The Lone Ranger agreed.
“Then cut the ropes on my hands.”
“Whoa, Silver.”
“Whoa thar, you, hoss.”
The ropes were cut. Yuma chafed his hands for several moments while he scrutinized the Gap in both directions, and weighed his chances. His own horse was fresh, the masked man’s had already covered many miles. His rifle was still in its leather scabbard, his six-guns still in place.
“You,” he said, kneeing his horse aside, “want tuh know whar Yuma is at, eh?”
The tall masked man nodded.
“Wal, yer lookin’ right at him!” A gun leaped into Yuma’s hand. “I’d as soon as not drill yuh clean,” he barked in a harsh, loud voice, “but if yuh leave me git away, you’ll stay alive.” He spurred his horse with such a force that the beast fairly leaped off all four feet at once. Another instant, and Yuma was clattering through the Gap away from Bryant’s Basin.
“Should o’ shot him,” he thought, “I should o’ shot him, but instead I’ll git away. Let him trail me, let him spend a lifetime huntin’ me—it’ll keep him off’n Bryant’s trail.” Heedless of the risk, he tore ahead, wind whipping at his face, and neckerchief. He thought of Penelope and something choked in his throat. At least, the girl would be safe while Bryant lived.
It was a heedless, a crazy thing he’d done, but at the time it seemed the only thing. There were half-formed hopes in his mind. Hopes that he could circle back and reach Bryant. Tell him what he’d done and beg the patriarch to provide for Penny’s future happiness. Then he’d have a two-gun showdown with those men like Sawtell and Lombard and the worthless cousins. Kill them, as many as he could, before he himself was dropped. Wild plans, plans that only a foolhardy cowboy like Yuma could concoct. He didn’t know why he hadn’t shot the masked man; perhaps because he knew there would be others to investigate the Texas Ranger murders and the Basin gang.
No. Murder would not have helped. It would simply have delayed the end of Bryant. In making himself the confessed criminal, the leader of the wolf pack, he had done the only thing that his simple mind could think of.
“Git up,” he bellowed, and the horse lunged on.
CHAPTER XX
Red Oak
Red Oak as a town was badly misnamed. It was utterly devoid of the implied qualities of sturdiness, solidity, or well-proportioned size. A far more appropriate name might have been chosen. Something, perhaps, like the night-blooming cereus, or the cloyingly sweet nicotine, that sleeps all day and spreads its glory of white petals and sweet odors through the night. But that would be slanderous to the blossoms.
Red Oak slept all day behind the drab, sun-bleached, false-front buildings on both sides of the only road. In rainy weather, fattening sows and lame old mongrel curs would wallow side by side in mudholes made reeking by manure and garbage. When it was hot, the dust was equally intolerable.
The men of town, men who ran or worked in the resorts all night and slept all day, were tallow-faced, and gave the impression of having lived beneath a log or rock or in a woodwork crack. The women by day were sallow, wan, unhappy, and consumptive. Their nocturnal luster was washed out by sunlight, so they remained out of sight until after oil lamps were burning to flatter them and help them sell their wares.
Red Oak’s only reason for existence was to serve as an oasis for the men from countless miles of surrounding ranch and range land, and after dark she served and served and served. Proprietors understood their patrons and catered cunningly to their demands for reckless, dangerous sport. They offered varying risks, from loss of cash, through loss of health and reputation, to loss of life itself.
Young cowhands in their ’teens fraternized with gamblers, and killers, each calling for the drink he could afford. Easy women, whose garish, imitation jewelry reflected the glitter of lights through the nebulous tobacco smoke, flaunted their soft hips freely before eyes that were accustomed to longhorned cattle and hard fists of men. For those whose recklessness in younger years had dulled their desire for women, there was gambling and drinking to suit any taste or pocketbook. Bets could be made in thousands, and covered; on the other hand, loose change would buy an evening.
There was a jail, a one-room flimsy structure, designed to hold obnoxious drunks whose cash was spent. Slim Peasley was the turnkey. The office was one that would have been beyond his scope if he had tried to fulfill the duties of a deputy sheriff, but Slim didn’t. He shuffled about town, his heavy badge weighting down his dirty, limp shirt, cadging a drink where he could and prying his long nose like a chisel into things that were none of his concern, while he closed his eyes to flagrant violations of civil, moral, and spiritual law.
