"Nothin" to that Bar 20 stuff," Jacks said, rising from the table. "This fight is local and, if you ask me, my guess would be the whole thing will be finished before any help could come to him."
"Maybe, but Hopalong knows what he's about. He gets around, you know. Heard he kilted an outlaw named Frazer at some hideout in the hills. Frazer was one of the men in the outfit that held up the stage when my brother was killed."
Clarry Jacks stood very still. That Frazer was dead, he knew. That Hopalong Cassidy had killed him, he also knew. But how did they know Frazer was one of the stage robbers?
He turned abruptly and crossed the street to the rooms he kept. Taking down a beautifully mounted Winchester, he said quietly, "I think it's time I played my own hand-no tellin' what Cassidy might uncover!" He went out, closing the door softly behind him. I CHAPTER 9
Open Warfare.
John Gore in action was a coldly efficient man. The ranch house of the Rocking R was open to attack once the riders were on the range, yet two men might make such an attack extremely costly, and it was not in his plans to make one. Irene and Lenny were at the ranch, and not even Seven Pines would countenance an attack that endangered good women.
His plan was to hit the riders while on the range, to knock them down one or two at a time with a hard-riding bunch of horsemen. With this in mind he calculated where the riders were likely to be and arranged for several bunches of fresh horses to be concealed at various points so his own horsemen could make rapid changes. His plan was to win the war in one swift, hard-riding day. That he himself was only a cog in the wheel of another man's plans, he did not guess.
Dan Dusark, riding with Hartley, saw the smoke signal that called him to Corn Patch.
Knowing at once what it portended, he hesitated as to his course of action. "I'm goin' over, Joe," he said finally. "I'm not goin' to do what they want but may learn somethin' that would help Mr. Cassidy."
"Better stay away," Hartley warned him. "That Harris is a sidewinder, and you know it."
"He'll never guess I've switched sides," Dusark insisted. He scowled. "He isn't the big duck in this pond, either. I wish I knew who it was. Poker gets orders from somebody, and I figure whoever it is knows plenty about the holdups."
Joe Hartley touched his tongue to his cigarette and let his eyes sweep the range before them. "Could be," he said. "But my advice is to stay away from that sinkhole."
Corn Patch was silent when Dusark rode up the street to the saloon. The place was empty as he walked in, and he strode to the bar. Harris gave him a nod of greeting.
"Kind of quiet, isn't it?" Dusark asked. "Where's everybody?"
"Where do you think?" Poker shrugged his huge shoulders. "This here's the chance we been waitin' for, Dan. The war between the 3 G and the Rockin' R will tear this range wide open. Most of the boys have gone over to Gore, and once that Rockin' R bunch is busted, we'll sweep the range of cattle."
"Maybe the 3 G won't win."
"Huh?" Harris stared at his henchman with heavy-lidded eyes. "You crazy? Gore's got his own men, to say nothing of Clarry Jacks, Leeman, Drennan, Hankins, Troy, and a half-dozen more. They'll mop up fast, and do it in one day. We aim to finish that outfit this time, Dan-finish 'em complete. Nobody alive to make a kick or a comeback."
"Where do I fit in?"
The office door opened, and John Gore stepped into the room. Dusark felt himself stiffen slightly, knowing this had been prearranged.
"You spot Cassidy for us." Gore was speaking. "You bring him to us at Poker Gap."
Dusark stared at Gore. For the first time he found himself resenting their certainty of his agreement. He had stolen cattle, he had robbed a few people, but he had never led a brave man into a deathtrap. Suddenly a strange feeling came over him, a feeling that the sands had run out, that he had forked his last bronc. It was a silly feeling to have, but he could not shake off the premonition. He threw away his cigarette and rolled another. "Cassidy," he said then, "makes up his own mind. He ain't a man to be led by me or anybody."
"Try it," Harris insisted. "We'll have it all set up. All you got to do is get him into the Gap."
"Not a chance!" Dusark straightened slowly. His thick-fingered hand was on the bar.
His heavy features hardened. "He isn't that foolish." His eyes turned to Harris.
"Why, he out-slicked you at poker, somethin' nobody ever did, and he's met up with the Gores twice and come off best each time! Believe me, he'll do the same this time.
