Yuma looked surprised. “Yuh mean tuh say yuh don’t want the reward money?”
The masked man shook his head. Then Yuma saw his drawn face and the blood-soaked shirt.
“Look here, yore hurt bad. Yuh need some patchin’ up.” He stepped to the door. “I’ll call the Rangers in here tuh take things in hand an’ see about you.”
“No, no,” the Lone Ranger said quickly. “Tonto will be here and he’ll fix the wound. It doesn’t amount to much.”
“The hell it don’t.”
“There’s something more important. Wallie was just trying to buy his freedom. He had Penelope taken to Breed Martin in Red Oak.”
“Breed Martin!” howled Yuma, following the name with a string of invectives. “Why that—”
“Wallie said that Breed was to take the girl to a hiding place and if he didn’t hear from Wallie to go on to Mexico with her.”
Yuma’s face lost color. His eyes flashed angry fire in a look toward the erstwhile bandit leader. “An’ so he wants tuh be let go free,” said Yuma with terrible coldness in his voice. “Where is this hidin’ place?”
Wallie spoke. “D’you think I’m fool enough to tell you? Not me. You let me go an’ you’ll see Penny back here soon.”
“I think,” said Yuma slowly, “yore agoin’ tuh tell where at that place is.” He took one step forward, swinging his right hand in a wide arc. It landed open-palmed with a resounding slap on Wallie’s cheek. “That,” cried Yuma, “ain’t even the start!” He brought his left around to slap the other side of Wallie’s face, and then began a dazzling sequence of open-handed slaps, each one delivered with a force that bounced Wallie’s head from one side to the other. A blow with a closed fist would have knocked the killer out, and Yuma didn’t want this. He slapped until the other’s face became a livid mass of swollen flesh. He would have gone on until exhaustion made him stop, but the Lone Ranger halted him.
“That’s enough, Yuma—enough,” the masked man called above cries of “give ’im hell!” that came from Bryant.
Yuma, breathing hard, stepped back. “That’s just the start, yuh ornery rat,” he gasped. “Now you speak up or I’ll wade in with more o’ the same!”
Wallie was reeling, clutching at a table for support. His eyes were red, and blood drooled from a corner of his mouth.
“I didn’t intend to let you go that far,” the masked man said. “There is no need of trying to make him reveal this hiding place.”
“No need?” demanded Yuma.
“No. Tonto didn’t take Penelope to Martin’s. He went to Red Oak and then followed you and the Texas Rangers back here.”
“I ain’t seen him or that girl,” argued Wallie.
“Look out the window.” The buckboard with its team still hitched was near the corral. The children were still on board.
“Where at,” cried Yuma, “is my girl?”
“She and Tonto came into the house.”
Wallie had slumped to the floor and sat there completely beaten and wearing a dazed, bewildered expression.
“Now listen to me carefully,” the masked man told Yuma. “If the Texas Rangers see me here, with this mask on, they’ll ask no end of questions. I don’t want that. I want to slip out of this house by the rear stairs. You can turn these men over to the law, and Bryant will tell the entire story.”
There was a hammering upon the bedroom door. “The Rangers,” said the masked man softly. “Tell them to go back downstairs.”
Yuma shouted through the door, “Vamoose, I’ll be down tuh meet yuh in a minute!”
“Don’t you tell me to vamoose in my own house,” a girl’s voice retorted.
“Penny!” breathed the big cowboy.
“See if she is at the door alone,” the masked man said while he still held the latch of the door.
Penny’s voice gave the answer. “Open up, you big galoot. Tonto is here with me! I’ve got to see that masked man in a hurry!”
The Lone Ranger told Yuma to stay in the room and bind the hands of the three prisoners. Then he stepped out to the hall.
Tonto said, “Me watch for Ranger. Girl want talk with you.” The Indian took a place at the head of the stairs to give a sign in case the Texans came up the stairs.
Penelope clutched the masked man’s arm. “Please,” she said with intensity in her eyes and voice, “don’t let them take Uncle Bryant away. I’m sure there must be some reason for—for everything. He’s been like a father to me, he’s been honest and good all his life. If he’s changed it must be for some reason. You promised me—”
Penny held a silver bullet toward the Lone Ranger. “You gave me your word!”
