“You’d think they never saw gold before!” he jeered. He knew now that they knew; no use denying. “The world’s full of gold. It’s easy to get when you know how.”
Lorna stirred uneasily. “I am going—”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort! Look at me!” She looked, read aright what was not to be misread in his eyes, and stood still. “Where’s Bill Dorn?”
“He’s gone to—”
“Never mind where he’s gone!” cut in Jinks warningly. To Bundy he said tartly, “It’s none o’ your damn business.”
“No?” said Bundy. “No? The yellow dog has double-crossed me, and it’s none of my business!” He leaped unexpectedly to his feet and crossed to Lorna in two swift long strides. He clamped his hand on her shoulder and put his face close down to hers. “I asked you why you look at me like that! Why are you afraid of me? You’re all white.” Jinks rushed at him; had he had a weapon on him then he would have shot Bundy through the head.
“You get your dirty han’s off’n her—” With one great sweep of his arm Bundy hurled the thin, spare form across the room. Then, with terrible meaning in the gesture, he dropped his hand to his gun belt.
“You damn cowardly killer!” raged old Cap.
“Killer am I?” said Bundy. Again his voice changed; it was not raised, lowered if anything; it became unthinkably bleak and cold. “So that’s it! Who has been here telling lies about me since I left this morning?”
Then Lorna blurted out the truth; had it dragged out of her, rather, by the sheer force of his determination to have it. “Sheriff MacArthur was here. Mex Fontana was with him. And we know—we know everything, about my aunt and—”
“Lorny!” cried Jinks.
“Shut up!” Bundy ordered him. “You two stand still. And keep your mouths shut. I want to think.”
They looked at each other, then back at him, fascinated. Lorna thought in a panic: “He is a killer! It’s written all over him! Why didn’t we know all the time?”
There was not a sound in the room, save once when a board creaked under Jinks’ boots and Bundy glared at him. Bundy appeared to have grown calm and cool; he was thinking, taking logical stock of prime factors, thinking fast but in a steady, continuous stream of reasoning which must, if he saved his neck, be without oversight or flaw.
“Jinks!”
Jinks started. “Well dammit! Here I am.”
“I’m on my way. My horse is tuckered out. You go saddle me a fresh one. And don’t stop to pick flowers on the way!”
Jinks needed no urging. He was at the door, his hand on the knob, when another “Jinks!” as emphatic as a pistol shot, arrested him.
“If you see any of the boys, keep your mouth shut.”
“Shore,” said Jinks, and had just started saying to himself, “He must be crazy or think I am!” when Bundy’s voice gave him something else to think on.
“Look at me, Jinks; take a good look. Do I look like I just wanted to play drop the handkerchief or something? No? Well, now look at this!”
He drew out his belt gun, and thrust the muzzle against Lorna’s breast. And now Jinks’ face grew white.
“Do I mean it?” demanded Bundy. “Am I a killer? Would I hesitate a split second to wipe out this little she-devil but for whose coming in the first place I’d be riding fine and handsome right now?”
“I’ll do it,” muttered Jinks. “Take that damn gun away! So help me—”
“Sh!” Bundy half turned his head, listening. “Someone’s coming. Open up, Jinks, but stand back. Who is it?”
It was Bill Dorn returning from Liberty. He pulled up in the front yard and ran up the steps. Both Lorna and Jinks called a warning to him, but Bundy did not seem to mind. Dorn stopped dead at the threshold.
“Take it easy, Bill,” said Bundy. “This is my last play around here, and I’m going to make it stick. Keep your hand away from your gun; if you lose your head and go for it you might as well shoot this kid yourself. Let me away from here with a good horse under me and a head start, and no one will get hurt. Make one little slip and I’ll drag Lorna along hell-bound with me.”
Dorn moistened his lips but otherwise did not stir.
“Sure, Bundy,” he said after a second. “Sure. You’ve got the drop on us. You can go.”
Perhaps a trifle of Bundy’s tension relaxed then; he seemed to breathe easier. When Bill Dorn said a thing, he meant it. Still Bundy kept his gun where it was.
“Shed your gun, Bill. Back up to me and let me take it. That’s it,” he said as he shoved Dorn’s weapon into his own waistband. “Now, Bill, I guess I can trust you to do what’s got to be done next. My horse is tuckered out. I want a fresh one in a hurry, the best on the ranch.”
