by Abel Short
"Dildaw?" said Linn, looking puzzled.
"The gunfighter who came to town a coupla weeks back to go to work for the Ventares, Silver. The one you framed in the killing of Little Phil."
Silver Linn's sad bloodshot eyes narrowed. "Oh, yes… The idiot came back? Well, we'll just send down to Marshal Dinby and let this be handled by the Law. We—"
Shandy shook his head slowly, jaw working as he tried to control his fear and speak. "We—we c-can't, S-Silver. He broke in the back and knocked out Nick." Nick was one of the house guards of the Stirrup. Quaking in the shirt hanging outside his pants, Shandy told how he woke up awfully dry and slipped downstairs to get himself a snort of redeye. The place wasn't opened up yet, of course. And then he'd seen this Dildaw back in the shadows of the bar, standing over Nick. "I came back up the rear stairs to—to t-tell you," Shandy finished.
Silver Linn sneered. He knew Shandy had been only out to save his own hide; Shandy would have loved to see him dead. Silver knew about Dildaw all right. Dildaw was a walking rattlesnake with a gun; he had come into town en route to take a job with the Pothook outfit of the Ventare brothers. Silver didn't intend the Ventares to hold a gun-ace like that, but Dildaw was a shrewd, wary one, hard to take. No man wanted to face him in a draw showdown.
Silver had figured a way through. Little Phil had been the town drunk, a beloved character who could sing an Irish ballad so even a wire-tough hombre's eye might go moist. Silver had slipped him a few bills; Phil was always broke. Silver told him to pick an argument with Dildaw at the bar, that it was part of a practical joke. Phil had complied and everything had gone off nicely with the bad-tempered Dildaw finally striking him in rage, Little Phil fumbling for his gun, and two of the housemen jumping between as the killer hooked a hand on a gun butt. Two hours later, Little Phil was found stabbed to death in an alley, the Bowie blade still stuck between his shoulder blades.
After that it had been pretty simple. Men remembered seeing the Bowie knife in Dildaw's belt. When they went up to the boarding house just as he was turning in, he was unable to produce the knife. By jumping through a window, Dildaw escaped hanging and hightailed it out of town and out of that piece of country. Silver Linn had congratulated himself on a smart piece of work. Dildaw himself had suspected nothing when he brushed against him at the crowded bar and slipped the Bowie from Dildaw's belt.
But now—he was back. And obviously there could be only one reason why he had returned to the Stirrup. "Why didn't you wake the house guards downstairs, you fool?" Silver threw at Shandy.
"He might uh seen me and—" Shandy's double chins began to tremble. His voice went off in a dry whispering quaver, his eyes glassy buttons staring over Silver Linn's shoulder. Silver started around.
"Hel-lo, Silver," drawled the squat man who appeared at the top of the front stairway. A Colt stabbed from one of his hairy fists. His now wrinkled forehead was so low his heavy eyebrows threatened to meet the hairline.
Dildaw!
"Hel-lo, Silver. I came back to say—good-bye." The gunman advanced.
With a squeak, shirt-tails flying, Shandy Smith threw himself at the door of a nearby room and jumped in. From inside came the shriek of one of his girl entertainers. Dildaw paid that no heed as he closed the space between Silver Linn and himself.
"I found out who framed me, Silver… You," Dildaw said.
Silver started a hand along the seam of his right trouser leg. The killer said nothing but little yellow lights jumped in his eyes. Silver took his hand away from that spot; he knew when he was whipped. He shrugged and smiled wearily.
"I just work here, Dildaw," he said. "How could I hang the deadwood on you, now? Why, I'm just an old coot a-trying to live out my days in peace and—"
"Shut your head! Stop your lying." Dildaw's gun hammer clicked back. "You oughta be praying—while you can!"
It was little less than a miracle that that door opened soundlessly, the door of the room where Big Joe Gannon, now Pony Grimes, had been sleeping. Big Joe stepped from it on bootless feet some yards behind Dildaw, and Silver gambled on his hole card.
His whole attitude changed abruptly; his jaw shot out as he drew himself up with a cold eye and an outraged look. "You danged doublecrossing lawman," he spat out clearly, careful not to look at Big Joe. "Come around here demanding dinero, threatening to burn me down and swear I killed that Little Phil if I don't pay off, huh? And you knowing damn well there's a dozen men who can swear I never left this place that evening!"
