Night Riders

by Abel Short

  There was talk that Jeff Arizona was in the country, too. Operating from the old ranch known as King's Folly in the badlands to the west of the lush grazing grounds of the Spit. Silver mentioned that before he left again.

  His trail drag still hung in the air up from the store when Stub began importuning Joe to join up with the Arizona outfit with him.

  "Silver ain't getting no place, Pony," Stub argued, "And a hunch tells me the Devil himself's going to be dragging his tail through Maddox dang pronto. Let's drift afore we git a claim in Hell! Why this Arizona, he…"

  Silver didn't come the third day. When he showed early on the fourth, Doc Hilder was with him again. Silver didn't have much to say. Joe asked about returning to town. He didn't want to admit it to himself, but he wanted to see Marie. Maybe it was too dangerous for her there. Silver said no. The Ventares had branded him and had their choppers primed to drop him on sight.

  "You wait. I know a peace marshal in a settlement down the line, Pony. He'll fix you an alibi, swear he arrested you for drunkenness and that you been in his jail for a week." He went back to talk to the whining Faley.

  Doc Hilder sidled toward Joe without taking his eyes from some goods on the counter. "You know, don't you?" he muttered.

  "Know what, Doc?" Joe said.

  "You ain't fooling me. I'm a doc—or was once. You've come out of that fog, haven't you?"

  Big Joe bluffed. "Oh, sure. I 'member about poor Pop and Stan going down to Mexico now."

  Doc fingered some hams. "Like hell you do, Joe Gannon," he whispered. "I can tell. You're out of it—your mind is back. I can tell by the way you look at Silver."

  Big Joe felt as if his blood had frozen. "You orey-eyed, Doc?" One yell from Doc and—

  "I know you're Gannon, special state officer. You talked the night I was tending you after the fight out on the dunes. Your subconscious mind a-working even if you didn't know who you was afterward. I didn't dast tell Silver you'd been that close to knowing yourself—or he'd have murdered you where you lay."

  Doc hefted a pair of boots with silver inlay in the toes. "It was all I dared do. Git clear of Maddox, Gannon. Git clear. They's things here what's too big for you to handle…"

  Joe swung against him and nosed up the gun in the breed holster. "You know more, Doc. Keep your chin wagging or—"

  Doc shot him a bold, scorning look. "You ain't threatening me, are you? One word from me…" It was true. He whispered on. "If there is a bust-up, do me one favor. Go easy on Shandy. He was a little two-bit lobo one time, but he got himself fixed to hit it straight—and then Silver happened along. Silver made him come in with him. Me, it's different. I'm no good, like a stinking dirty rat. But Shandy—go easy on him… Hey, Silver! Look what this thief charges for boots like these!"

  It was that night Stub told Big Joe he was going anyway, he wasn't going to wait. There was a place where he figured to find this Arizona.

  In the dawn mists next morning, he and Joe shook hands. "Wish you'd come with me, Pony. Arizona'd appreciate a trigger slammer like you. All right… Tell that Silver I got word my grandmaw's sick nigh to dying."

  He wasn't gone five minutes when Silver swung in. He reeked of whiskey and needed a shave badly. Been up all night. But he thought he had at least half an answer to some of the happenings in the Spit. Jeff Arizona.

  "Pony, I want you to drop in on Arizona. You're a gun-passer looking for some fat pickings. Git taken on by him, and see what you can learn. I—I just got a note from Stan and sent him a chunk of dinero."

  Joe's eyes never flickered. "I sure appreciate that, Silver." He told him Stub had pulled out.

  Silver sneered. "Them little grubline-riding two-bits always hauls their tails out when the going gits a mite bumpy. Hell with him! Always thought he had a streak of yella. But it's boys like you I bet on—fellas that know I always take care of them and theirs. Like I do you."

  "Yeah, Silver. Yeah."

  "Awright. Go see Arizona. He had a gent called Grimes riding under him once. Toto Grimes, he was. Tell him Toto was your uncle. Sabe? Toto's dead some time, 'bout four-five years anyways. Tall, stringy hairpin who never drank or used tobacco, always playing a gueetar at night by the fire. And there never was no danger of his trigger finger rusting off from lack of use, either. You find out what that Jeff Arizona's up to, Pony."