“Sure!” said Dorn. “I’ll go get it.” He looked into Lorna’s wide-opened eyes and managed a reassuring smile for her. “It’s all right, dear,” he said gently. “All Bundy wants is to get out of here.”
“Yes, that’s all I want now. To get out of here. Wait a shake, Bill! You’d follow me after I started—”
“No, I’ll let you go.”
“Your men would. There’d be a dozen of them. If I ran into bad luck, if my horse got a foot in a squirrel hole—No; it won’t do. Saddle two horses for me. Lorna is going to ride with me as far as the border!”
“No! I won’t stand for that, Bundy. I wouldn’t trust you out of sight, not with Lorna.”
“You’d rather see her shot right here before your eyes!”
“I’d rather kill her myself than have you drag her off to Nacional! That’s final, Mike Bundy!”
Lorna, though as white as a sheet, said, with lips scarcely moving, without separating her teeth that were set so hard: “Bill—don’t let him take me. He would kill me. I’d rather die here, now—”
For an instant Bundy seemed at the end of his rope. Then he saw the one way out. “Bueno. Saddle three horses, Bill. Lorna and I ride ahead. You ride after us, within shooting distance if you like. And you can have your gun back. The three of us ride friendly-wise to the border—and at every step I’ll have this girl covered. Suit you?”
“Sure,” said Dorn, and went to the door. “I’ll get three horses.”
He hurried out, ran the few steps to his waiting horse, toed into the stirrup to ride the short distance to the corral—but got no farther toward mounting. An enormous cloud of dust rose into the sky and under it, coming down the Blue Smokes road, he saw such a great, unprecedented crowd of horsemen that he stared wondering. He saw that they were coming swiftly; he saw through the dust the gleam of sunlight on many a rifle and shotgun—and the realization surged over him that here came an angry mob from County Line, and that they were looking for Mike Bundy. The sheriff had dropped a flea in the camp’s ear, hadn’t he? And if these men had made sure that Bundy had hoaxed them—In five minutes they’d be at the upper gate. They’d be at the house before he could catch and saddle three horses, before he and Lorna and Bundy could get away.
He whirled and ran back to the house.
“Bundy,” he said hurriedly as Bundy turned suspicious, hard eyes on him, “there’s a crowd of men, two or three hundred of them, coming down the Blue Smokes road. They’re almost at the gate. If you did salt those claims at County Line—that’s what MacArthur told them to look out for—and if they’ve tumbled to it, they’re going to make cat-meat of you before you’re ten minutes older!”
The rigid features of Mike Bundy’s face turned a grayish-white. “Damn you, Dorn,” he shouted, “hurry! Get those horses here on the run! Ours will be fresh—we’ll run away from them—”
“They’ll be here before I can—”
“Go stop them! Hold them up at the gate. Tell them anything. Stop them, damn it! Do you hear me?”
Dorn, fearing what might happen with those men gone savage through rage, was no less distressed then Bundy
. The horses had to be saddled—the men had to be delayed—“Jinks!” he rapped out as the only possible thing to do dawned on him. “Hot-foot for the gate. You can get there before them if you run. Grab up a chain and padlock on your way. Lock the gate. Hold those men off with whatever you can think to tell them; hold them every single minute you can. Then it’ll take them a minute or two to break the gate down or cut the wires. Run, man!”
Bundy stood frowning but did not open his mouth. Jinks was off like a shot. Dorn again hurried out and to the corral. As he got the first horse saddled he saw Jinks, a clanking chain clutched in his hands, racing toward the gate. The on-coming riders saw him, too, for they shouted; but not knowing what it was all about they came steadily on.
Dorn, working as swiftly as he could, got the second saddle on, jerked the cinch tight and glanced again at the gate. Jinks, God bless him, was there first; Dorn could see him fumbling with the chain.
Dorn had trouble with the third horse; it fought the bit and his body was wet with sweat by the time he had forced the big clenched teeth apart and forced the iron in. He saw the mob at the fence now; Jinks had climbed up on the gate, the men had pressed close, he was haranguing them. His high-pitched voice floated back in a thin bugling; the words themselves were lost. The horse fought the saddle as it had refused the bridle. But the battle was short, the victory soon Dorn’s. He glanced again toward the gate.
