Murder Range

by Alan David

  MURDER RANGE

  Alan David

  © Alan David 1966

  Alan David has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1966 by The Garden City Press Limited.

  This edition published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Extract from Troubleshooter by Alan David

  Chapter One

  LOBO JOHNSON REINED in when he heard the shots. He eased his long body in the hard saddle and loosened the Sharps 30-30 in its dusty scabbard. His right hand touched the walnut butt of the well oiled Colt .45 on his right thigh. His blue eyes hardened and squinted as he stared around at the wilderness through which he was riding. He idly slapped away the dust coating his vest front.

  The string of shots sounded urgent. Their echoes fled across the wild, sun-baked land, thinning out as they struck into space. Lobo’s hard lips pressed back against his teeth. Someone was buying trouble. He gigged his bronc and pulled the animal’s head to the right. He wanted no part of anyone’s trouble, and would ride out of his way to avoid it.

  Lobo watched the ground on his left hand as he rode, wondering at the shooting he had heard, but under no compulsion from his curiosity to ride and investigate. He had learned early in life to mind his own business, and his lips twisted into a grim smile as he mulled over his colourful past. It wasn’t a respectable past for such as a school-marm to study, he thought humourlessly. Violence had been riding at his elbow for many years. He was still full of bitterness, and his eyes betrayed his cynicism. There was a hardness inside him that owed its being to the tragic end of his family, which he had witnessed at the impressionable age of thirteen years. The frustration of being too young to hunt and kill the men responsible had laid its talons upon his very soul.

  He had drifted aimlessly with the passing years into crime and a rough life. At first he had tried to hunt down the killers who had murdered his parents, but he never found them, and had long ago given up the idea of finding them. He was a friendless man, always riding alone, relishing the loneliness of the trail. He owed allegiance to no virtue, lived by his ready gun, and robbed and stole when he wanted money or food. He was a killer with no compunction in him when he killed, but he had planted more bad men than good, and never murdered. He was a mixture of good and bad, with one day seeing the bad side and another day seeing the goodness that could rise within him.

  There was heavy silence now. Lobo relaxed as much as he ever relaxed on the trail. The overhead sun and the emptiness in his flat belly told him it was midday, and he stretched himself and looked around alertly.

  It was then the rapid sound of hoofbeats came to his keen ears, and he touched spurs to his horse and guided the animal into cover among a cluster of copper coloured rocks.

  He sat his horse with his left hand resting lightly upon his saddlehorn, his right hand touching the butt of his Colt. Another gunshot blared out, its echoes flattening against the great silence. The beat and echo of fleeting hooves sounded louder. More shots crackled, and once Lobo heard the whine of ricocheting lead as it screamed overhead on blind flight.

  Presently a rider came galloping into view, the horse stretched out at top speed, and thirty yards behind was another horseman, whose right arm lifted and fell, and gunshots crashed and smoke spurted about the speeding horse and man. Lobo watched with a taut muscled face. The leading rider came almost straight to the spot where Lobo sat watching, as if guided by some desperate intuition. The pursuer fired again. The leading rider threw wide his arms and pitched forward in a swift arc as his horse slithered heavily along the dusty ground.

  Lobo watched grimly. The horse lay heaped with threshing hooves, screaming in the dust. Its rider lay where he had fallen, face down and unmoving. The pursuer came up and sprang from his sweating mount. He put a shot into the brain of the writhing horse as he passed, then bent swiftly over the inert figure of his victim. Lobo thrilled when the man removed the fallen rider’s hat and a mass of blonde hair was exposed. The victim was a woman!

  The woman moaned and stirred. Her captor sat back on his heels and watched her regain consciousness. Lobo waited silently, his hiding place a scant twenty feet from the two in the open. His blue eyes were inscrutable, his breathing shallow, and his fingers were clenched around the butt of his gun.

  ‘That’s better,’ the man said, standing up and pulling the woman to her feet. ‘You didn’t think you could get away from me, did you? Now we’ve got a little unfinished business to settle.’