The Lone Ranger took the girl’s small hand in his and closed her fingers about the bit of precious metal. “Keep that,” he said. “Your Uncle Bryant isn’t going to jail. He’s going to a doctor and have his eyes fixed up.”
“Then—then I was right in the first place!” Penelope’s face lighted up with the announcement.
“The worst crime of your uncle was his refusal to let friends help him.”
A new note came into the confusion of voices on the first floor. Tonto explained that Jeb had been found and was telling everything he knew about the others. The masked man listened for a moment to the heavy voice that told how Wallie planned to place the murder guilt on the masked man and Bryant.
Then the bedroom door jerked open. Yuma came out like a charging bull and halted abruptly at the sight of Penny. Bryant, leaning against the edge of the door, stood right behind him. “Yuh can’t leave here yet,” Yuma told the Lone Ranger. “I got them critters roped so’s they won’t make no more trouble; now yuh got tuh wait an’ listen tuh what Bryant’s got tuh say.”
Yuma looked at Penny; then his old confusion overcame him. He fumbled with the buttons of his shirt and barely raised his eyes above the floor.
Bryant Cavendish went to the point at once. “You,” he said to the Lone Ranger, “have gotta stay here an’ run this ranch.”
The masked man shook his head slowly.
“I won’t take ‘no’ fer an answer. I’ve got tuh go an’ take a trip tuh git my eyes fixed up an’ I cain’t leave this place with no one tuh run it an’ no cowhands tuh run it with. We’ve gotta git all new men an’ weed out the cattle that’s been stolen, an’ see that the folks that lost their cattle are paid back in full fer it an’ no end of other things. Now you stay here an’ name yer own price.”
“I can’t do it, Bryant. Tonto and I must leave here.”
Penelope clutched the masked man. “Please,” she said. “Please stay.” She looked into his eyes in a way that made big Yuma squirm.
“Doggone,” he said softly and wistfully, “if she ever said that tuh me a span o’ wild hosses couldn’t drag me off this ranch. I’m damned if—”
Penny turned quickly. “You!” she said. “If you’re to stay here, you’ve got to stop that cussing.”
“Huh? M-me stay? I been fired!” Yuma looked at Bryant. “Y-yore uncle told me tuh git the hell—”
“More swearing,” snapped Penelope.
Bryant broke in. “You look here, you big sidewinder, you was tryin’ tuh tell me how this outfit should be run. Yuh did a heap of braggin’ an’ boastin’ on how much yuh knowed an’ now yore goin’ tuh make good. I’d like tuh have that masked man stay an’ do the bossin’, but I’d have to have you as well. If he won’t stay, then it’s you that’ll have to do the bossin’. I can’t stop the masked man from leavin’, but, by damn, if you run out on me, I’ll make yuh wish yuh hadn’t.”
“Yuh-yuh mean that I ain’t fired then?” Yuma blinked at Bryant, then looked at Penny and his face fell. “A-w-w hell, Cavendish, I cain’t stay around here. That doggone purty girl jest ain’t no use fer me, an’ every time I speak tuh her I rile her more. I reckon I—”
“Yuma!” said Penny sharply. “It’s bad enough for you to swear like a—like a mule skinner. Are you going to fib as well?”
“M-me fib?�
��
“Blaming me because you won’t stay here! Trying to say that it is my fault, and that I have no use for you!”
“I—I—er uh…that is.…”
“That’s an out ’n’ out fib!”
Yuma’s jaw dropped and he stared. Comprehension came to him slowly. It was incredible, unthinkable! “Y-you—you want me tuh stay?” he faltered.
Penelope looked at him and spoke softly. “Please.” She took one of his big hands in both of hers. “At least stay for a little while so I can tell you what I mean.”
Yuma let out a wild yell that rang throughout the house. “I’m astayin’,” he roared. “She wants me tuh stay. I’m drunk—I’m adreamin’, an’ I’ll drill the critter that wakes me up.”
“Blast yuh,” bellowed Bryant. “If yer goin’ loco, git those men downstairs first; then I don’t care what yuh do! Clear out my room an’ after that yer runnin’ this place on yer own!”