  After Silver left, Big Joe saddled up and took the track westward Stub had left by. He wished Stub had gone a little later. Then they could have gone together and things would have been easier for him. He rounded a stand of yellow pine and Stub rode out of the tree trunks.

  "Don't tell me you changed your mind, Pony?" he asked hopefully, mouth ready to grin.

  Big Joe nodded. Said Silver had told him he had better drift up country a spell till things cooled down. And there'd been an argument over pay due, so he was pulling his pin completely.

  Stub gave him a slap on the back. "You come see Arizona with me, Pony! You can travel in tophand company like his'n…"

  Joe only nodded for an answer. Something right strong in him said perhaps he'd find Snake Hallin with the Arizona crowd. It would be a likely spot for Snake to hole up in.

  They crossed the Spit and dropped into a ravine on the west rim of it, passing one burnt-out rancho on the way. Stub seemed very sure of the route he was taking. He didn't talk any more about "maybe" finding Jeff Arizona at this particular spot. He seemed to know.

  The ravine broached out into rock-stripped barren lands with low ledges and crazy spires. The stone ran to all hues and there were massive malformations that might have been crouched monsters when the sun went below the horizon. In the hollows of the low rise were some sparse clumps of brown buffalo grass. Nothing else. It was the kind of land a buzzard could have starved flying over.

  The shadows began to peel the sun gold from the humps and elbows of ledges. The ground sloped upward gently. There were longer and longer stretches of stand, stands of gray, withered mesquite jungle, less rock. Stub turned north along a brackish almost dried-up creek that wandered wearily in the lee of a low hill.

  "We're getting right close," he said later. Ahead was a broad, sand-bottomed gully with cacti and scrub oak clinging to its sides. Joe noted tracks where branches of stock had been pushed through recently.

  "Been doing a mite of rustling, eh," he speculated. "Don't see any sense in roving them this way, though. They's desert beyond this."

  Stub broke off his whistling to say, "That Arizona knows everything. There's a route across that desert you can drive a herd if you know it. Then sell it on the other side." He was very happy, chuckling at times.

  Big Joe had seen more than a few lobo camps and hideouts in his time, but nothing like Arizona's layout. The valley widened and grew shallower, its sides barely more than sage-dotted sand dunes. They rounded a bend and half a mile or so ahead was the place known as King's Folly. A prospector who'd struck a rich lode had come out to build himself a great cow outfit and settle down. Even though warned the land some slicker had put over on him was going sour and dry, he had persisted.

  He'd built himself a great, sprawling monument of a dobie palace, and finally when the country did go bad and the water petered out, he shot himself in the ruins. They stood backed up against a rocky bluff, a pile of crumbling stone and sand scarcely recognizable any more as a habitation. Between Big Joe and them was the camp.

  He got a tingling sensation along his backbone. The very fact that there were no hidden sentinels, no whizzing slug challenging from some guard's rifle, made the hair prickle on his neck. The sheer arrogance of an outlaw chieftain who dared set up like that made him realize what kind of a noose he might be putting his neck into.

  There was a big, well-built stockade for the large remuda, little cabins and rough hovels dotted around. Over to the left Joe saw the glowing hearth in a blacksmith's barn. There was a bigger place, a two-story dobie that had been patched up with wood. Part of the original King place. A woman's laughter rang from that; Arizon
a lived his pack well.

  Faces turned their way as they moved in. Nobody spoke, and Stub just eased along, leg crooked around the horn, a-grin. But somehow Big Joe had the idea the cold thrust of the watching eyes was aimed at him. A trio of men, standing on the porch of a place beneath a cottonwood, dropped hands to holsters as they turned. The state officer wanted the warming feel of a butte in his palm. They went around a knob of rock and a broad, well-boarded place squatted there. The sign over the doorway said "Alkali Bar."

  Stub seemed to guess his surprise. "Arizona's so big, Pony, ain't no posse big enough to come get him." He reined down before a General Store set back a little in the mouth of a side draw. "Figger the storekeeper'll know what we wanted," said Stub, dropping off. He banged noisily up the loose boards of the steps. Joe followed, wondering when the gun lingo would lash out.

  They got in all right. Four gents were playing stud at a table in a back corner, a jug beside the chair of one. They barely looked up. The storekeeper leaned over the counter, blinking behind spectacles. But he was far from mild-looking with that old knife wound that gave his lips a fixed, graven snarl. The place had a greasy feel that the buzz of bottle flies told wasn't unappreciated on their part.