  ‘Let me go, you killer,’ the girl sobbed. She struggled futilely in the man’s strong grip. ‘You’ll pay for this; you and all Ridge riders. You’ve killed my father and my brother.’

  ‘They had their chance to get clear. You nesters are all alike. You were told to up and light out. Now you and me are going to get real close.’

  The girl screamed and struggled, but the man stifled her resistance.

  ‘Screaming ain’t going to help you none,’ he said. ‘There ain’t no one around here but rattlers and prairie dogs.’

  The girl kicked out and broke free of the man’s cruel grasp. She ran to the spot where Lobo sat immobile, and tripped and sprawled under the legs of Lobo’s mount. For an instant, as she looked up in amazement, their eyes met and held, and Lobo saw naked terror loose in the girl’s face. Then he turned his eyes to the man.

  The killer followed, but pulled up with a surprised shout when he saw Lobo. His hands streaked down to his holsters, and Lobo sat still until the man’s irons had cleared leather. Then he palmed his Colt and thumbed off a single crashing shot. Dust spurted from the front of the killer’s red check shirt and a splotch of blood spread over the fabric. The man spilled his unfired weapons from his hands and pitched headlong across the girl.

  Lobo holstered his Colt and stepped down from his saddle. He stood six feet four inches in his high heeled riding boots. He bent and grasped the dead man by the feet and dragged him carelessly into the rocks. When he came back the girl was standing, holding his stirrup and leaning against the horse.

  ‘Lucky for you I was on hand,’ Lobo said brusquely. ‘You’re all right now. He can’t harm you from where he’s gone. You’d better take his cayuse. He killed yours.’

  He swung back into his saddle, and the girl clung to his long leg, shaking with the reaction of the incident.

  ‘You can’t go and leave me,’ she cried. ‘My father and brother are lying dead in our cabin. They’ve just been murdered.’

  ‘If your folks are dead then there’s nothing I can do for them,’ he told her gently. ‘Why don’t you ride into the nearest town and tell the Sheriff?’

  ‘Gruber couldn’t come all this way out from Pommel in a wheel chair,’ the girl cried wildly. ‘He’s only half a man. There’s no real law in Ridge country.’

  ‘Ridge country?’ Lobo stuck out his bottom lip. ‘I ain’t never heard of it.’

  ‘You would have if you’d lived hereabouts. Reuben Ridge thinks he owns the world.’

  ‘One of that sort, eh?’ Lobo sagged a little. ‘And I suppose the feller I just killed was one of this man Ridge’s riders.’

  ‘That was Gil Rawlins, a sidekick of Buck Page himself.’

  ‘Buck Page! He’s in this neck of the woods?’

 
‘Ridge’s top gunhand.’

  ‘Then I’m riding on. I don’t hanker on getting killed for letting daylight into a worthless gunhawk.’ Lobo looked at the girl closely for the first time, noting her grey eyes and glinting blonde hair. ‘You’d better get on that horse and ride into Pommel. I’ll go that far with you.’

  The girl sighed and bent to pick up her flat crowned Stetson. She ran to the killer’s horse, which stood with trailing reins, and sprang into the saddle. Lobo waited until she came abreast of him then fed steel to his mount.

  ‘Why is this Ridge hombre running you off? Your father been rustling some of his cattle?’

  ‘No, we never did,’ the girl retorted hotly. ‘It’s the same old story. These cattle kings think they have a right to the whole country. They won’t give smaller ranchers a chance. Ridge says we are too close to his boundary. But we haven’t done a thing against Ridge. There has been a range war going on for about a year; Ridge and the other big ranchers to the north. Ridge beat them. He had an army of gunmen bossed by Buck Page. But now he’s settled his big war he’s turning on us smaller ranchers.’

  ‘You said your father and brother have been murdered.’

  ‘This morning.’ The girl’s eyes were hard in her taut, grief stricken face. Her bottom lip quivered. ‘Gil Rawlins and two gunmen came over. There was a lot of shooting, but they got my brother Pete. Then Rawlins shot my father. I lit out with him on my tail. You know how that ride finished.’

  Lobo nodded soberly. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Stella Stadden.’

