by Matt Rand
Blood was streaming over the girl’s face. Rance ripped the handkerchief from about his neck and mopped the worst of it away. He drew a deep and quivering breath of relief when he traced the flow to a jagged furrow amid the dark curls.
“Jest creased, or I don’t know nothin’ ’bout gun wounds!” he muttered. “Bleedin’ like hell, though, and needs lookin’ after.”
Somewhere nearby a woman was screaming, or rather squawking like a chicken with its tail caught under a gate. Rance roared a stream of Spanish. The squawking ended in a cut-off screech as if said chicken had been grabbed by the neck. Something resembling a baby-elephant-stood-on-end came lurching from an inner room.
“Madre de Dios! Maldito! Cien mil diablos!” screeched the apparition, which Rance saw was the Mexican cook.
“Shut up!” he bawled at her. “Get hot water, and bandages! Move, muy pronto!
The Mexican woman moved, still calling on all the saints and most of the devils. Rance picked Gypsy up and laid her on a nearby couch. She was still unconscious, but color was coming back in her lips and cheeks. Her breathing was regular.
With slim, capable fingers he cleansed and bandaged the wound.
“That’ll do till I can get a doctor,” he told the cook. “I’m ridin’ to town for one right now. You lock the door and get a shotgun. Don’t let nobody in until I get back. Wheah’s them two cowboys what ride for this spread?”
“They in town,” mumbled the Mexican woman. “Yes’day payday. La Señorita tell ’em go!”
Rance gazed at the unconscious form of La Señorita and his black brows knit.
“Uh-huh,” he mused. “Looks like she wanted to get ’em outa the way for t’night. Now if this ain’t a mess!”
At the foot of the steps he stumbled over the burlapped bundle the raiders had missed. He knew what it contained before he unwrapped it.
“Good guns, too,” he muttered, examining the long-barreled rifles by the light of a match. “Wonder how many more of these are holed up somewheah in Brazos? Plenty, I bet.”
It was early afternoon when Rance got back to the Lazy-E with Doc McChesney. The cook let off one barrel of the shotgun at them as they dismounted.
“Damn lucky for us she didn’t wait until we got to the steps,” grunted the old doctor. “Chances are she woulda winged us anyhow if she’d had buckshot. Yell a little louder and mebbe she’ll save the other ca’tridge.”
Rance finally made the Mexican woman understand who it was; but she kept the shotgun aimed through the window until a weak but clear voice called peremptory orders from the inner room.
“Guess them punchers is still in town drunk,” said Rance. They found Gypsy in bed and pretty sick. Rance, worried and angry, spoke before she could:
“Gun runnin’s a mighty pore bus’ness for any lady to mix inter, ma’am!”
There was a surprised, hurt look in the dark eyes that met his so steadily. Then they flashed scornfully.
“No worse than killing for pay,” she replied, her voice little more than a whisper.
Rance glared at her, opened his mouth to speak, closed it again. For another moment green and brown eyes clashed, neither giving the breadth of a lash; then the brown faltered behind their silken curtain. The red lips that had set so stubbornly trembled. Rance drew a deep breath and fumbled with his hat. Shrewd old Doc McChesney glanced from one to the other and smiled a frosty smile under his moustache.
“Now that you two are finished tollin’ each other what’s what, mebbe I can give the patient a little lookin’ over,” he remarked dryly. “Rance, you git out till I send for you.”
That night Doc McChesney sat thoughtfully in his little office. Finally he opened a small but strongly constructed safe and from one of the pigeonholes took a wooden box with a sliding lid. Printed on the lid were the words—
“The bullet that killed Jim Carvel.”
Doc turned the battered leaden pellet over and over, his keen old eyes brooding. He had dug that bullet from Carvel’s body when he performed the autopsy in his role of coroner.
He returned the slug to its place and carefully locked the safe, muttering disjointed sentences beneath his moustache—“When the right time comes…lucky I saved that hunk o’ lead…had a notion it might come in handy some time…make a fine pair…don’t want nothin’ standin’ in the way…”
CHAPTER 24
Rance Hatfield was also doing some serious thinking. Not all of his thoughts were pleasant.