Dildaw was so dumbfounded he couldn't say anything.
"So you want five hundred dollars, huh, John Law?" Silver ranted on, shoving up his hands. "All right. Go—to—hell! I ain't got it. Your bribing price is too danged high for me! Go ahead—shoot!"
"Are you locoed?" Dildaw asked, squinting, bewildered.
"Notice you was too smart to wear your badge when you came sneaking in here to demand money from me at gun-point, Mister Marshal! I hate crooks like you who hide behind their office to try to scare honest men—"
Dildaw caught the faint creak of a floor plank and wheeled. Too late, for Big Joe had hurled himself in a six-foot leap. His outstretched hands nailed Dildaw at the throat as he turned. One hand folded into a fist as they piled against a wall and hammered; Dildaw's gun coughed and the bullet gouged into the floor. Then his head smashed back against the wall three times and sagged limply on his chest. He and Big Joe went to the floor, the one-time lawman's great hands crushing in Dildaw's windpipe, meshing and vising on his neck.
Smiling smugly, Silver Linn was in no hurry to pry him loose. A couple of gun guards, knuckling sleep from their eyes, came running up from below. Shandy stuck his head hesitantly out of the entertainer's room. Silver pointed at one of the guards and told him to go to the front door and tell the curious his gun had merely gone off as he cleaned it. Then Silver bent down and struck Big Joe lightly in the face.
"Thanks, Pony," he said. "I'll handle him now."
Big Joe let go and stood up, breathing hard, the vague look still in his eyes. "I heard what you said and saw him going for you, Silver," he muttered, as if explaining it to himself. "He was a lawman too and—"
"Sure, sure," Silver said. He gave orders to Shandy and the houseman. They picked up the unconscious Dildaw and took him down the back stairs, then down another flight of stairs into the cellar and through a heavy door in the foundations to a dirt-walled chamber behind that. The report of Silver's gun, held tight against the still unconscious Dildaw's head was only a muffled thing down there.
Silver led the way back up to the second floor, wiping his hands with a silk handkerchief. Shandy quavered something about the body. "Coupla the boys can take it out of town late tonight and throw it in some ravine," Silver told him casually. He winked at Doc Hilder at the top of the stairs. "Who says I didn't convince him he is what I told him he is, eh? Hellfire, I got myself a Man Friday, a Gunman Friday."
He strode down the hall to where Big Joe waited, reaching for his hand. "Pony—even though I took a chance of putting my head in a noose when I did it —I'm danged glad I brought that doctor in for you the time the posse beat your head off. At that time, I said, 'I can't let a man like this die. I can't let him die....'"
CHAPTER 4
Somebody down by the little bunkhouse past the windmill yelled, "Who's out there?" above the creaking of the latter. Up in the small ranch house, grizzled Buck Lennore grabbed for his Colts and gunbelt off the wall hook and yanked at the door. It was then the first shot crackled on the ebbing twilight.
Lennore got out on the small gallery in time to see one of his three-man spread buckle and flop earthward down by the corral. Lead splintered the bunkhouse doorway as another waddy tried to throw up a gun, forcing him backward. With a roared curse, Buck Lennore slapped his gray hair off his forehead and grabbed back inside the house for his Winchester. That last gunflash had come from some distance, from the knoll to the south of the Triangle-C. He hadn't levered the first shell into the rifle
when three-four slugs gashed the frame of the doorway around him. Another clipped his right boot.
Buck Lennore had never eaten crow for any man, but he was no fool. He went diving back inside, slamming the door behind him and thanking God his wife was away on a visit. He blew out the living room lamp as he sighted the handful of horsemen swing up from the cut in the road. Going to the window at the other side of the house, he raised it, eeled out, and dropped into the tall grass. Then he bellied around and out to the broken-down wagon rusting away in the ranchyard, wriggling beneath it.
He slammed just three shots at the fanned-out bunch of riders approaching, nicking one in the shoulder. Baldy Lee, down in the bunkhouse triggered twice over a window sill. And then Baldy slipped from sight, grazed on the side of the head as a swarm of lead tore at the window. Then the next moment, Lennore himself was out of the fight. A bullet splintered a wagon spoke just over his head. Another raked his extended left forearm, blood welling through the hole in the sleeve. Those bullets were coming from behind him, too.