  ‘My handle’s Johnson. They call me Lobo for short.’

  ‘The Lobo Johnson.’

  ‘So you’ve heard of me.’ He smiled a little. ‘I am the Lobo Johnson.’

  ‘Then you’re worse than the pack of wolves that Reuben Ridge hires.’

  ‘Well I ain’t harming you. Seems like I done you a good turn. You should know you can’t judge horseflesh by its colour.’

  ‘There’s something in that. But what are you doing in this country? Job hunting? Ridge’s Big R was crowded with gunslingers. I should think that all the hardcases in the state were on Ridge’s payroll. But now his big war is won he’s paid off most of them.’

  ‘Word of a range war travels a long way,’ Lobo said reflectively. ‘So there ain’t no law in these parts?’

  ‘Practically none. Poor Jason Gruber is the sheriff. He was bushwhacked last year and left for dead. But he didn’t die, he got over it. Now he’s all right, except that he can’t use his legs at all. No one else would take over the job of sheriff. So when Gruber was well enough to sit a wheel chair he went back into office. Half a sheriff is better than no sheriff at all.’

  ‘Is this Reuben Ridge a good man?’

  ‘How do you mean good?’ the girl asked.

  ‘Is he an honest man fighting for what he owns or is he crooked and grabbing?’

  ‘You should come and look at our little spread.’ The girl’s voice shook. ‘It belonged to us, and we never bothered anyone. But Ridge’s men have killed my father and brother and torn down our fences. Our few head of cattle are now running with Ridge’s herds.’

  ‘Cattlemen are queer critturs,’ Lobo said quietly. ‘You say a man by the name of Buck Page bosses Ridge’s hellcrew? I once knew a Buck Page.’

  ‘Page is poison. He’s a tall, white-faced feller with a soft feminine voice. But he’s the worst of all Ridge’s men. He’s faster on the draw than any gunman I’ve ever heard of, except a certain Lobo Johnson.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know too much about that,’ Lobo mused. ‘But he’s the same feller I once knew a long time ago. So this is where he’s settled. I heard he’d gotten himself killed. Things were pretty hot in Carlton County ten years ago. He was ramrodding a bunch of gunnies then. I did hear he’d been outshot by some kid. But it don’t seem like it was so if he’s gunboss for Ridge.’

  ‘Are you planning on sticking around Pommel?’ Stella Stadden asked.

  ‘One more gun wouldn’t make much difference, would it?’ he asked, looking at her closely, taking in every detail of her clothes and figure.

  ‘You’ve done me a good turn, so I’d like to repay you a little. Take my advice, Mister Johnson. Don’t stay in Pommel. Keep riding. Pretty soon the law will catch up with Ridge and his crew. If you’re there at the time you’ll get it too.’

  ‘My come-uppance has been a long time coming,’ Lobo smiled with one corner of his mouth. ‘It’ll catch up with me one day, I don’t doubt. But I’m heading west, Miss Stadden. I’m looking for some place to settle down, somewhere where I ain’t known. I’m trying to find that straight and narrow trail.’

  ‘You told me your name,’ Stella said, lifting her troubled eyes to look at him. ‘You’d have to change your name before you could hope to live on the better side of the fence. Lobo Johnson is known by reputation clear to California.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He eased himself in his saddle and looked all around, satisfying himself that they were not being approached from any quarter. ‘I reckon I’ve been around some since I climbed outer the cradle.’

  ‘But you haven’t been an out and out badman, if I recall,’ she said suddenly. ‘I remember hearing some queer tales about you. How you helped Sheriff Walt Tobler over in Baldock Creek two years back. Then there was that stage holdup in the Big Bend country. You killed three bandits, and yet you are one yourself.’

  ‘They were bad killers,’ Lobo said shortly. ‘They killed for the sake of killing.’ A shadow crossed his face like a muscular spasm. ‘I don’t like killers, and always make war on them when I come across them. It’s just like killing a snake when you come upon it. I ain’t no angel, I know. I’ve been crooked for a long time. But I’ve never harmed anyone who hasn’t harmed, or tried to kill me. I don’t like killers.’