“What that gang had in mind ain’t hard to figger,” he reasoned. “They was gonna leave the rifles at the Lazy-E ranch-house—I got a hunch she didn’t have no clear notion what was in them bundles—then somebody was gonna pick the bundles up and move ’em on somewheah. Them jiggers were Carvorca’s men, all right. The other bunch somehow or other got wind of what was goin’ on and aimed to wide-loop the guns for themselves. Seems to me I’ve heard tell of a bandit below the Line named Zorrilla, come to think on it. Cavorca’s men figgered Gypsy had double-crossed them and went for her. What’s puzzlin’ me, though, is wheah they took them guns to. They didn’t circle back nawth with ’em I know. Wheah in hell did they go? Guess I’d better ride down again and see if I can pick up a trail.”
Then a little later, “Sho’ is nice to heah Doc say she waren’t hurt much!”
Rance rode south the next day. Before him, closer and closer, loomed the somber wall of the Black Hell hills. Close beneath the beetling cliffs he rode, searching with keen eyes for some cleft or canyon or gorge, and finding none. He picked up the trails of the scattered raiders, found where they converged and headed south. A mile from the cliff base the trail petered out, lost in a jumble of boulders and flinty soil, Rance was baffled.
Late in the afternoon he turned back and set out on a long slant that would eventually bring him to the Brazos trail not far from the Lazy-E ranch-house. He was a thousand yards or so from the cliff base and passing a grove of cottonwoods.
Cr-r-rack!
Rance felt the wind of the bullet that split the air close to his head. Faint and thin, bedeviled by a myriad echoes, the report of the distant rifle reached him.
Crouching low, he spurred away from the ominous cliffs. The whining slug had come from there, or from the western tip of the grove. A puff of dust where it struck the ground farther on told him the direction.
“Next time I ride this way I’m bringin’ a long gun along,” he growled. “Sixes ain’t no good when the other jigger is holed up in the rocks or behind a tree half-a-mile away.”
Alert and watchful, he entered the grove, following a faint trail that wound among the trees. A thick carpet of leaves and mold muffled his horse’s hoofs until they were almost soundless. It also muffled the tread of another horse that abruptly rounded a turn a scant dozen yards ahead.
Rance’s right-hand gun came out of its sheath in a blue blur of movement; then, almost as swiftly, it dropped back into the holster. Rance pulled the black to a halt and lounged loosely in the saddle, eyes cold, lips set in a tight line.
Gypsy Carvel appeared as surprised as was the Ranger. Her horse faltered an instant under a checking rein, caught his stride and shuffled forward again. Gypsy pulled him up within arm’s length of the black. She regarded the Ranger with cool hostility, pointedly appraising the quickly drawn and re-holstered Colt.
“What’s the matter? Lose your nerve?” she asked.
Rance flushed under the implication, but his slow drawl was quietly undisturbed.
“See yore carryin’ a rifle, ma’am. Looks like a powh’ful little gun with a mighty long range.”
“It is,” she replied evenly.
“Uh-huh, oughta carry plumb aerate from this end of the trees to down opposite that white-faced cliff back theah.”
The girl regarded him wonderingly. “Just what are you driving at?” she asked.
Rance suddenly reached out a long arm and took the rifle from her. Before she had time to protest, he inserted the tip of his little finger into t
he muzzle and twisted it. The finger came out smudged. Rance handed the rifle back. Gypsy took it, her eyes big with astonishment.
“Ma’am,” said the Ranger softly, “heah’s a little tip that may come in handy some time—when you drygulch somebody, be sho’ and clean yore gun right away; don’t wait till you get home; it ain’t safe. And another little thing—that rifle of yores shoots jest a mite high. Keep that in mind and pull her down a bit the next time.”
He touched the stallion with a spur, rode around her and vanished amid the growth.
For long minutes Gypsy Carvel stared after him, her face slowly whitening. With trembling fingers she drew a freshly killed rabbit from her saddle-bag and stared at where a high-power rifle bullet had ripped the back of its head away.
Rance rode to Brazos in a black mood. He glowered at the color-splashed sprawl of the mining town from a-top a rise. There was a queer tightening ache in his throat, a bitter taste in his mouth.