I couldn't get him into a trap if I wanted to. And I don't want to!"
Satisfaction and triumph flooded him. He saw Gore's face redden with anger, and the features of Poker Harris seemed hewn from stone. "You fools!" Dusark's voice was hoarse now. "You haven't got a chance of winnin'! You're buckin' a man now who is tougher and smarter than Old Cattle Bob ever was!"
When he finished speaking, silence hung heavy in the room. Outside, a cicada sang in the greasewood, and a bluebottle fly buzzed fretfully against the dingy window.
John Gore clamped the cigar between his teeth and looked past it to Harris. "I thought you said this man was reliable. Sounds to me like he's gone over to Cassidy."
"Does sound thataway," Harris agreed. "How about it, Dan? Where do you stand?"
Dan Dusark had taken a lot of orders in his time, from good men and bad. Suddenly he realized that, any way you looked at it, his life had been a pretty shabby, second-rate thing. He could wiggle out of this. He knew that. He could apologize for popping off, fall in with their plans, then get away and carry the news to Cassidy. Or he could face them both here and now.
If these two men were dead, the war might end. If these two men were out of it, if it did not end, certainly it would be much easier. Well, why not?
He looked up. He was a big man, almost as big as Harris, and he was unshaven and untidy, yet in that moment he felt good. He felt better than he had ever felt.
"Why, I'll take my stand with Cassidy," he said calmly, "with the Rockin' R.
"It's been a long time," he added, "since I've had a chance to ride with men like that over there, and I sort of find that I like it. I like it a lot. You always were a king-sized rat, Harris, and as for Gore here, he's a penny-ante wolf who lets coyotes do his killin' for him. I don't think either of you got a streak of decent blood in you."
He expected them to draw, and they did not. He expected anger, and none came. They sat very still for a long minute, and then Gore got to his feet. "Reckon that settles that, Poker. Let me know what you decide to do." He turned abruptly toward the office door, and for a fleeting instant Dusark thought the man would leave. His eyes followed him and then with a shock of realization, swung back to Harris. He was just in time to see both barrels of Harris's shotgun blossom with crimson, to feel t
>>He was drawing as he fell, and he fired rapidly three times. ,|
They were not aimed shots. They could not be aimed shots. The| first broke a bottle on the shelf behind Harris. The second| grooved the edge of the bar, and the third caught the big man in the throat, smashed against his spinal column, and carried most of it away.
John Gore, his lips white and compressed, beads of sweat|| on his forehead, stared at the two men. Harris had fallen full length behind the bar, and that he was dead was instantly obvious. Dusark lay sprawled on his back on the sawdusted floor, his body a vast reddening stain.
Stepping over him, Gore went down the steps. Tough as he was, he was badly shaken now, for he had never seen two men die so suddenly or so violently. He swung into the saddle and started down the trail.
Dusark was not dead, but dying. Slowly, painfully, he dragged himself to the near end of the bar, and with a stool broke the glass on Harris's rifle rack. His hand found the Sharps .50, and he jerked it from the rack. Then he turned himself around to where he could look down the trail toward the desert. Gore was in plain sight, walking his horse.
The desert waved mysteriously over the sight as Dusark tried to steady the gun. It waved, da
nced, then steadied, and Dusark pulled the trigger.
The buffalo gun roared and leaped in his hands, kicking viciously against the shoulder where it had been weakly held. Three hundred yards away, John Gore felt his horse stiffen, then fall. He sprang clear and ran for the rocks.
In the saloon Dan Dusark collapsed, the rifle falling from hands he could no longer feel.
Back at the Rocking R, Lenny Ronson was waiting for Hopalong while he saddled his horse. Her face was pale and she looked as if she had passed a sleepless night. "Hoppy," she said suddenly, "what's going to happen?"
He looked at her seriously. "I don't rightly know, Lenny. It looks like war, but something might happen to stop it."
"The Gores won't stop now. Not unless you give the Kid to them, and they might not stop even then."
"They wouldn't and we wouldn't."
"Hoppy, why don't you hire Clarry Jacks? You could, you know. Bob would listen to you, and he's a good man."