He twisted a look behind. The cottonwood clump back further on that side was just a blurred shape in the oncreeping tide of night. Even as Lennore looked, the gun back there frothed ruddily again and the bullet whipped into the wagon bottom a couple feet from his head. He was helpless. In a split second he realized this raid had been carefully planned, every possible contingency foreseen. Desperately, he scuttled out from under the wagon and downgrade through the grass till he found that little hollow. The lead came hosing after him even as he flopped into it.
He had to lie there like a rat in a trap while the horsemen swung off the road over toward the bunkhouse. He could just see them by peeping up quickly through the grass stalks, could see they wore red masks beneath their sombreros. He didn't dare risk a shot; that rifleman back in the cottonwoods, on higher ground, would pick him off for sure.
There was no further resistance from the bunkhouse as the riders came on. They stopped by the corral and one got down to open the gate. A couple dashed in, shooting off their guns and shouting and beating at the ponies there with their hats. In a matter of moments, Lennore's remuda was streaking away for the brush-dotted uplands to the north. They made no effort to catch any of the horses as they stampeded.
And they seemed in no hurry. A couple of men went to a fence post. Dismounting one got a rock and nailed something to the post. The twilight was gone suddenly and it was night. But though there was no moon, the cloudless heavens were star-studded and it was bright. Buck Lennore could see their silhouettes plainly, just as plainly as he would be marked if he tried to move from the hollow. Then he realized several had detached themselves from the main bunch and were riding out toward his haylands.
It didn't take them long. A yellowish flame licked up high in the flatlands formed by the bow of the creek. There was another, and then another. Next a glowing canopy of light was reflected in the creek waters. And Buck Lennore saw his stacks of winter hay blazing merrily like so many torches. Pressed flat against the ground he cursed bitterly between grinding teeth, twitching with impotent fury.
Rejoining, the band of riders headed for the cut in the road. They paused and guns rattled again on the night. Lead tore at the walls of the ranch house. Window panes tinkled and from inside came the crash of shattered china. They moved on away. Leaping from his hollow, middle-aged Lennore brandished his fist and hurled imprecations after them. A hidden rifleman somewhere at the edge of the cut sent Winchester slugs droning around him, causing him to fling himself flat again.
Finally, after some time, stillness settled down again aside from the calls of some night birds. The former stacks down in the hayland were just glowing hummocks of a reddish ash now. Lennore had heard the pony gallop away from the other side of the cottonwoods behind him. Afoot, he was helpless to pursue. The lines deeper etched in his seamed face, he rose and strode down toward the fence post where they had nailed that thing. It was a mystery to him. He had no enemies, had wronged no man. Of course, there had been that rumor of horse-thieves at the other end of the valley last week, but there wasn't supposed to be more than two-three of them.
The thing on the fence post was a ragged rectangle of white paper. Lennore made out writing on it. After listening for some moments, he risked lighting a match. The note said, in rough printing:
Hit The Trail, Lennore. We Don't Want None Of Your Kind In This Country. This Is The Last Warning. . . .
Riders of the Red Mask
B. T. Dinby, marshal of Maddox, was like a man with a bull by the tail. He was scared as hell, knew he had something too hot to handle, and yet didn't dare let go. Maddox was on the verge of becoming a rip-roaring hell town. And there were powers beneath the surface, ready to erupt, that were too strong for him. Dinby knew these things.
He hid the knowledge of them behind a bluff loud-voiced exterior that could change in a trice to a jutting-jawed scowl backed by the threat of bellowed oaths of rage. But he was running a sandy and he was afraid for his own life. He only hoped he wasn't called for a showdown.
Dinby was drinking considerable of late, guffawing and buying whiskey for others at the bar to make himself popular. He was in the Stirrup that morning when Buck Lennore marched in with fire in his eye. The marshal fitted a stogie into his brick-red face. And Silver Linn, bringing some liquor supplies up from the cellar, was at his side with a lighted match and an obsequious smirk. So he was right on hand to hear what Lennore had to say.
