E. Hoffmann Price's War and Western Action

by E. Hoffmann Price

  “Best of all places. Because you and I had met so often, we’d understand each other better. You’d never prayed for me, but I knew you’d help the enemy of your enemy.”

  “By Allah! That is what Sitti Alimah said!”

  “I’d not be surprised. You see, she helped us hide in that straw stack, the night we escaped. Smart lady you have, Yakub.”

  FEUD’S END

  Originally appeared in Spicy Western Stories, July 1937.

  “Simon! You, Simon! Whut the tarnation hell yo’ think this is, a gol danged hotel?” Uncle Carter, bawling like a four year old bull, shattered the early morning silence.

  Simon Bolivar Grimes had heard the first raucous bellow some minutes earlier, but untangling himself from the ranch cook’s lovely daughter took time and determination. The girl had developed the art of clinging to the utmost possible degree.

  Susie Wrinkled-Meat, slim, shapely, and brown, had inherited an inappropriate name and piquantly prominent cheek bones from her late father, a Comanche chief; and her Spanish mother’s contribution was a pair of devil-haunted black eyes and an insatiable urge for just one more kiss.

  She wore a gown heavily paneled with hand-made Mexican lace. It concealed this and revealed that—particularly that, of which Susie had plenty: such as sweetly rounded hips, and firm little breasts, coyly hinted at by the transparent yoke of her gown. She was sultry enough to need ventilated garments…

  “Simon, darling,” she sighed. “I hate to think of you’re going with the pool herd to Abilene. I’ll miss you awfully.”

  She kissed the gangling, tow-headed boy from Georgia until he tingled all the way to his cowhide boots. He had been telling Susie good-bye since eight o’clock the night before.

  “Honey, I jest got to be rep of the Box G,” he panted. “But—”

  “Simon, you blasted girl-crazy horn toad, wheah are you?” howled Uncle Carter from outside the cook’s ’dobe shack.

  Grimes pried the armful of torrid lace from his shirt front and stumbled toward the ranch house. His coffin-shaped face was longer than usual. Maybe if he stalled long enough, he could devise some way of taking Susie with him.

  “Uncle Ca’tah,” he began, planting himself at the kitchen table, “I got a whale of a headache. Anyway, they ain’t going to be through putting the trail brand on all them critters till tonight.”

  Grimes’ uncle, however, was almost psychic: “Bub, they ain’t no use thinking of takin’ Susie along. Them cowpokes would be so danged busy murderin’ each other fo’ one of her kisses, they’d plumb fo’get ridin’ herd.”

  “I warn’t thinkin’ of that!” flared Grimes. “I jest been tryin’ to figger out why Melinda Patton ain’t putting any of her H-P critters in the pool. They’s suthin’ funny theah.”

  “You might ask Melinda,” was the malicious retort.

  Grimes, white with wrath, leaped to his feet. He and Melinda had been very much in love until he shot her father, the crooked banker, who as front for a cattle rustling syndicate, had nearly put Uncle Carter out of business.

  The impending civil war was blocked when a sweet voice purred from the threshold, “Señor Grimes, I ’ave jest notice there ees no flour and the bacon she ees damn’ near finish.”

  It was Susie’s mother, Catalina. Her comely face had a well-kissed look; and every quiver of her firm, generous breasts made Grimes wonder if his uncle wasn’t mighty lucky in his arrangements to take care of John Wrinkled-Meat’s daughter and widow.

  “Simon,” grunted Uncle Carter, “mebbe you an’ Susie bettah take the buckboard and load it up with vittles. She kin drive it back.”

  It was so arranged; and presently they were on their way.

  * * * *

  While not quite half way to Skeleton Creek, Grimes noted a large herd near the bank of the creek that gave the town its name. The critters were branded BB. He had never heard of such an outfit. Frowning, he handed Susie the reins.

  “You wait heah. I’m goin’ ovah to the camp,” he said, mounting the saddled palomino tethered to the tail gate of the wagon.

  Grimes was moved by more than mere curiosity; it was part of his business to keep posted on who was who.

  He skirted Skeleton Creek; but he had ridden scarcely fifty yards when he pulled up. The woman at the edge of a dawn-kissed pool, just visible through a thicket, was built to make Venus at the fountain look like a Piute squaw. Her hair, gilded by the early light and streaming to her hips, was a passable substitute for the last flimsy garment that was settling about her ankles.

