The 8th Western Novel

by Dean Owen

  “Good-by, Plim,” he said. “Good luck! What do I do with the girl?”

  “Keep her from calling out. She’s gagged but she might try it. Make her nurse you. Do anything you damn please with her!”

  Hahn dropped out of sight. Plimsoll did not wait but picked Molly up from where he had deposited her, a helpless bundle, on the rock.

  “The bottom’s soft down there,” he said. “Sand. It ain’t more than fifteen feet. Down you go, you hellcat! They’ll have a fine time locating you. And you’ve got a dying man for company. He’ll be a dead one before morning.”

  He lowered her, feet down, released her and watched her disappear. He swung about and ran back to the corral, his hurt arm throbbing with his exertion. He had entertained a brief thought of hiding in the cave himself, but the fear of madness from the bite had not left him, the suggestion of it coming on in an underground cavern sickened him with horror. He craved the open. He flung himself into the saddle of the black horse, once leader of a slick-ear herd of wild mustangs, magnificent for speed and symmetry, worthy a better master, and galloped out of the corral, out of the side-ravine, into the open park. The rough towel about his arm was becoming soaked. Every jump of the black horse seemed to increase the bleeding. The spurt of fictitious energy that had carried him through since the arrival of Cookie was dying away. But he was on a mount that none could match, he was going on a trail that was hard to follow, practically unknown. Unless he was headed off, he could break through. At Nipple Peaks he could rest, attend to his wound.

  A shout, a bullet whistling past that nicked the stallion’s ear and sent him plunging and bucking, warned him that his enemies had found the way in and were after him. He did not look back, but bent forward in his saddle and sunk the spurs into the black’s flanks. The half-tamed mustang’s indignant bounds spoiled the aim of the marksmen, and, though the steel-nosed missiles hummed like bees about them, they gained the shelter of the same trees that had covered Cookie. Belly almost to ground, the black swept over the cropped turf at racing speed, the drum of his hooves like distant thunder, crest high, crimson-satin nostrils flaring, mad at the sting of the red notch in his ear.

  Round the elbow of the Hideout, with Brandon’s men distanced, into the gorge at the south end. A wild scramble up a steep slope and the way to Spur Rock was clear. Plimsoll smiled grimly. “Damn them, I’ll beat them yet!” For a second he was silhouetted against a skyline, then he plunged down. Fresh droppings told him that Reynolds had won clear. He was safe from pursuit. If the wound—he should have cauterized it. But…

  He reined in for a moment. The sound of a shout rang in his ears. It was an echo, he fancied, it must be an echo, flung back from the mountain walls ahead. But it could mean nothing else than a view-halloo. Some one had glimpsed him disappearing beyond the ridge.

  CHAPTER XX

  MOLLY MINE

  Sandy, replacing the blanket on Wyatt’s face, examined his guns and started climbing up to the big boulder. He could not see the rocks displaced by Brandon’s men from below, but he picked up the bloody imprint of Grit’s pad, with other smears of blood less distinctly marked. Soon he discovered the narrow opening and proceeded cautiously. The moon was quite bright now and the daylight almost vanished. Only the afterglow still flamed in the eastern sky back of the violet cliffs. The touch of night chill was already threatening, great stars were assembling court about the moon.

  To Sandy’s right was perpendicular rock, to his left the curve of the blocking boulder with the skeleton tree topping it, withered in the cleft that had first nourished, then denied it nourishment. It gleamed silver gray, attracting his attention. As he gazed his sharp ears caught the tiny crack of a brittle branch. Instantly he dropped to all fours as a spurt of flame showed from the tree and a bullet whined over him, to smack against the rock and fall flattened.

  Sandy did not move. He knew that, to the man firing, his fall might have seemed a hit, that he had beaten the missile by the space of a wink. He heard more broken boughs, as if his assailant were clumsily, assuredly, clambering out of ambush, and he shifted silently into position, rifle set down, both guns ready. There came a strange thrashing sound, a groan of mortal anguish, silence. If this was a trick it was a crude one. Sandy waited. That groan, half sigh, half rattle, could not be mistaken. He half circled the boulder, gliding up a flattened traverse, and saw, lying outspread over a low bough of the withered tree, face to the moon, gun away from the curling hand, Butch Parsons.