Cassidy tightened the cinch. "Clarry already has a job, Lenny. He's workin' for John Gore."
"I don't believe it!"
"It's true. Leeman and he have both joined up and, so far as we can find out, all that outfit from Corn Patch. It's the Rockin' R against the country, Lenny."
Lenny Ronson watched Hopalong complete the saddling of his horse. Then as he mounted she caught his hand. "He's actually joined them?"
"I'm afraid he has."
Her lips tightened, and she felt sick and empty. Yet always she had expected this.
She admitted it now, although she would never have admitted it before. As much as she had been attracted to Jacks, she had always been a little afraid of him. It had been her brother's attitude as much as anything that had driven her to Clarry Jacks. And he was handsome, dashing, and the best dancer around.
"Hoppy," she said, suddenly serious, "if Clarry has joined the Gores, he's no longer a friend of mine. I-I guess I've always known he wasn't trustworthy."
Hopalong waited, rolling a smoke. He had worked out answers to a lot of problems, but they lacked confirmation. He was quite sure he knew who had killed Jesse Lock.
He was quite sure who had handled the robberies of gold from the mine, and that behind those robberies there were two cool-headed men with no regard for human life. He was quite sure now that he knew how they planned to dispose of the gold. Yet Lenny had known Jacks well, and he might have dropped some remark that it would pay to know.
She was hesitating, then said, "He knows this country well, Hoppy, very well. He knew it when I first met him, and he'd only just arrived in town.
"Dud said once that Clarry was a big man. That everybody jumped when he spoke-that Corn Patch outfit, even some important men in town."
Reverting to the earlier comment, he asked, "You think he had been here before?"
Lenny's gaze turned to Frenchy, Kid Newton, and Milligan, who were loafing near the bunkhouse. Shorty Montana lay on the crest of a ridge out back, covering the approach and watching with field glasses.
"Lenny," Hopalong said, "one man, or two at most, is behind all the trouble here.
Pony Harper is one of them, I'm thinkin'. Maybe Poker Harris is another, but I think he's small potatoes. That Corn Patch crowd seems to be the center for the whole show, but I think it's just a side issue. Clarry Jacks probably knows who the boss is. If you remember anything he said that would help, let me know. Clarry never worked, but he always had money, and I'd like to know who he was tied in with."
She frowned. "There was a man-a man he called Laramie. Sometimes they used to talk, always off to themselves."
Laramie!
At this moment Joe Hartley spurred his mustang down the slope. He raced around the corral and slid to a stop near Hopalong. "They're movin'!" he said. "Riders left the 3 G and met up with another bunch south of here. They headed for our line cabin at Willow Springs!"
"Where's Dan?"
Hartley looked worried. "He picked up a smoke from Corn Patch. Used to be they used that signal to call him in when they wanted to make medicine. That was hours ago."
"Any movement from Corn Patch?"
"No. But I recognized that roan of Hankins with the 3 G crowd. There's nine riders, as near as I could make out."
"All right, Joe; you stick here with Bob Ronson and China. We're headin' for the 3 G outfit an' then for Corn Patch. If anything comes up we should know, or if that bunch heads this way and the place is attacked, start a smoke on top of the ridge.
We'll see that."
He led the way out of the basin with four men riding beside him. It was already past noon of a new day, and there was little time. Hopalong had no love of range war, but he knew this one had to be fought and had to be won. Actually, far to the south near Corn Patch, a decisive blow had already been struck.
Dan Dusark had died, but his death had not been wasted. Poker Harris had gone out with him, but what was infinitely more important now, he had with his last gasp fired the rifle shot that froze the 3 G outfit.
John Gore was boss. Not even the tough and hard-bitten Con ever crossed him. John was the boss, and John was gone. The swiftly attacking parties that had been due to move at once and to strike hard awaited his orders, and he had not returned from Corn Patch. That last shot had not injured him, but it had broken the back of his horse, and John was afoot in the mountains, miles from anywhere he wanted to be.