  He got just a flash of a bosom that quivered like delicate pink tinted jelly. Then, before he could get a look at her face, she turned to the creek, tentatively tested its temperature with an outthrust foot. Though that move cheated Grimes of a fuller view, it gave him a chance to remember that no gentleman would spy on a lady’s morning bath. He headed for the camp.

  Two men squatted at the fire. Half a dozen others, likewise black dots against the horizontal rays that made Grimes blink and squint, were hustling about with their work.

  As he approached, the two at the fire started to their feet, hands darting to their belts. The move, however, was checked when Grimes hailed the camp; but while that gesture had been natural enough, they did seem just a shade jumpy. One, short and squat, ducked out of sight; the other, tall and rangy, rose and approached Grimes.

  As the gap closed, Grimes for the first time was able to see that the boss of that outfit had a black beard, a hatchet face and bushy brows; a salty, hard bitten hombre if there ever was one.

  “Light and set, stranger,” he invited. Then, gesturing at the pot on the fire, “they’s still time fer some cawfee.”

  “Thank you, suh. I done et. I’m Simon Bolivar Grimes, suh, an’ seein’ yo’ critters, I thought at fust you was some local outfit headin’ fo’ the pool herd.”

  “Yo’re jest half right, bub,” grinned the bearded man. “I’m Bart Bailey from Del Rio, which ain’t exactly local. But last night I heard about a pool startin’ from here and with so many cattle thieves on the prowl, I reckoned it’d be sensible tuh join up.”

  They chatted for a moment, then Grimes wheeled his horse and rode back to the buckboard. Susie was at the creek ford, waiting. The blonde woman was no longer in sight. But Grimes was not thinking of the beauties of nature.

  “Mistah Bart Bailey,” he pondered, “sho’ drove his herd slow-like, fo’ a gent what’s afeerd of owl-hooters. Them critters is too fat fo’ a fast run from Del Rio.”

  * * * *

  Half an hour later, as they approached the mouth of an arroyo, he heard the whinny of a horse. It came from the right; and the greeting to his beasts was cut off before it was fairly out. Someone had blundered. The abrupt choking of the sound was a dead giveaway. There was an ambush ahead.

  Grimes, pig stubborn, refused to retreat. In the arroyo, the light was still tricky for long range fire. As they were for a moment sheltered by a thicket, he said to Susie, “Grab my hoss and git out while I attend to that gent.”

  “I’m not scared,” she countered; but she wisely dropped to the bed of the buckboard.

  Grimes’ drawn pistol, a single action .45 the length of a siege gun, lay on his knee. He was ready—

  “Whack!” But the rifle blast came from the side of the arroyo opposite from the one where the concealed horse had whinnied.

  A slug gouged a ragged welt along Grimes’ ribs, thudding into the seat beside him. He yelled, pitched to the floor boards. The fuzztails bolted. The clattering drowned everything but the triumphant hoot from the left, and the answering shout from the right.

  A man popped up from cover, high above the bottom of the arroyo. He was certain that he had plugged his victim; but a correction was on the way. The galloping mustangs had closed the gap; and then the long barreled .45 bellowed like artillery firing in battery. The lurker pitc
hed headlong down the slope.

  The mustangs wheeled sharply, wedging the wagon wheels on a boulder. The impact spilled Grimes from the seat, and piled Susie on top of him. The resulting a pinwheel of bare legs, cowhide boots, and red calico settled to the rocky bottom just in time to miss the hail of pistol slugs that poured from the opposite bank. The choked whinny from the right had been guile, not stupidity; but for poor marksmanship, Grimes would have been plugged from the left before he caught the trick.

  Sheltered by the half upset wagon, he hosed the slope with lead. His second gun, however, had dropped far beyond his reach; and as he frantically jacked the empties from his smoking weapon, a howl and a clatter of departing hoofs mocked him.

  No chance to pursue. The saddle mount had broken from the tail gate and bolted. Susie was screeching to the high heavens, “Simon, they killed me!”

  For a mortally wounded person, she was tolerably noisy. Helping her to her feet, he saw that a slug had creased her hip. So while Susie nonchalantly tore a strip from her skirt, Grimes pacified the mustangs, who were industriously kicking the dashboard to pieces, maneuvered them to extricate the wedged wagon wheel, and then caught his saddle mount. That done, he approached the pie-faced man who lay gaping stupidly at the sunrise.