  With ready gun Sandy reached him, bent, turned him on his side. A bullet had ranged through both hips, shattering them. The spine must have been injured. There were puddles of blood that told the injury was some hours old. Butch had lain there paralyzed, passed by Brandon’s men as dead, lingering like the traditional snake until sunset to see and recognize Sandy coming through the gap, to use his last remnant of life to pull trigger and so to die, the injured vertebrae giving away to the effort, the spark of life pinched out.

  Sandy left him and returned to the gap. He could still read sign, plain as it was on every side. He found the side-gulch, saw the cabin, saw Hahn’s saddled horse grazing free, Blaze in the corral, the cabin door open with the moon streaming in. He had pieced out the puzzle to his own satisfaction. Brandon and his men had arrived and, in Hereford, they had run across Wyatt, procuring horses there and saving themselves the trip to the Three Star. Butch’s body was evidence that they had not been unsuccessful, Wyatt’s that the fight had not been all one-sided, the surprise not perfect. And, if Plimsoll had been warned, what had become of Molly?

  He got an answer that made his heart stand still, then pound in a rush of action. On the floor, in the beam of the moon, lay the luck-piece, a few links of gold chain attached to the coin. Stooping for it, he brushed a strand of brown hair. Then he saw Grit’s body beneath the table. Fury boiled in him, chilled to icy wrath and determination. He put away the coin and hauled out the dog’s body into the moonlight. It was limber and still warm. Sandy rose from his squat and swiftly examined the cabin. He discovered a lantern with oil in it, which he lit. The condition of the fire, corroborating other signs, told him that the fighting was long over with, the issue passed on. He had no fear of interruption. Before very long Sam and the Three Star riders would be along. The sight of Blaze suggested that Molly was not far away. If she had gone, by force, or her own free will, the probability was that her own mount and saddle would have been requisitioned.

  Sandy’s capacity for reading sign was almost without limit. He was better at it than an Indian because he had equally good observation and better judgment. But, to find Molly, with the ground about the cabin cut by arriving and departing feet and hooves, with Blaze in the corral, was a miracle that called for more than eyesight and deduction. If he could revive Grit…?

  He found water warm in a kettle; he had the first-aid kit with its bandages, iodine, lint. And, above all, he had Keith’s silver flask, half full. He did not fail to note the empty bottles on the table, the blood marks where Plimsoll’s veins had sprinkled and Grit had stained the floor. He found, too, a button of horn with a fragment of black and white check, torn from Molly’s riding coat in the struggle. Sandy’s anger crystallized into one ambition beyond the finding of Molly, and that was to kill Plimsoll, if possible with his hands. He pictured the struggle between the gambler and the girl, desperate on one side, brutal on the other and, whether the stake had been won or lost, he resolved that Plimsoll should die for that attack.

  Now his hope hung on Grit. He squatted on the floor by the lantern, a gun handy in case of need. He took the collie’s head on his lap and examined the blow made by the butt of Plimsoll’s gun. It had laid bare the bone but he did not think it either splintered or fractured. Grit’s tongue lolled out from between his teeth and his muzzle was dry, yet Sandy fancied breath still passed the nostrils and that there was a faint beat of heart beneath the heavy draggled coat, matted with the blood that had
drained life from him. Sandy knew that dog or wolf or coyote will lie in a torpor after being badly wounded and often recover slowly, waking from the recuperating sleep revitalized. But, if he could bring Grit back, he must make fresh demands on him.

  He washed the wound on the head and poured iodine into it. He did the same with the hole in the leg, cleansing it from the dried blood and hair. It had stopped bleeding. He disinfected it, stitched it, closed it, bound it with adhesive tape and strengthened it with a bandage adjusted as expertly as any surgeon could have done. He pried open the jaws with but little resistance and let the tongue slip back before he poured in a measure of Scotch and water between the canine and incisor teeth. He tilted Grit’s limp head, shut off his muzzle, stroked his throat and let the restorative trickle into the gullet. For a moment there was no response, then Grit coughed, choked, swallowed. Sandy repeated the dose with less water. It went down naturally. Almost immediately he felt the heart stroke strengthen. Grit sneezed, opened his eyes and feebly thumped his tail as he licked Sandy’s hand.

