesterday. Heard him say he had just come up from Nacional where he’d been two-three days on business.”
Morgan laughed. “I’ll bet he’s been tellin’ every man, woman an’ child where he’s been! He’s lyin’, Jim. His crowd burnt out Palm Ranch las’ night. Better pile down an’ pry your horses loose.”
Bedloe stared a long while, at Morgan, at Dorn, then at the grave-faced quiet crowd in the road ahead of him. He shook his head, locked his brake, threw his reins, gathered up his rifle and coat and a quart bottle in a box at his feet, and climbed down over the wheel.
“If there’s anything in the wagon that belongs to you, better snag it out,” Morgan suggested.
“There’s a saddle,” said Bedloe. “I’ll maybe use it, huh?” A couple of the mounted men got down, said, “Hello, Jim,” in a casual sort of way and helped him with his team. He got his saddle out, threw it on the back of one of his leaders and moved his horses some little distance away, stopping there to watch interestedly. Dorn too got down, climbed up into the wagon, accepted the handfuls of dry grass and brushwood that were passed up to him and started a blaze in the dead center of the load; in this dry, hot country almost anything but metals and water would burn, and you didn’t have to bother with fanning the blaze. The gray smoke stood straight up, the flames
caught and Dorn jumped down.
“Better back off, boys,” he said as he swung up to his horse’s back again. “There may be powder kegs aboard.” As they had treated the first wagon, so, one after another, did they treat the six others. Their drivers were helpless; one or two took the thing rather tragically; a youngster who carried a shotgun on the seat by him caught it up and vowed he’d blow their damn heads off. But in the end no shot was fired; each of the six drivers mounted one of his draft horses and rode on toward County Line, leading the rest of his harnessed team. They saw their wagons left abandoned, the smoke standing aloft, the fire eating all that it could, spoiling everything. Only one of the wagons carried explosives; thunderously it burst into a hundred pieces and the roar was heard miles away. “It’s a good job well done,” said John Sharp. “Now what, Bill? S’pose we’d find Mike Bundy down to Liberty like Jim said?”
Dorn shook his head. The job, good or bad, was certainly well done. “We’ve got to go back to the ranch, John. After what we’ve pulled off this morning we can look out for a comeback from Bundy, I suppose. And that girl is there pretty much alone—and there’s another job of work, not so pleasant, to get done.”
He was thinking of Curly O’Connor. And for the first time he realized that these had not been pleasant hours for Lorna, with Curly lying there waiting ever so patiently to be carried to his long resting place.
“We’ll ride along,” said Morgan, and spoke for them all. “Looks like we’re goin’ to be up against a pretty stiff proposition, buildin’ from the ground again.”
“Let’s go,” said Dorn.
Their following broke down into small groups of two or three men riding together, stringing out a mile or more before they came to journey’s end. Dorn waxed more and more impatient and soon he and Bud Williams were far ahead of the more leisurely riders. Thus the two arrived alone at the ranch house. Their eyes from afar had marked the faint smudges of smoke still staining the gray-blue sky, and from anear took gloomy stock of what was left of the barnyard buildings and of little Halfway. They noticed a saddled horse in the yard, its reins down over its head.
The Sixth Western Novel Page 16