  "What'd you like?" said the storeman.

  "Nothing we got the price to buy," came back Stub like a whip. "Figgered you'd know the address of a gent. Gent called Jeff Arizona."

  There was the hard slap-down of a card at the stud table. The storekeeper squinted. "Where in tarnation you figger you are, stranger?"

  Stub cocked his hat back like he was danged comfortable. "'S possible I made a mistake," he admitted. "A place run by a smart jasper like Arizona wouldn't seem like to give an old she-cow like you hellroom!"

  One of the players at the table stood up. They were all smiling. But they were the breed who could be laughing like blazes even as they slammed triggers. "Sometimes a fella makes one mistake too many," the standing man said. "Boot Hills is built for that breed."

  "Sure." Stub didn't have a hand near a hogleg. "Sure. And ol' Toto Grimes'd rise from his grave in Boot Hill if he heard Arizona wouldn't see me."

  "Toto Grimes," said the storekeeper and turned back to ladling beans into a bag.

  "Toto Grimes," one of the card players echoed. "I bet fouah bits, brother. Staying?"

  There was no more talk to the newcomers. Stub stood straddle-legged, whistling as he built himself a quirly. Big Joe was echoing "Toto Grimes" silently, wondering. Joe was also wondering how well Stub knew the boss. If it wasn't a heap more than a nodding acquaintance, they might as well be inside Hell with the gates double-barred. He had already noted that their ponies had been taken from the hitch rack. He looked at Stub again. When he looked out again, three men stood in the doorway with guns dangling from their hands.

  "Step this way, strangers," the middle one said. He was a long stick of a man. Looked like a weather-beaten fence post. His limbs might have been the strings of busted barbed wire flopping about it. He had little beads of suspicion, always moist-looking, for eyes in his clean-shaven face.

  They turned and walked out the door past the trio. And Big Joe saw the stringy one start, eyes bugging, mouth open. Then he was blank in a trice.

  That man knew him, Big Joe realized. And the sweat leaked down his spine like melting ice as they marched in front of the three guns.

  CHAPTER 18

  Arizona's place was down in what had been one of the cottages on the grounds of the old dobie palace. Just a couple of rooms, but inside they were fixed up real neat with furniture and wolf hides spread around the floor.

  "These them, Castle?" Arizona said as the rail-like man herded them in. The chief sat behind a long, polished table. He had just straightened from wiping a mud spot from a gleaming boot with a bandanna.

  "You remember me, Mr. Arizona," Stub led right off. "I'm Stub Lorry."

  There was no hesitation. Arizona stood up and shook hands, grinning and chuckling some. "Sure, Stub. Coming to throw in with us?" He grinned some more when Stub said he was.

  Arizona was looking at Big Joe before the latter quite knew it. Joe had been conscious of the wet points of eyes of that Castle.

  Stub spoke for him. "Meet a friend of mine. Ace—Ace Smith. Smith's as good a handle for a man with a hot back-trail to pack as any." He laughed. As he explained afterward to Big Joe, if he called him Pony, they might connect him up with the Silver Linn bunch. And Arizona was plain spooky about taking on a man who'd ridden with anybody else much.

  Big Joe realized he was staring. That his lips were open and he was kind of holding his breath with surprise. There was something about this huge-girthed Jeff Arizona in his plain blue suit. Something massive and deep and a far cut above the ordinary stripe of outlaw. You felt fooling him would be difficult and tricking him fatal. Yet there was something likeable about him at first. Something in his size and easy manner that made you like him. That said this man was no ordinary gun-notching killer, that he would be above sheer brutal violence for its own sake.

  Arizona said, "Hello, Ace," and sat down. He fanned away a fly, smiling. "Aiming to trail your rope with us, too?"

  Big Joe didn't have to answer. Stub was just saying sure. But Joe saw the spare Castle shaking his head at the other end of the table. Joe saw he had a pearl-handed .38 slung low on a thigh for a cross-arm draw. The rest of his trappings were plain. He didn't seem to have more than a few drops of blood in his whole hide. Yet you felt you could smell it on his hands.