Dusark had a horse at Corn Patch, but John was not aware that Dan lay dead on the floor, the big buffalo gun beside him, and John was a cautious man. It was fully three hours after his own horse died that he finally got to Dusark's animal, but the ex-rustler's mustang was wild, and he shied away from the man who crawled toward him and felt no more trust when he got to his feet. Swearing viciously, John Gore started in a lumbering run after the fleeing horse. Holding his head high and to one side to keep the reins clear of his feet, the mustang galloped away. Sweaty, bursting with rage, and covered with dust, John Gore stopped and cursed viciously.
The carefully prepared plan of attack had awaited his return, and it kept waiting.
Finally, almost at noon, Con decided to take matters into his own hands and to begin by a strike at the line cabin where two Rocking R men were expected to be. But those men had returned to the home ranch shortly after daybreak and were now riding out behind Hopalong Cassidy. Dan Dusark's bullet had wrecked the timing of the scheme, and now it was too late. The general of the 3 G outfit was panting and swearing on a sage-covered hillside near Corn Patch, while not over twenty yards away stood a wary mustang who was beginning to enjoy the game.
Led by Hopalong Cassidy, the Rocking R riders were cutting through a narrow draw, and when they emerged upon the desert, Hopalong sighted a group of tracks. Reining in, he motioned the others to halt and studied the sign carefully. Two men with a bunch of led horses. "Headin' north," he said. "Now what's the idea of that?"
"Sure them horses are led?" Milligan asked. "It might be that bunch who headed for Willow Springs."
"Those are led horses. Two riders." Hopalong spoke with the sure knowledge of years of sign reading.
They continued east and then, at Hopalong's signal, drew up again. "Another bunch.
One rider." He blinked his eyes against the salty perspiration that trickled into them and pushed back his hat, staring over the sun-blasted ridges and the sagebrush flats where a lake of deepest blue covered the valley floor. That lake was a mirage, but the tracks of those horses were not. They represented something.
"Dollars to doughnuts they are stakin' out fresh horses! They figure to ride far and fast over this country, wipin' us out, and usin' fresh horses to keep up the pace!"
"Sounds like Gore," Frenchy opined.
Hopalong drew his hat down and headed east once more. The 3 G was deserted except for a corral of horses. Dropping down, Hopalong threw down the bars and, with a few whoops and waves of his arms, emptied it. Grinning, he turned to the other riders.
"Frenchy, you and the Kid keep watch and warn
us if anybody shows up.
"Tex, you and Shorty come with me. We'll round up all the food on this place and cache the stuff where they won't find it. All the ammunition, too. We'll set this outfit afoot so fast they won't know what hit 'em!"
Chuckling, Tex and Shorty raided the grub shelves and storerooms, carrying the canned goods and other foodstuffs out to a hole in the rocks, where they were carefully concealed. Mounting once more, Hopalong headed north.
He had a rough plan now. That first bunch of horses had been taken north, and probably toward Mandalay Springs. If they were waiting there for the riders, they could be easily found; and, once led away or scattered, it would be but a short time until the 3 G men were afoot. Riding hard in the expectation of fresh horses, they would find their own mounts in bad shape by the time they arrived at each rendezvous.
As he rode, he made a picture of the range in his mind and, by nightfall, had found two more bunches of horses and liberated them, then had driven them off into the hills.
"Smoke!" Frenchy said suddenly. "That from the home place, you reckon?"
Hopalong squinted against the sun. "No, looks as if they burned the line cabin at Willow."
"Burn the luck!" Kid Newton exploded. "I had my extra shirt in that cabin!"
"Bunk!" Milligan spat. "You never had an extra shirt!"
"What?" Newton bellowed. "I sure did! And that's more than you can say! Why, you never wore a pair of socks in your boots in your life!"
"Best way to wear 'em," Tex said cheerfully. "Cooler."
'Yeah, for a horn-heeled ladino like you!" The Kid snorted.
Hopalong chuckled as he listened. It reminded him of the old Bar 20 outfit, of Red Connors, Johnny Nelson, Lanky, and the rest.
The day was gone, limping over the horizon and trailing a few scattered flags of light behind it. The heat was already gone from the air, and coolness was coming on. In high altitudes where the air is thin, over deserts where clouds are few, the heat of day changes very swiftly to the cold of night.
As he rode he chalked up the places they had struck and the horses they had scattered.
the Trail to Seven Pines (1972) Page 12