“I’m adoin’ it!” cried Yuma, dashing through the door. In an instant he was back with Wallie under one arm, Vince beneath the other, both kicking their legs and crying at their undignified position. At the stairs, big Yuma met the Rangers coming up. “Hyar yuh are, boys,” he called heartily. “Thar’s a couple o’ yore prisoners an’ the rest are comin’ pronto.” He let go his grip, and the captive pair dropped to the stairs and rolled down part way, where the Texas Rangers caught them.
It was then that Penny realized it: the Lone Ranger and Tonto were not there. Sometime during the conversation with big Yuma, the two had slipped away. They hadn’t gone down the front stairs; the Texas Rangers had been in that part of the house. Penny hurried down the hall to her own bedroom and looked out the window. It faced the same as Bryant’s window did. There were two horses at the corner of the house: Tonto’s paint horse and the big white stallion. She saw the masked man in the saddle, Tonto about to mount. The girl watched as the two rode out across the Basin toward the distant Gap. She felt that something vital left her as that masked man rode away, and yet she wouldn’t have called him back. “Good-by,” she breathed, “good-by, my friend.”
The Gap yawned in the distance, a colorful opening under a westering sun. Penelope’s eyes were bright as she finally saw the two horsemen disappear beyond the bend.
CHAPTER XXX
The Badge of a Ranger
Riding through the gap at Tonto’s side, the Lone Ranger seemed lost in his thoughts. His mood was one of introspection. He had no desire for money; he never in the least desired to own land and large droves of livestock and make deals with other men. His silver mine would still remain unworked. Why, he wondered, should men want to make a trade that was to any other person’s disadvantage? True, self-preservation was the first law of life, but wild things of the forest interpreted that law of nature without greed or dishonesty. They lived by the rule of what was best for the greatest number.
On the other hand, because men preyed on one another, should he turn his back upon a so-called civilization? The answer came to him then, clear and unmistakable. Since he had been a boy, the strong masked man had gone to nature for his education. Now, as a man unnamed, he would try to make mankind benefit by what he had learned.
Tonto studied the masked man with grave concern. He had tried to persuade his friend to halt and let his wounds be dressed, but the Lone Ranger had refused. “We’ll go on,” he said. “There’s one more thing I want to do.”
A period of riding in silence brought them deep inside the Gap. Tonto asked no questions, made no comments. He simply rode in stolid patience, wondering if the Lone Ranger could know what he so desperately hoped for the future. The pledge the masked man had made had been fulfilled. Now the Lone Ranger could unmask, reclaim his name, and take his place once more with white men. Would that be his decision? Tonto wondered.
The Texan reined up, then dismounted. He still breathed with difficulty, and his face was white and drawn. Hard lines showed at each side of his mouth as he stepped close to one wall of the canyon. Tonto recognized the place. Six mounds of earth and stone were there, surmounted by six rough crosses.
The Lone Ranger stood before the first of these and removed his hat and then his mask. The soft, warm light of the sunset brought a glow into the Texan’s upraised face and wiped away the lines of pain and fatigue. His lips moved slowly, though the Texan’s voice was silent. Then he dropped his eyes and whispered, “Bert.” He moved to the next grave and paused there, whispering, “For you too, Jim.” At the third small cross the Texan whispered, “Dave,” and at the next he called to, “Grant,” then “Don.”
At the sixth grave, the tall white man crouched and scooped aside the dirt and shale. He reached into the pocket of his shirt and withdrew a star of metal. He looked at it for just a moment. The badge of the Ranger caught the sun’s light and sent it sparkling into Tonto’s eyes. Then the Texan dropped the badge into the hollow he had made, and covered it.
Now he rose and faced the Indian. He nodded ever so slightly as if he understood what Tonto hoped for and desired. A faint smile broke the corners of his mouth as he replaced the mask across his eyes.
“A little rest,” he said, “to give my wounds a chance to heal, and then we’ll ride again!”
Tonto said, “Me know good camp. We go there? Tonto fix wound?”
The masked man put on his hat and jerked it low. He placed one foot in the stirrup. “We,” he said, “will go there now!” He swung his leg across the saddle, and his voice rang out with a crystal clearness that carried through Bryant’s Gap, echoing and re-echoing from wall to wall. “Hi-Yo Silver, Away-y-y!”
Silver leaped ahead, his master in the saddle. Tonto rode behind and grinned in happiness, following the tall masked man whom he called “friend.”