“Hell but she hates me!” he rasped aloud. “If I don’t get drunk t’night and shoot somebody it’ll be a wonder. Sho’ wish Cavorca and his gang would come ridin’ inter town t’night. I craves action!”
Before the night was over he got it, and Manuel Cavorca played his part in the near-riot.
“She’s sho’ boomin’ t’night,” Rance muttered as he shouldered his way along crowded Crippled Cow street. “Why all the excitement, feller? he asked a hilarious miner.
“New strike!” whooped the other. “Bunch o’ the boys brought in pokes stuffed with red gold this aft’noon. Fust red gold ever turned up in this deestrict. It’s the biggest thing since Forty-nine!”
Rance learned more about the new strike as the evening wore on. East of the old diggings, where nobody had even panned color before, the miners declared it was a virgin field. Men who had poured out of the town during the past few days to stake claims were now pouring back in to celebrate. Most of them were bringing sacks of dust with them. There were nuggets, too.
“It’s the Mother Lode, that’s what it is!” declared old-timers.
Rance ate a square meal, had several drinks and felt better. “I’m takin’ a night off,” he informed nobody in particular, unless it was himself. “I ain’t gonna do no worryin’ about train robbers and war starters and gun slingin’ females. I’m gonna enjoy myself for a while!”
There was diversion a-plenty in Brazos. Rance bucked the tiger for a while, lost quite a few dollars, and won them back with heavy interest at poker. He felt the need of another drink and took a couple more so the first one wouldn’t feel lonesome. Several cowboys recognized in him a kindred spirit and they made it a party.
“Lesh all go over t’ Cristobal’s,” said one of the punchers. “Mushic theah!”
“Thash a greaser hangout,” objected another.
“Whacha differensh,” defended the first speaker. “Some greasersh mighty fine fellers.”
Cristobal’s dance-hall-and-saloon was one of the biggest in town. There were many Mexicans there and a fair sprinkling of cowboys and miners. Cristobal, fat and oily, with a bland smile that never climbed up to his heavy-lidded eyes, presided back of the ornate bar. Unlike most of the Brazos saloons, Cristobal’s was dimly lighted. The shadows thronging about the roof beams and in the corners lent an air of mystery and glamour. The music was the shivery wail of muted violins and softly thrummed guitars. A darkly handsome Mexican with a voice like rain-drops falling on silver bells sang the haunting, wistful ballads of the land of ma-nana—
“Oh, that I should have to leave you now!”
And—
“On the wings of the morning I come to you, My love!”
Rance Hatfield glowered at the singer and called for whiskey.
One of the half-drunk punchers made a suggestion: “That Mex pizen, tequila, is a hell of a sight stronger, podner!”
“All right,” growled Rance, “make her tequila! Drink up, you work dodgers, we’re havin’ another round!”
“Show me a grave where sleepeth my dearest love!”
“Damn!” rasped the Ranger, banging his empty glass on the bar. The crowd in Cristobal’s grew thicker. The long bar was lined two deep. Perspiring bar tenders knocked the necks off of bottles from which they had no time to draw the corks. They sloshed the raw liquor into glasses that impatient patrons pounded on the bar, or bawled for waiters to take them to the dancers and card players. The musicians opened their collars and fiddled madly. Dark-eyed señoritas with roses in their hair and swirling short skirts glided by, casting languorous glances at their partners or somebody else’s partner. A softly seductive waltz dreamed to a close and the guitars began to lilt a fandango.
“Me, I’m gonna dance,” one of the cowboys in Rance’s party informed all and sundry.
A sinuous dark girl with great flashing eyes and a wealth of glossy black hair swirled up to Rance.
“Weeth me, tall señor?” she questioned.
“Why not,” said the Ranger, sweeping her into his long arms.
Like a flower adrift in the wind, the girl floated across the crowded floor, her tiny slim feet seeming to glide on cushions of air. Rance Hatfield, light-stepping with the poise of pliant long muscles and perfect condition, matched her grace. The other dancers began to draw away from the pair, pausing to watch, clipping out terse words of applause. Soon Rance and the girl had the center of the floor to themselves.