  He spoke with such emotion that she looked sideways at him. She studied his profile, noting how his eyes constantly watched all around them. His face was long, lean and brown, seamed by little crowsfeet at the corners of his blue eyes.

  He looked a ruthless hard case, she thought, and shivered involuntarily. There was something undefinable about him, some force that was hidden by his masklike exterior but apparent all the same. So this was the notorious Lobo Johnson! A thrill rippled through her. He was not an old man. She had often thought that he must be because of the many things he had done. His every movement and breath bespoke of inert violence. She could sense it in him.

  ‘What do you plan on doing now?’ he asked her.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She sighed. She looked at him with a quick glance, and he saw tears glistening on her fair lashes. ‘What can I do? I’m a woman. I’m no match for Ridge’s wolves. There’s no law in this county, so there’s not much I can do. I’ll have to pull out. I’ve no menfolk left.’

  ‘You’re sure your folks are dead out at your place?’

  ‘Yes.’ A sob almost choked her. ‘Mister Johnson, could you help me?’

  ‘Me!’ He reined in and looked down at her. ‘One man against a hired army? I figure I’ve already done too much for you. These gangs don’t take kindly to hombres bumping off their members. When word gets to Ridge about Rawlins back there I’ll find a dozen gun-slicks on my backtrail. The best thing both of us could do is ride clear of Pommel and keep going until we cross the nearest border.’

  ‘I’ll never do that. I won’t.’

  ‘What else can you do? You wouldn’t have no chance at all. Ridge couldn’t let you live now he’s killed your folks. His type never misses a turn. You’re witness to the murder of your people, and your word could put a rope round Ridge’s neck. So the word will go out; kill the girl, and they’ll hunt you down until you’re dead.’

  ‘I’m not running out.’ She set her lips in a thin line. ‘I can’t. My father is lying unburied in the yard. I can’t go off like this. I’ve got nothing with me; no clothes, no money. I must at least go back to the ranch and get some things together. Will you come with me? I feel so d
efenceless alone.’

  ‘Look, I don’t usually stick my nose into someone else’s business. I reckon that’s how come I’ve managed to stay alive for so long. But I feel kind of responsible for you. I had to buy into the play awhile back to save you from that killer. I know I’m doing the wrong thing, but I ain’t the type to ride off and leave a lady in serious trouble who has no one to back her up. But I don’t aim on trying to wipe out this Reuben Ridge and his killers. I’ll come with you to your place, guard you while you’re there, and see you safely on your way out of this neck of the woods. Have you got any other folks living?’

  ‘Not around here. We came from Idaho originally. Father pulled up stakes because sheepmen were settling there, and I guess you know sheep and cows don’t mix.’

  ‘Well you’d better start making a few plans for your future. Where is your ranch?’

  ‘If we turn off the trail here we’ll reach it in an hour.’

  ‘Good. Come on.’ Lobo pulled down the brim of his black Stetson. ‘Let’s get moving. I ain’t eaten since sun-up, and travelling through this sort of country is hard on a man’s frame and stomach. Maybe we can get a bite to eat at your place.’

  ‘I’ll feed you,’ the girl said as they cantered from the trail.

  Chapter Two

  LOBO REINED IN when they sighted the girl’s home, which was a large wooden cabin walled with rough split logs. A smaller building of similar design stood behind the cabin, and beyond that was a small, well fenced corral which held several horses.

  ‘Someone’s moving around in the house,’ Lobo said quickly. ‘Are you sure your father and brother were killed?’

  ‘Positive,’ she retorted. ‘It must be one of Ridge’s men.’

  ‘Well ride several yards behind me,’ Lobo ordered. ‘If there’s any shooting, get off your horse and lie flat. If it’s one of Ridge’s men I’ll take him.’

  Lobo touched spurs to his mount and jogged forward. He eased his Colt in its well oiled holster, and watched the cabin carefully as he approached. He had ridden up to the door of the cabin when a man, carrying a levelled rifle, emerged. The muzzle of the rifle was centred upon Lobo’s chest. The man eyed him questioningly.