Men were shouting angrily; several were dismounting; they were set on breaking the gate down. Jinks jumped down and started running back to the house.
Dorn jerked the last cinch tight, swung up into the saddle and started at a gallop toward the ranch house, leading the two other horses. As he pulled in at the steps Bundy came out, forcing Lorna along ahead of him at gunpoint.
“Up in a hurry!” he ordered her. “They’re breaking that damned gate down. They’ll be in shooting distance—” Lorna scrambled into her saddle. Bundy shot his toe into his stirrup.
Jinks had come in at the back door, had sped through the house, had come out on the front porch. As Bundy started to mount, Jinks took slow, deliberate aim. For an instant, scarcely longer, Bundy’s gun had wavered. Jinks squeezed the trigger.
The one bullet was all that was necessary. It broke Mike Bundy’s right shoulder. And as his weapon dropped from his useless hand old Cap Jinks made a glorious flying leap from the porch—and he brought down on Mike Bundy’s head the heavy muzzle of a gun he had snatched from one of the riders’ belts up at the gate.
When Mike Bundy regained consciousness and looked into the scores of faces about him, he read everywhere the same expression. Then he saw Bill Dorn leading Lorna away, the crowd falling apart for them to go, closing in around him after they had gone. It was a crowd of men grown ominously silent. But out of the silence he heard Jinks’ voice piping up to say: “You fellers ain’t got a right to hang a man for jus’ saltin’ a gold mine. But here’s what Bart McArthur told me: Mike Bundy kilt Jake Fanning account the real mine; an’ he kilt One Eye Perez an’ tried to get the sweetes’ girl you ever saw, Miss Lorny, blamed for it; an’ he kilt Miss Lorny’s aunt, ol’ lady Kent an’—Hell, by rights he belongs to me, ’cause I nailed him, but you can do as you think best. Only, account o’ not messin’ up a clean ranch, take him somewhere else.”
* * * *
The next morning old Cap Jinks and Lorna were sitting in the sun on the front porch, waiting for Bill Dorn to join them, when Jinks, out of a serene silence, became vocal.
“I was jus’ figgerin’, Lorny,” he observed, “as how this no-’count Will Dorn person, what with chasin’ back an’ forth so much from the Smokes here, an’ from here to Liberty an’ back here ag’in, an’ back an’ fo’th some more—”
“He has done a good bit of riding, hasn’t he, Cappie darling?” laughed a radiantly happy Lorna, and turned in quick expectancy, thinking she heard Bill’s on-coming tread.
“Shucks,” said Jinks, “he must of rid a thousan’ mile—”
It was Dorn coming, and he came swiftly as she knew he would. “Darn you, Jinks,” he grinned, as radiant in his own way as Lorna. “You’re good to rest tired eyes on most times—but right now—Lorna, I’ve got to get you off by yourself, without old Cap horning in to listen.”
“Hmf!” sniffed Jinks, and winked at the girl whose arm was tucked so affectionately in his.
Lorna jumped up. “Where’ll we go, Bill?”
“Let’s go for a ride!” said Sudden Bill Dorn.
BORDER AMBUSH, by Walker A. Tompkins
Copyright © 1951 by Walker A. Tompkins.
DEDICATION
For Carl, Ruth and Carl Schweizer to whom I am indebted for true Western hospitality.
CHAPTER ONE
Bones on Mustang Mesa
Doug Redding left the poker game long enough to move his roan’s picket pin to a fresh patch of grass. He tarried on his way back to the camp to roll a smoke, loath to face the others while this frustrated mood soured his temper.
Under the guise of a mustang hunter, Redding had scoured these Navajada wastelands all summer, without coming any closer to solving the mystery of a man’s disappearance in these very hills. Tomorrow they would be back in Fort Paloverde with the herd, and Redding would be back where he started.
A setting moon threw the high peaks into stark relief, sinister and lonely, its silver shine failing to penetrate the piñon thickets above the wash where Jace Blackwine had camped.