  He was a stranger, and the contents of his pockets were not enlightening. His accomplice, escaping with both horses, had removed the most serviceable clue; but Grimes, after bundling the stiff into the buckboard, circled around the scene of the ambush.

  One of the hidden mounts had a broken shoe, he learned from the hoofprints; and he found a lead-riddled hat near the spot where the lurker had watched the horses. It was a Stetson with a silver ornamental band. On the brim was an old bloodstain, almost obliterated. Though the law would not accept such a flimsy identification, it was good enough for Grimes.

  That hat belonged to Lem Potts, the shyster lawyer who had been the sole survivor of the gun fight in which Grimes had blotted out Melinda Patton’s father. There was no mistaking that blood stain.

  The implications, however, reached much further. The signs indicated that it had been an impromptu ambush. There were no cigarette butts, no blur of footprints to indicate a long vigil. Potts and the rifle man must have hastened from Bart Bailey’s camp to intercept him.

  Then he caught the play: Bailey and his companion had not realized that Grimes, dazzled by the horizontal rays, had not been able to recognize the man ducking from the camp fire. Thus the ambush was to keep Grimes from drawing any conclusions as to why Potts, survivor of the rustler syndicate, had had important business with Bailey.

  Grimes, though unable to prove his suspicions, drove on toward town with his convictions.

  * * * *

  The law against carrying belt weapons in Skeleton Creek had just been repealed, mainly because everyone homicidally inclined concealed guns in bootlegs, hip pockets, and shoulder holsters instead of wearing them openly. This repeal, mainly due to Grimes’ blasting the gizzards out of a pair of ruffians who had underestimated him, got him a sour glare from old Hob Terrill, the town marshal, who sat near the jail.

  “Mawnin’, Hob,” beamed Grimes, jerking his thumb toward the corpse in the wagon. “I got some new business fo’ you, an’ the sheriff.”

  “I guess yuh got another alibi?” He helped Grimes unload the dead.

  “Suttinly I has. Ef I’d fired fust, this gent wouldn’t never lived to pour a .45-70 along my ribs an’ through the wagon seat. An’ I got a witness.”

  The gritting sound Grimes heard as he clucked to the nags was the marshal’s teeth. He turned back and added, “An’ fo’ six bits extry, you kin look an’ see wheah that wild shot scraped Susie.”

  “Six bits, nothing!” mocked Susie, patting her hip. “It’ll cost you both your eyes, Señor Terrill!”

  The marshal, regarding the shapely bare legs Susie had cocked up on the dashboard, looked as though that would be cheap enough. Then he said, “I’ll git yuh yet, yuh gol blamed trantler.”

  Grimes pulled up at Link Simpson’s general store. Then, leaving Susie to stock up the wagon, Grimes headed toward the Corkscrew Inn, which was headquarters for the cattlemen who were pooling their herds for the long drive to Kansas.

  Half way to his destination, he halted, confused and embarrassed. A girl wearing stitched boots and a trim riding skirt that flattered the most fascinating hips on that side of the Pecos was approaching him. Her sweet, serious face was framed by pale golden hair. The upper fullness of a vee-necked silk blouse rippled deliciously with each stride. She had everything!

  This was Melinda Patton. Dreading this first meeting since he’d shot her father, he turned to duck into the Last Chance Saloon; but the swinging door slammed outward, blocking him.

  Grimes, lips dry and heart hammering, caught the glance of her blue eyes. She recoiled; a gleam of tears contrasted strangely with the sudden hardening of her face.

  “Melinda—honey—” he blurted.

  She swept past him. He suddenly was glad he was riding with the trail herd. That meeting had undone every effort to forget the way she had once smiled at him in the moonlight stealing through her window. She had to hate him now, just as it had been his duty to avenge the unexpectedly revealed duplicity of her father.

  Worst of all, the blow off had come just as they’d decided, after an evening’s conference, that they’d be married the following day.

  He stumbled back and into the Corkscrew Inn, where he gargled two shots of whiskey. Then he glanced about and saw the reps of the other outfits who were to pool their cattle. Sitting in their midst was Bart Bailey. White-haired Gil Stewart of the Lazy M was saying, “Shore, I’m trail boss. But we kain’t let in any outsiders onless the reps from each ranch agrees, unanimously.”