MAN SIZE, by William MacLeod Raine
TO
CAPTAIN SIR CECIL E. DENNY, BART.
OF THE FIRST THREE HUNDRED RIDERS OF THE PLAINS
WHO CARRIED LAW INTO THE LONE LANDS AND MADE THE SCARLET AND GOLD A SYNONYM FOR JUSTICE, INTEGRITY, AND INDOMITABLE PLUCK
CHAPTER I
IN THE DANGER ZONE
She stood on the crown of the hill, silhouetted against a sky-line of deepest blue. Already the sun was sinking in a crotch of the plains which rolled to the horizon edge like waves of a great land sea. Its reflected fires were in her dark, stormy eyes. Its long, slanted rays were a spotlight for the tall, slim figure, straight as that of a boy.
The girl’s gaze was fastened on a wisp of smoke rising lazily from a hollow of the crumpled hills. That floating film told of a camp-fire of buffalo chips. There was a little knitted frown of worry on her forehead, for imagination could fill in details of what the coulée held: the white canvas tops of prairie schooners, some spans of oxen grazing near, a group of blatant, profane whiskey-smugglers from Montana, and in the wagons a cargo of liquor to debauch the Bloods and Piegans near Fort Whoop-Up.
Sleeping Dawn was a child of impulse. She had all youth’s capacity for passionate indignation and none of the wisdom of age which tempers the eager desire of the hour. These whiskey-traders were ruining her people. More than threescore Blackfeet braves had been killed within the year in drunken brawls among themselves. The plains Indians would sell their souls for fire-water. When the craze was on them, they would exchange furs, buffalo robes, ponies, even their wives and daughters for a bottle of the poison.
In the sunset glow she stood rigid and resentful, one small fist clenched, the other fast to the barrel of the rifle she carried. The evils of the trade came close to her. Fergus McRae still carried the gash from a knife thrust earned in a drunken brawl. It was likely that to-morrow he would cut the trail of the wagon wheels and again make a bee-line for liquor and trouble. The swift blaze of revolt found expression in the stamp of her moccasined foot.
As dusk fell over the plains, Sleeping Dawn moved forward lightly, swiftly, toward the camp in the hollow of the hills. She had no definite purpose except to spy the lay-out, to make sure that her f
ears were justified. But through the hinterland of her consciousness rebellious thoughts were racing. These smugglers were wholly outside the law. It was her right to frustrate them if she could.
Noiselessly she skirted the ridge above the coulée, moving through the bunch grass with the wary care she had learned as a child in the lodges of the tribe.
Three men crouched on their heels in the glow of a camp-fire well up the draw. A fourth sat at a little distance from them riveting a stirrup leather with two stones. The wagons had been left near the entrance of the valley pocket some sixty or seventy yards from the fire. Probably the drivers, after they had unhitched the teams, had been drawn deeper into the draw to a spot more fully protected from the wind.
While darkness gathered, Sleeping Dawn lay in the bunch grass with her eyes focused on the camp below. Her untaught soul struggled with the problem that began to shape itself. These men were wolfers, desperate men engaged in a nefarious business. They paid no duty to the British Government. She had heard her father say so. Contrary to law, they brought in their vile stuff and sold it both to breeds and tribesmen. They had no regard whatever for the terrible injury they did the natives. Their one intent was to get rich as soon as possible, so they plied their business openly and defiantly. For the Great Lone Land was still a wilderness where every man was a law to himself.
The blood of the girl beat fast with the racing pulse of excitement. A resolution was forming in her mind. She realized the risks and estimated chances coolly. These men would fire to kill on any skulker near the camp. They would take no needless hazard of being surprised by a band of stray Indians. But the night would befriend her. She believed she could do what she had in mind and easily get away to the shelter of the hill creases before they could kill or capture her.
A shadowy dog on the outskirt of the camp rose and barked. The girl waited, motionless, tense, but the men paid little heed to the warning. The man working at the stirrup leather got to his feet, indeed, carelessly, rifle in hand, and stared into the gloom; but presently he turned on his heel and sauntered back to his job of saddlery. Evidently the hound was used to voicing false alarms whenever a coyote slipped past or a skunk nosed inquisitively near.
The Second Western Megapack Page 155