Slim seemed to have no chin at all. His chest was in a hollow made by rounded shoulders. In profile the most striking things about him were his nose and Adam’s apple; he had a close resemblance to a question mark.
His stretched suspenders let his pants drop low, and his shirt and underwear were generally apart at his stomach, so that he could scratch. There seemed always to be some part of Slim’s anatomy that needed scratching, and the degree of his absorption in whatever he might be looking at could be measured by the part he scratched.
It was Slim Peasley who had locked Mort Cavendish up. Bryant had turned his nephew over to the deputy at nine o’clock, before the evening in Red Oak got really started. Slim had actually looked frightened when he found he’d have to guard a sober man until the sheriff came from the county seat to take over. When Bryant placed the charge of murder against his nephew, Slim grew pale. Only stern Bryant’s blustered threats made Slim accept the responsibility as the lesser danger. Then Bryant had limped his way along the street, cursing the trollops who accosted him. He had entered the hotel and rented a room in the rear of the first floor so that he wouldn’t have to torture himself needlessly with stairs. He was asleep when the evening reached a peak at midnight.
At midnight, or shortly after, the Lone Ranger reached the outskirts of Red Oak, not far from the center of the town. He turned off the trail and guided Silver to the rear of the row of buildings on one side. He felt considerably rested after dozing in the saddle during the ride from the Gap, and ready for whatever might be ahead. His original intention to talk with Bryant Cavendish had not been changed by the confession of his prisoner, who had escaped.
In the shadow of the buildings he dismounted and left Silver, to proceed on foot. Coming to the back of the hotel, he turned and passed through the space between the buildings. At one end of the porch he halted. A man was coming along the road. The Lone Ranger held cupped hands close to his face, as if in the act of lighting a pipe. The gesture, together with his forward-tilted hat, served to conceal the fact that he was masked. He had to be extremely careful in Red Oak. There were people there in the town who had known him as a Texas Ranger. He had hoped that the clerk in the Red Oak Hotel would be a stranger, and that with his mask removed and his face somewhat concealed by dust, he could inquire as to the location of Bryant’s room.
He was, however, spared this trouble. Between his fingers he saw the overdressed man who passed him mount the steps and enter the hotel lobby. There was something about the man that was vaguely familiar, yet the Lone Ranger was sure he never had seen him before. He heard the high-heeled, beautifully shined boots clatter on the floor to the accompaniment of jingling spurs.
He could see through the door at an oblique angle. He heard the stranger ask about Bryant Cavendish.
“Room ten,” the clerk said curtly, “an’ he left strict orders that he wasn’t tuh be pestered.”
“That’s too bad,” replied the other, “because I’m going tuh disturb him plenty right now.”
The clerk tried to argue but got nowhere. “Room ten,” marked the Lone Ranger. He left his post beside the porch and hastened to the rear of the building. A dark window from room ten was opened wide. The masked man crouched beneath it as he heard an insistent pounding on the door.
Bryant Cavendish g
roaned first in sleep and then in waking. “What the hell?” he grumbled.
The bed creaked. Then the rapping on the door again.
“G’way,” snapped Bryant, “I’m sleepin’.”
“Open the door,” replied a muffled voice.
“Who is it an’ what d’ya want?”
“Wallie.”
That accounted for the familiarity in the man’s face. Wallie Cavendish, who had a resemblance in the eyes and forehead to both Vince and Jeb.
A matchlight flickered in the room, and then the steadier light of a candle. The Lone Ranger risked discovery to peer over the edge of the window. He saw Bryant, shirtless, sitting on the edge of the bed, rubbing his eyes sleepily. The man muttered something beneath his breath, then rose and steadied himself by gripping the edge of a table.
“I’m comin’,” he called, “wait a minute.” The old man had to resume his seat on the bed and rub his knees. Again he stood, and this time managed to get to the door and slip the bolt.
The Lone Ranger felt guilty at his eavesdropping, yet he felt that he was justified in gathering what facts he could in any way that he could get them. The game he played had life itself as the stake, and the odds were against him to begin with.