"Marshal," Lennore said grimly, "things are coming to a pretty pass in the Maddox country." He thumbed at the bandage on his forearm.
"Those danged horse-thieves drifted down this close, eh," Dinby picked him up, exuding easy confidence. "I'll pick up one of my deputies and git on their trail. They'll beat it outa this piece of country pronto!" He signalled the bartender. "Set up a drink for my friend, Lennore, here!"
"Keep your drinks," Buck Lennore said stiffly, eyeing the marshal's whiskey-bloated face with frank disapproval. "And they weren't horse-thieves, Dinby! It's a gang—a gang fixing to run me out." He gave the details, how they ran off his pony string and burnt his winter hay. He showed the note they had left.
"This is sure a horse of another color," Dinby admitted as he studied it. "Somebody's asking for a heap of trouble and—"
"I had other callers fust thing this morning," Lennore said heavily.
"Did those buzzards shoot up the place, too, Buck?"
The rancher shook his head. "Nope. They wanted dinero."
"A hold-up?"
"Might call it that, Dinby. I don't reckon as I know exactly yet. But they wanted money—protection money, they called it."
"Who?"
"The Ventares—Scar and Duke," Lennore said.
The handful that had gathered about broke into an excited chattering. Dinby's jaw unhinged. Somebody whistled sharply. The marshal said Lennore must be mistaken, but the rancher shook his head stolidly.
"I guess I know the Ventare brothers right well. They wanted me to contribute money to what they call the Protective Association—for hiring guards to patrol the range in the Spit. They want me to put up five hundred." He had to raise his voice against the hammering of the carpenters on a new building going up down the road. "They gave me till tonight to decide. At least, they said they'd drop around then, them Ventares…"
"I can't believe it—" Dinby started, ill at ease.
"He's absolutely right, Marshal," said Scar Ventare, breasting the batwings and smiling. Behind him came his brother, Duke. They were both pint-sized jaspers with thin sharp voices; both had a sharp line of ink-black mustache on their upper lips. The faces of both were small-featured with a certain delicate look. They were catlike figures, moving effortlessly and with little noise. Though not twins they looked a great deal alike with Scar being slightly thinner and shorter. He was the one with the bluish scars arrowing down from one corner of his left eye. It gave him a roguish touch.
Both brothers always smiled disarmingly on sight.
At first glance it was natural for a man to like the dapper little gents with the very bright eyes. Scar Ventare was always duded out. Now he had on a blue silk shirt and fawn riding britches, carefully dented sombrero pushed onto the back of his head. At his mahogany-hued throat, a big silver hoop linked the ends of his neckerchief. Behind him, the tactiturn Duke was garbed in Levis and a hickory shirt, one hand hooked in the sagging gunbelt at his waist. Nobody noticed that Largo, the crack gun-slick, was already hunched at a front table, poring over a copy of the local paper.
"My friend, Lennore, is right, Marshal," Scar reiterated, as he came over. And at his shoulder, Duke nodded. Scar went on, half purring, "These red-masked riders, they have us, me any my brother, very worried—even scared. New men come into this country fast, men we know nothing about. It is dangerous. The beginning of the week, we had a fence cut and some cattle run off as my brother told you when he came into town."
Duke nodded to indicate he had. The bluff Dinby grunted that it was so, picked up the whiskey glass the ever-busy Silver Linn had refilled for him.
Scar went on, self-assured, preening his mustache line. "Yesterday I came down a draw near where the fence was cut. And—I found this." He whipped it from a pocket, a red cloth mask with neatly cut slits for eyeholes. It was so still for a minute the buzzing of the bottleflies was plainly audible.
"So it was the same outfit what hit you, huh?" Dinby said finally. "Same bunch that jumped Buck last night, eh…"
Buck Lennore stood scrubbing his chin with a calloused hand, puzzled.
"That's what it looks like," Scar Ventare said. "So we—Duke and me—we proceeded to take steps. Figured what we needed was to hire some special range Vigilantes, to get organized. That takes money to pay salaries and things. Me and Duke, we're putting two thousand in the pool; got it in a special account down at the bank. We figured if we put up a piece of reward dinero for them Red Masked ones—put head money on 'em—we might break them up. As a neighbor rancher in the Spit we figured Lennore'd want to come in. Anything wrong in that?"