  “Hell,” said Bailey, “you gents has jest as good as admitted they ain’t no objections tuh me.”

  “Makes no difference,” contended Stewart. “We ain’t heard from the Box G outfit yet, and until—” Then, seeing Grimes, he hailed him: “Hi, thar, Simon! Come here an’ meet Bart Bailey—”

  “I done had that pleasure, Gil,” the boy cut in. He grinned guilelessly at Bailey.

  The bearded man, if he really were surprised to see Grimes, betrayed no amazement. He nodded, then said, “I’ll jest leave whilst yuh do this votin’, Stewart. An’ as soon as yo’re done, I’ll get started trail-brandin’ my critters.”

  Stewart led the local cattlemen to the proprietor’s private room.

  “That was jest a formality, fellers,” he said. “Ain’t no objections, is they, lettin’ Bart Bailey team up with us.”

  “I’m objectin’, suh,” Grimes interposed. “Fo’ the Box G, what’s got mo’ critters in this herd ’an any other outfit.”

  For a moment there was a clamor of amazement at his vote. Bailey, apparently, had won the good graces of the four reps during the time he had gained by riding instead of deliberately driving to Skeleton Creek.

  “What fur, Simon—? What’s wrong with him—? What yuh got agin him—?”

  “That’s none of yo’ dang business!” he retorted to the babbling trio. “Yo’ asked, is I got objections an’ I done said I has.”

  “Listen, young whelp!” Jeb Terry, broad as a chuck wagon and belligerent as an old bull, advanced a pace. “I asked—”

  Pop! Grimes’ fist snapped him back on his heels; but the blow just enraged Terry. With a wrathful bellow; he recovered, tugging leather.

  That was a mistake. Before his gun half cleared the holster, a blast shook the room. Jeb yelled. Blood spurted from the hammer thumb that had been cut by fragments of the bullet that knocked the gun from his hand.

  “I’ll knock the two of yuh loose from yore eye teeth,” growled salty old Gil Stewart, interposing. “Simon, what yuh got agin’ Bailey?”

  Grimes scratched his tow head and frowned. “Gil, I jest don’t exa
ctly know. Yo’ might call it a permonition. Kain’t prove it, so I ain’t sayin’.”

  To explain would only warn Lem Potts, if he actually were in cahoots with Bailey in some devious piece of skullduggery. Grimes had a deep-seated grudge against that slick customer; but for Potts’ twisted legal advice, Melinda’s pappy might have stayed straight, and young love would not have gone up in gunsmoke.

  “Yo’re right, not sayin’ what yuh kain’t prove,” Stewart grudgingly conceded. “But yo’re a damn ornery brat an’ ef I was yore uncle, I’d lambaste yuh till yore hind end looked like a Scotch plaid.”

  “My uncle has been doin’ that fo’ months, an’ ain’t another man living what’d have guts to try it,” Grimes frigidly retorted, stalking from the room, and the others followed.

  Before Stewart could break the news, Bailey chuckled sourly, shrugged, and said, “I done heard most of it. Grimes, I dunno whut yuh got agin’ me, but supposin’ you come up tuh my room at the White Hoss Hotel? It’s only fair tuh tell me in private.”

  Grimes had to concede the justice of his contentions.

  “I’ll sho’ admire to give yo’all satisfaction, Mistah Bailey,” said Grimes. “In two hours, ef it’s agreeable to you. I got to see how many of my critters is branded.”

  “It’s Room Four,” added Bailey, as Grimes turned toward the street.

  The drover’s affability in the face of that direct affront convinced Grimes that Bailey was too diplomatic for an honest man; but that was all the more reason to accept his proposition. Bailey could hardly have guessed that Grimes had connected him with Lem Potts; and, in his efforts to placate the stubborn boy, he might unconsciously drop a revealing hint.

  Grimes headed for the branding pen at the further side of town; but he at once looped back, and down a side street to find Potts before Bailey met him.

  * * * *

  Lem Potts, he presently learned, was not in his hotel or office. Neither was he at the bank, the jail, nor in any of the other saloons. It took Grimes only a few minutes to make the rounds. Then he played his last hunch.