Wallie entered the bedroom with a swaggering manner and closed the door behind him. “Yer stayin’ in Red Oak all night, eh?” he asked.
“Did you wake me up tuh ask that?” snarled Bryant. “What the hell does it look like I’m doin’? It’s too hard a trip fer me tuh go back home. I’ll go back in the mornin’.”
“That’s not what I came for, Uncle Bryant,” said Wallie hastily. “Don’t jump me so till I finish.”
“Wal?”
“I found a woman that’ll look after the kids.”
“Humph! I didn’t think you could tend to a job as complete as that. When’ll she come to the Basin?”
“That’s just it,” replied the fop hesitantly. “I—I tried tuh talk her intuh goin’ there, but she wouldn’t. She said that she’d look after ’em, if we paid her of course, an’ if we brought the kids here tuh live with her.”
“I knowed it. Well, find someone else! Find someone that’ll come tuh the Basin.”
Wallie shook his head slowly.
“I dunno as I can. It ain’t easy tuh find a woman around here that’d take good care of the youngsters.”
While Bryant appeared to ponder this, Wallie went on quickly. “I thought maybe Penelope could come along with ’em fer a few days, till Mrs. Hastings gets sort of acquainted with ’em. Wouldn’t that be a good way?”
“Maybe so.”
“Good enough then, Uncle Bryant. I didn’t want tuh do nothin’ till I’d talked tuh you about it. I won’t bother you no more now. I’m sorry tuh disturb you, but I figgered on ridin’ back home with the rest of the boys, an’ I wanted tuh get yer okey on this Mrs. Hastings so’s I could tell Penelope.”
“You through talkin’ now?”
Wallie rose. “Reckon so. You’ll be comin’ back on the buckboard, won’t yuh?”
“How else could I git home? Didn’t I fetch the buckboard?”
“That’s right, Uncle Bryant, I’m sorry not tuh have thought it out.”
“Now get the hell outta here an’ lemme git some sleep.”
Still Wallie didn’t go. He shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. “There-there’s somethin’ I wanted tuh say,” he fumbled. “I—I don’t want yuh tuh git sore about it.…”
“Wal?”
“I thought it was a right smart scheme of yores, the way yuh handled Mort.”
“Mort kilt his wife, didn’t he?”
“That’s right, Uncle Bryant.”
“I wouldn’t let that squirt called Yuma know I turned Mort over tuh the law; he’d figger I done it on account of bein’ scairt o’ him. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowin’ Mort was jailed fer murder.”
Wallie grinned synthetically. His whole manner before Bryant Cavendish was one of cowering subjugation, of fawning in a way that must have been revolting to the hard old man.
“Yuh done jest right,” he said. “I’d never o’ thought of it, Uncle Bryant. Yuh jailed Mort, an’ that took care of the legal angles; of course yuh couldn’t be expected tuh let him be swung from a rope.”
Bryant looked up sharply.
“No one’ll ever know how he busted out. Fact is, he might o’ broke outen that jail without no outside help.”
“He’s out?” exclaimed Bryant.
Wallie nodded, a look of surprise on his face. “Didn’t you know it?”
“No. I didn’t know it. I been sleepin’ here. How in the devil would I know?”
“Gosh! Then he must’ve got out without no help, unless be bribed Slim Peasley.”
“Where is he now?”
“I dunno. I jest heard a while ago in one of the saloons that he was loose. Peasley acted real upset about it.”
Surprisingly, Bryant made no further comment.
Wallie waited a moment longer, then turned and opened the door. “Good night, Uncle Bryant,” he said.
Bryant said nothing. The door closed, and the old man sat there for fully five minutes, muttering unintelligibly. Then he rose and would have blown out the candle, but he was halted by a voice from the window.
“Stay right where you are and don’t yell.”
The Lone Ranger stepped easily over the low windowsill and into the room, as Bryant Cavendish turned.
CHAPTER XXI
An Admission from Bryant Cavendish
A close-range view of Bryant Cavendish fulfilled everything the Lone Ranger might have expected from what he had heard about him. His face looked as if it had been chopped out of a block of granite. His eyes, small, deep-set, were the coldest, hardest eyes that he had ever seen. They were the eyes of a man who would die before he would forgive a wrong; a man who had lived with hate. Bryant showed not the slightest trace of fear. Even in his undershirt he could look haughty and arrogant. He met the steady gaze of the masked man, his mouth clamped hard-shut.