  “Grit, ol’ pardner,” said Sandy seriously, the dog’s head between his hands, “yo’re sure mussed up a heap an’ I hate to do it, but I got to call on you, son. Mebbe it won’t be such a long trick, but I can’t git by without yore nose, Grit. It’s worth more’n all I’ve got. An’ I know yo’re game. I’m goin’ to give you some mo’ of Keith’s special Scotch, which I sure had a hunch w’ud come in handy, an’ then we’ll try it.”

  Grit wagged his tail more vigorously and tried to get on his feet, but Sandy prevented him until the third dose was administered. Then he carried the dog outside to save him every foot of unnecessary progress, and set him down. The collie stood up, wabbly on one foot but able to stand, looking eagerly at Sandy, commencing to snuff the air. Sandy let him smell the coin, the strand of hair, the piece of cloth and, with his keenest sense stimulated with the perfume that stood to Grit for love, the dog wrinkled his nose and cast around. But he led direct to Blaze and stood by the horse uncertain while Blaze nosed down at him.

  “Carried out of the cabin, son,” said Sandy. “We’ll guess at Plimsoll. He’s got clear of the locality. Blaze knows but he can’t tell. We’ve got to cast about.” He picked up the dog again, puzzled, and looked about him in the gulch, suffused with moonlight. “There sh’ud be soft dirt under those asps, let’s give a look-see there.”

  They had not gone five feet into the trees before man and dog made a simultaneous discovery. For Sandy it was a heel-mark left by Plimsoll, treading heavily under his burden, a slight depression enough, but plain to Sandy. Grit began to struggle in his arms. Molly’s hair or body must have brushed against lower boughs at the same height that Sandy carried the wounded Grit and the scent still clung.

  “They c’udn’t go fur in this direction by the looks of the place, Grit,” said Sandy. “See what you can make of it.” He put him down by the heel-print. Grit uttered a low growl deep back in his throat, his ruff lifted. Hatred replaced love, but the two odors and emotions were inextricably linked for Grit that day. He started off, hobbling along, leading truly over rock or sand, into the cove where the split rock lay, its crevice black, the vine curving down into it like a serpent. Where Plimsoll had laid her down Grit halted and raised his head, his tongue playing in and out of his jaws in his triumphant excitement, his eyes luminous, his tail waving like the plume of a knight. Sandy gently patted him, pressed him down to a crouch.

  “Down charge, Grit,” he whispered in his ear. “You’ve got it. You stay here.” Sandy had left his rifle at the cabin when he carried Grit out, now he spun the two cylinders of his Colts, lowered himself into the split, holding on to the vine, looking straight into Grit’s lambent eyes.

  “Stay here, son,” he said softly, and Grit licked the face now on a level with his own. “I’ll be back.”

  Sandy doubted whether he would find Plimsoll in this rock hollow, or any one but Molly. There had been the one horse saddled and grazing free, but that might have belonged to the dead man by the withered tree. It made little difference. There was, to him, the certainty that Molly was there and there was no other way of finding out or getting to her. He had adventured more dangerous chances than this.

  He felt his legs dangle into space and his hands found a curving loop in the vine trunk that sagged slightly under his weight. Extended at full length, his toes touched bottom. Letting go, he dropped lightly and stood in blackness, the crevice above him showing a strip of azure light. Sandy listened, wishing for Grit. He might be able to get him down, now that he knew the depth of the descent.

  There was only the sound of dripping water. He had a vague sense of empty spaces all about him. He ventured a match, holding it at arm’s length in his left hand, flicking friction with his nail, an old trick. The match caught and began to blaze instantly in the still air. Low down, and to the right, there showed a stab of flame, the roar of an exploding cartridge, the reek of high-powered gas seemed to fill the cavern. The bullet passed through Sandy’s coat sleeve. If he had held the match in front of him he would have been shot through heart or lungs. His right-hand gun barked from his hip, straight for where the flame had showed, then to right of it, to left, above, his left-hand gun joining in the merciless probe. No second shot came in answer.