  "Ace makes lightning look lazy when he empties a holster, Mr. Arizona," Stub said eagerly, rubbing one of his batlike ears.

  Castle spoke dryly as would be expected. "I seen him somewheres."

  "I drop in there quite often," Big Joe admitted.

  Castle acted as if he hadn't heard. Two-three others had dropped into the fair-sized place. One of them looked barely more than a button, small, slim as a reed. His face was sort of grimed up and streaked like he didn't trouble to wash it much. Yet, despite that, there was a certain softness about it. He had a red bandanna tight-knotted around his head beneath his pinch-topped sombrero. It gave him a sort of wild look. Joe learned later he was Boy Casey. Castle's pinpoints of eyes shifted to Boy as he came in. Then Castle spoke again.

  "I seen him somewheres. Seems like he was riding with another outfit. That ain't good. Remember, we took that Snake Hallin on that way—coming from another outfit."

  Big Joe's pulses battered against his temples. And Stub spoke for him again. "That's a good one. Ace here is looking for Snake Hallin himself, has some little grudge to square with him, I reckon."

  Castle spat out a window. His hand had drifted across his body to that gun rigged butt forward. Then Stub said it, said how Big Joe toted a picture of Hallin in his pocket. Castle's hand clawed. That smelled like lawman to him.

  Big Joe's right arm levered down. There was the blinding stab of the lead in the small room. In the jammed split-second of it all, Joe saw that the fragile Boy Casey had cleared holster but hadn't swung the weapon to cover him. And saw too that Arizona had flung himself sideward with incredible swiftness for one of his vast girth. Had his hand bulging with a blue-black Colt too. But Arizona was covering nobody. He had hurtled himself toward one of the open windows.

  Now he crouched, blinking. His head was bent as if from a blow. He raised one of his arms between himself and the sunlight.

  Big Joe said lightly, "I figured that tarantula what was on the wall was going to jump onto your hand, Castle."

  They all looked over to the wall where Joe's bullet had gouged. It had just passed Castle's gun hand en route. Then they looked on the floor. There the beady-black pot-bellied thing lay, a bloody pulp smashed by the slug.

  Arizona laughed so he almost toppled from the chair he had returned to. He pointed at the ashen Castle and roared. He beat the desk. Castle's face was a death's head as he studied Big Joe. The latter played his next ace quickly. Stub was just saying how he told how Ace could shoot.
<
br />   "My uncle, ol' Toto Grimes, drilled me in shooting like that," Big Joe said. He felt Stub go taut like a vibrating wire beside him.

  But Arizona came out of the chair again. "Toto —your uncle."

  "Yeah. I knew he rode with you."

  Arizona nodded slowly. Castle put in his two-bits. "A hard-drinking man, eh?"

  Joe looked puzzled. "Not any time he was around my family. Pop said he never saw uncle touch the stuff. He sure loved to play his old guitar 'side the fire though."

  Arizona shot a smug look of triumph at Castle.

  It was plain there was friction between the boss and his chief lieutenant.

  Hoofs drummed down the valley. A man in the camp yelled, "It's Chancy. Here comes ol' Chancy!"

  Arizona stood up. "You two better find yourself sougans and where you get your grub," he said. To Castle, "Bring Chancy right in."

  Night clapped down over the sand-walled valley. There was a light sprinkle of rain and then just thunder belly-rumbling in the south. Stub and Big Joe got their tin plates of grub and found a spot to sit down and eat it together. Joe noticed that none of the others spoke to Stub, yet he seemed to know his way around right familiar.

  They went down to the Alkali Bar and had a few drinks after dinner. There was a little, bald fellow in there who could make even that old jangly piano sound good. Men kept going off toward the dobie where the women were and the boisterousness from there increased as the night grew older.

  But Big Joe wasn't thinking of those things much. He felt like a gent walking around with a gun in his back. That gun was Castle; Castle knew him or had seen him somewhere before, somewhere that roused his suspicions. And when he remembered, the lead would start to whine.

  Castle's involuntary start for his chopper at the mention of the picture of Snake Hallin was another thing. It could be just that he smelled lawman, an officer with the photo of a wanted hombre. Or it could be Castle knew where Snake was and at the mention of the picture realized this Ace was really on his trail and would know him. Castle might be hiding out Snake himself, ready to play him off against the boss, at that.