“Cavendish,” began the Lone Ranger in a low but very decisive voice, “I’ve come a long way to talk to you.”
There was no reply.
“First of all, what do you know about the murder of some Texas Rangers in Bryant’s Gap?”
There was no change in the older man’s expression. His chin lifted just the slightest bit, but he said nothing. Neither did he nod or shake his head.
“There are men working for you who are wanted by the law,” continued the Lone Ranger. “Six Texas Rangers went through the Gap to arrest men you know as Sawtell, Rangoon, Lonergan, and Lombard. Those Rangers were ambushed. Did you know that?”
Cavendish spoke. His voice was scarcely more than a whisper, but the intensity of it, the suppressed emotion that was dripping from his words, seemed to make the ends of the masked man’s nerves vibrate.
“You—” he said. “Git!”
“Not yet, Cavendish; we have a lot of things to talk about.” The Lone Ranger moved nearer to the flint-faced Bryant and sat down, facing the open window, with his back against the door.
“There’s a renegade army of bandits across the border. They’ve been buying Cavendish-brand cattle. That in itself has been handled in a perfectly legal manner. The cattle have been sold on this side of the border. There’s another angle to it, however. Ranches surrounding your basin land have been struck by thieves. A lot of cattle have been stolen and several men have been murdered. These assaults have been generally blamed on Ricardo’s renegades. But that hasn’t been the case. Ricardo has bought your cattle, and the stolen cattle have been herded into your basin.”
The Lone Ranger paused. It looked as if Cavendish were about to speak. He trembled a little as he said, “Fer the last time, stranger, git.”
“Not yet, Cavendish. I’ll tell you some more. The stolen cattle are taken into the Basin by a trail that comes straight down one side of Thunder Mountain. Once in the Basin
, the cattle are treated to a running iron and the brand changed to one of the many brands that are registered in your name. ‘Circle Bar’ stock is changed to the ‘Eight Box.’ ‘Lazy S’ becomes the ‘Eight-on-One-Side.’ I could go on with many other brands you’ve registered; brands that can be made out of the marks on stolen cattle. The newly branded stock is held in the Basin until the scars heal over. Then it is taken out through the mountain trail, while other stock is brought in. Now you realize that I’m aware of what is going on.”
Bryant’s agitation could never have been caused by fear; therefore it must have been an anger that was almost consuming him. The Lone Ranger’s voice became sharper as he went on, driving home every point emphatically. He himself was angry. The stolid manner of Bryant, the refusal to acknowledge that he even heard the masked man’s statements called for will power that was almost incomprehensible in the face of the cold facts.
“In connection with the cattle-stealing, you’ve furnished a haven for any outlaws who wanted to hide there. I don’t know how you contacted all those fugitives, but it was managed somehow. They learned that Texas Rangers had been sent for, so they ambushed those men. If others go there, they will either meet the same fate or find a perfectly innocent-looking ranch, while the ‘wanted’ men hide in the mountain retreat. Am I right?”
Bryant Cavendish spoke again.
“If you’re right, what’re you goin’ to do about it?”
“You have a niece, a girl named Penelope.”
Mention of the girl’s name brought a quick reaction. Bryant’s hard jaw shot forward and he snapped, “You leave her out o’ this.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t leave her out. It’s for her that I’m speaking. She has always trusted you, Cavendish, in spite of everything she saw; the type of men you hired; the trail on Thunder Mountain; in spite of the murder of the Texas Rangers, that girl has believed in you. She would never have believed you capable of leading a gang to steal the cattle that Ricardo and his men did not dare to steal, and selling them to him at a low enough price so that he could resell at a profit on the other side of the border.
“You ask what I’m going to do? I’m going to ask you to help put thieves in jail, and send murderers to pay in full. You’re an old man, Cavendish. At best you have but a few years left, and after that what is there for Penelope? Who is going to take care of that girl when you’re gone? Would you leave her to the mercies of those cousins of hers, or the killers like Sawtell and Lombard?
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