Beyond the fence of lass ropes strung across the box end of the barranca, fifty-odd head of oreana mustangs were bedded down, the fruits of their summer-long hunt here on the edge of the Mexican border, fuzztails that would fetch a handsome price from the remount officer down at the cavalry post.
Redding returned to the glare of the flaming pitch knot stuck in a split rock above the spread-out blanket where the stud game was in progress. He was reluctant to get back in the game, indifferent to the stake he had in the pot.
Half the crew were already rolled up in their blankets beyond the scarlet dance of the torchlight. Bull McArdle growled a cranky admonition for Redding to quit delaying the game. A moose of a man who, in common with certain others of the crew, had joined Blackwine’s horse hunt as a convenient method of eluding a posse that had driven him west out of Texas, McArdle was dealing the greasy deck of cards.
Redding fired his smoke from the pine-knot torch and seated himself alongside the Rickaree Kid, a slim younker who tended the outfit’s pack string. The Kid at the moment was holding a little black metal disk up for all to see, before dropping it into the pile of chips and ’dobe dollars and scribbled IOUs making up the pot in the middle of the blanket.
“I’ll see you, Boney, and raise you four bits, genuwine americano dinero.”
Jace Blackwine, the cinnamon-whiskered boss who wore the greasy fringed buckskins of a mountain man, bent curiously to pick up the tarnished coin the Kid had dropped and tested it between his yellow snags of teeth.
“A four-bit piece, for a fact,” Blackwine grunted. “Where’d you come by any hard money our last night in the hills, Kid? And you claimin’ you was broke the past couple months.”
The Rickaree Kid winked at Redding. “Funny thing about that coin, boss. You remember this afternoon when that ornery crop-eared jenny bolted on me. I chased her down a gully directly under Thimble Rock. Run acrost a man’s skeleton there—what was left of it after the buzzards and lobos had finished scatterin’ it.”
Redding’s eyes carried a quick interest as he waited for the packer to go on. The others merely looked skeptically amused.
“I found this four-bit piece plastered into a round hole in the skull. Looked like somebody had bored it there a-purpose. Damndest thing I ever see. Brought the coin back for luck.”
Bull McArdle flipped a card to the Rickaree Kid, face up. The other gamblers were guffawing at this latest evidence of the Kid’s fertil
e imagination—with the exception of Doug Redding.
“The Kid ain’t lyin’,” Blackwine spoke up. “Them bones prob’ly belonged to some trooper who let the ’Paches count coup on him. That silver piece in his noggin was a patch put there by some Army surgeon after a skull injury. Trepannin’, the medicos call it. Cut out a chunk of damaged bone with a circular-shaped saw, inlay a hunk o’ silver, and stitch the scalp back over it. Saw it happen more’n once durin’ my soldierin’ days.”
Doug Redding’s eyes, metal-blue in the flicker of the pine torch, were fixed on the black coin the Kid had anted. He seemed oblivious to McArdle’s testy snarl for him to match the Kid’s bet or throw in his cards.
Leaning forward, Redding reached a rope-calloused hand into the kitty and picked up the tarnished disk of metal. “Minted in ’46,” he said in a voice which carried a strange quality no man there could interpret. He repeated his statement, as if it were important. “Minted in ’46—”
McArdle cut in angrily, “Are we playin’ poker, or is this an old ladies’ sewin’ circle? It’s your bet, Redding.”
Redding’s mouth hardened behind the curly black beard which four months without a razor had put on his jaw. There was a festering rivalry between these two, Redding and McArdle, for Redding had bested McArdle’s mustang gather to qualify for the fat bonus Blackwine had promised the man who caught the largest number of oreanas which would meet the Army’s rigid specifications.
“I’ll stay,” Redding said harshly, shoving the last of his chips into the pile. “I got a flush to fill here.”
McArdle’s porcelain-hard eyes held a crafty glitter as his thick fingers deftly scaled a deuce of clubs across the blanket to nullify the diamond flush Redding had in sight. The dealer’s glance switched to Blackwine, next in line for the deal.
“Hold on, McArdle.” Redding’s voice was low-pitched, but the threat of it carried into the roundabout shadows and brought men jerking up in their blankets, sensing trouble about to break. “I don’t cotton to getting a card off the bottom of the pack, even if you’d filled my flush with it.”
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