  Sandy lit another match. Its flare showed him a sandy floor, slightly sloping, moist in one place, a charred stick almost at his feet. It was a pine knot, half burned, and he lighted it easily, advancing toward the spot where he had flung the shots he knew had silenced whoever had fired at the first match. He found Hahn, crumpled up, shot through the right arm and a thigh, besides the other wound in his shoulder. There was not much life in him, he had suffered a hemorrhage twice before Sandy came; the shock of the two bullets had brought on another.

  Sandy turned him over, brought Keith’s flask into play. Hahn looked up at him and essayed a grin.

  “Yo’re game all right, Hahn,” said Sandy. “You ain’t the man I was lookin’ fo’, but you fired first. I see I wasn’t the first to plug you. Mebbe I can fix you up a bit?”

  Hahn shook his head.

  “’Twouldn’t be a mite of use,” he said huskily. “I’m empty of blood as a prohibition flask. I reckon it will be prohibition for me from now on. They say it’s sure dry where I’m going. No grudge against you, Sandy. I thought you one of Brandon’s gang. They got Butch and me an’ they’re chasin’ Jim Plimsoll to hell and gone—over Nipple Peaks—if he beats ’em to Spur Rock he’ll fool ’em on the black—I couldn’t ride—he left me here—with the girl—but the case is empty and the bank’s bu’sted—cashing—in—time and no chips.”

  He was wandering in his mind, speaking without control, but Sandy’s mouth tightened at the mention of Nipple Peaks, relaxed again on the word “girl.” He gave Hahn the last few drops of whisky.

  “Where in hell’d you get that?” asked the dealer weakly, coughed violently, collapsed, shuddered, writhed a little and was still before he could answer Sandy’s eager question about Molly.

  He found her without much searching, rolled down a little slope beyond the crevice. Under the light of the torch her eyes looked up at him. Her hair was in disorder, her raiment torn, her slender body wound about by the lariat rope, her mouth and chin hidden by the tightly drawn bandanna, but her gaze, reflecting the flare of the pine knot, held so much of welcome, of faith, of pride and courage, all sourced in something deeper, far more wonderful, moving beneath the surface like a well spring, that Sandy’s heart swelled with glad emotion, knowing she was unharmed, knowing that his coming was no surprise, however welcome.

  He found himself trembling as he untied her bonds and took away the gag from the mouth that lifted to his. She snuggled into his arms and, as the torch sputtered out, leaving them in the darkness, save for the luminous beams that stole down from where Grit whimpered in joyous impatience, her hair showered down over both of them.

  “Sandy.
I knew you’d come in time!” she whispered.

  He held her close and hard for a tense moment that gave all his world to his embrace.

  “Molly—girl,” he said brokenly, his voice broken with passion.

  Her hand crept up and a soft palm cupped about his chin. He kissed the edge of it. He rose easily, still holding her and lifted her high to where she could reach the vine, swinging up after her, Grit dancing a three-legged reel of joy as they came up into the free air and the moonlight.

  Blaze greeted them in the corral. Molly mounted, and Sandy set Grit on the saddle in front of her.

  “Where’s Pronto?” she asked.

  He told her.

  “I figger Sam an’ the boys’ll be erlong soon,” he said. “They may meet up with Pronto. Anyway, they’ll likely bring Goldie fo’ me. She’s up. An’ Pronto’ll be too tired fo’ what I want him to do ter-night.”

  She sensed the change in his voice, intuitively guessed but, womanlike, asked:

  “What do you mean, Sandy? Aren’t you coming home with me to Three Star. If it wasn’t so far I’d love to go back just like this, without meeting anybody.” She had taken off Sandy’s Stetson and she ran fingers through his hair, thrilling him to the intimacy of the caress. But, if there was any plan in her actions, it did not deter him from his.

  “Plimsoll’s makin’ fo’ Nipple Peaks an’ he’s likely to git clear. Me, I aim to head him off an’ settle the account.”

  “Sandy.” There was a plea in her voice that plucked at his heart strings. “Don’t spoil tonight. Please!”

  “That ain’t Molly Casey talkin’,” said Sandy. “That’s somethin’ you must have picked up back to Keith’s.”

  “He didn’t harm me, Sandy.”

  “He tried to.”

  Her hand slipped to his shoulder, touched his cheek. She reined in Blaze. Sandy stood beside her, straight and stern, his eyes implacable.