“Señor, you are most wonderful,” she breathed.
“You ain’t so bad yourself,” drawled Rance.
And then there sounded a laugh, a silvery mocking laugh that spilled through the music and the murmurs like water through sand. Rance stiffened at the sound, faltered, lost a step and barely saved his partner from falling. His face flushed darkly red.
“Caramba!” hissed the Mexican girl, casting her glazing glare around the chuckling room.
Into the open space drifted another dancing couple. The man was tall and slim and amazingly graceful. He wore a beautifully embroidered velvet jacket with velvet pantaloons to match, a costume that served well to show off his supple, well-knit figure. His shirt front was a snowy foam of exquisite Mexican lace. His sombrero, pulled low over his eyes, was heavy with gold. A scarlet serape swept back over his shoulders with the gallant sway and stream of the tartans of a Scottish chief. Between sombrero and muffling serape, little could be seen of his face other than the gleam of startlingly white skin and the flash of eyes dark in the hat brim’s shadow.
“All steel and hickory,” muttered Rance Hatfield, his eyes narrowing as they shifted to the girl.
If Rance’s panther-like little señorita was a flower drifting in the arms of the wind, the stranger’s partner was the silver-shod wind itself stepping from rosebud to rosebud on fairy feet. She wore the plain, efficient costume of the western cowgirl, but she wore it as a queen wears the trappings of a throne. Her lips were scarlet as the roses the Mexican girls twined in their hair. Her tossing dark curls glowed with glints of sunlight. Back of the impish, mocking light in her great brown eyes were a sifting of dreams and the clean warmth of the wide, free rangelands.
“Damn! She sho’ don’t look like a girl what would drygulch a feller from behind a tree!” growled the Ranger, his face hardening at the thought.
So thoroughly had Gypsy Carvel filled his thoughts, he had given her handsome partner little more than a casual glance. Others, however, were paying much more attention to the stranger.
Cristobal, the fat, sinister proprietor of the cantina, summoned one of his lookouts with a barely perceptible motion of his head. He clipped a terse order, his cold eyes never leaving the dancing couple. The lookout sauntered unobtrusively to the back door and slipped out. As the door closed behind him, a pistol barrel crunched against his skull and he slumped to the ground, a senseless, bleeding heap. Cristobal, still intent on the tall stranger, did not know that.
Men were drifting casually into the saloon, dark-faced men with hats drawn low and guns swinging on their hips. They seemed
to wander about aimlessly, but when they finally settled down to drinking or chatting or watching the games or the dancing, each man was in a strategic position that commanded a section of the big room.
Gypsy Carvel appeared to be thoroughly enjoying her dance and the sensation she and her partner had created. Rance Hatfield, glowering against the bar, a glass of tequila in his hand, failed to notice how often her glance strayed in his direction. As he tossed off the fiery liquor at a gulp and called for another one, the smile left the girl’s lips and she frowned slightly; and when he drew the little Mexican señorita’s hand onto his arm, a look came into Gypsy Carvel’s eyes that a woman would have had little trouble interpreting.
Abruptly her partner guided her to one side. He shoved her back against the railing of the little platform the musicians occupied.
“Stay there!” he commanded in a voice that sounded above the strum of the guitars. “Hold it!” he ordered the players.
The music stopped. The other dancers, who had been whirling about the cleared center space, paused uncertainly. The stranger strode to the middle of the room. His voice rang sharply.
“Cristobal!”
The cold-eyed proprietor went backward off his stool like an acrobat. He came to his feet, cat-like, a sawed-off shotgun in his hands.
The stranger’s white hand flashed to his belt. Across the room darted a lance of light to center on Cristobal’s throat. He fell forward, dropping the shotgun, clawing at the bar over which blood spouted from the gaping knife wound in Iris throat. One of his bartenders grabbed the fallen shotgun and let go with both barrels.
The charge blew the stranger’s sombrero from his head and tore out the upper sash of a window. The stranger, his golden hair gleaming in the lamp light, shot with his left hand and the bartender went down, screaming hoarsely. As if the shot had touched off hidden triggers, the walls of the room seemed to bulge outward with the roar of six-shooters.