The Second Western Novel

by Matt Rand

  “Cavorca! Cavorca!” bellowed the dark-faced men who had strolled so carelessly into the room. “El Gran General Manuel!”

  Rance Hatfield swung the little señorita over the bar and dropped her behind the heavy oak, out of harm’s way. Then he whirled to face Manuel Cavorca, who was shooting with both hands.

  The bandit leader’s men were hurling slugs through the mirrors, smashing the tables and wrecking the place in general. Men and women spewed through the doors and windows like rabbits from a ferret-raided warren. Their howls and screams added to the bedlam of sound. Cristobal’s cantina was being most thoroughly “taken apart!”

  But Cristobal’s retainers were more than mere waiters, bartenders, swampers and musicians. They had been hired for their efficiency with gun and knife. Recovered from their first paralysis of surprise, they were fighting it out with Cavorca’s men. The crackle of six-shooters became a regular drumfire. Yells, curses, shrieks and groans soared up to the roof beams and bounced about like echoes of demons on a drunk. Outside sounded the deep roar of the crowd attracted by the battle.

  Rance Hatfield fought his way through the riot toward Cavorca, striving at the same time to keep an eye on Gypsy Carvel. The girl crouched beside the musicians’ stand, her eyes wade with horror, her face white.

  “She never figgered on anythin’ like this,” panted the Ranger, smashing a man with his gun barrel and shooting another who was throwing down on him with a Colt.

  Men were boiling through the front door. Cavorca gave them a glance and bellowed an order. He had recognized others of dead Cristobal’s followers. His own men began to sweep toward the back door.

  Rance got through the battling crowd at last. Cavorca saw him coming, his pearl-handled guns came up, lined with the Ranger’s breast.

  Rance shot as swiftly as he could pull trigger. One of the silver-mounted sixes spun from Cavorca’s hand as if it had grown wings. Bullets whipped through the gaudy serape. Cavorca slewed and weaved and ducked, his remaining Colt spouting flame. From the close-packed group by the back door went up a cry:

  “Ze Ranger! It ees ze Ranger! Keel! Keel!”

  A storm of lead blasted toward Rance. He saw blood suddenly spout from Cavorca’s left arm, heard the bandit’s scream of rage and pain. Then something struck him a sledge-hammer blow in the chest. Blood poured from his mouth and nose. He choked, gasped, strangled, the big Colts dropped from suddenly useless hands, his legs turned to water and he sank to the floor.

  Manuel Cavorca, livid rage wiping all the unearthly beauty from his face and making it hideous, leaped forward, gun jutting.

  Dimly through a bloody mist, Rance saw a little figure hurtle in front of the bandit, beating at his breast with tiny sun-goldened hands.

  “No, Manuel, no I will hate you forever if you do! You lied to me, Manuel! You lied to me!”

  Men surged across the room. Cavorca swept the girl aside, turned and leaped through the back door. Rance Hatfield felt a soft arm pillowing his head, saw two great dark eyes in a white little face close to his, and was swallowed up in a blood-edged cloud of blackness.

  CHAPTER 25

  Rance came back to his senses with a bandaged chest, an aching head and old Doc McChesney sitting beside his bed.

  “Yore punctured,” Doc told him, “but not so turr’ble serious. Bullet went through high and didn’t do much damage ’sides from damn neah chokin’ you to death with blood. If it hadn’t been for that little Carvel girl, jedgin’ from what I can gather of the ruckus, ’bout now you’d be listenin’ to Saint Peter say, ‘Jest step below, please’.”

  “Wheah’d she go, Doc?” Rance whispered.

  “Home,” said Doc, “after sittin’ up the rest of the night and most of the day with you. Wouldn’t leave till she was sho’ I waren’t lyin’ when I told her theah waren’t nothin’ to worry ’bout.”

  Rance digested that for some time, and asked another question. “Doc, what was she doin’ theah with Cavorca?”

  Doc grunted and stuffed his pipe with tobacco before re-plying.

  “Well,” he said when the pipe was going good, “from what I can jedge, Cavorca fooled her proper. He told her he jest wanted her to go to Cristobal’s and dance with him. Said that he would be safe theah, and anyway he would keep his face covered. Of co’hse his idea was to hold ev’body’s attention to the dancin’ till his men could sift in and get placed. When Gypsy saw you in theah she jest ’bout passed out, but by then theah waren’t nothin’ for her to do but go through with it. You and the little Mex gal puttin’ on a show right at that time played inter Cavorca’s hand. The Carvel gal, incident’ly, seems to have sorta took a dislike to that little Mex. I sho’ b’lieve she’s offa Cavorca for good this time, though.”

  “But why did Cavorca wanta wipe out Cristobal?” asked Rance.

  “‘Cause it was Cristobal’s men what raided that gun runnin’ party of Cavorca’s. Cristobal was workin’ for Zorrilla, who’s stagin’ the rev’lution over in Chihuahua.”

  “All clear as a waterhole with a hawg wallerin’ in it,” admitted Rance. “Exceptin’ one thing,” he added. “Doc, how in hell do them jiggers get acrost the Line and back like they do? They sho’ don’t use the Canyon Trail, and theah ain’t no other that I know of.”

  “Past me,” grunted Doc. “Mebbe they’re so clost to bein’ angels they’re sproutin’ wings and flyin’ over the cliffs. Now you shet up and go to sleep soon as I’ve fed you some soup. Yore tough as a steer’s hide and if you do what I tell you to, you’ll be ridin’ again in six weeks.”

  Rance fooled him. He was riding in half that time, although Doc did not approve of it.

  “You bust that hole loose ’fore she’s healed-proper and you’ll have trouble,” the old physician cautioned him. “And inc’dentally, I heard that you laid Cavorca up for a spell with a busted shoulder, so what’s yore hurry?”

  “A little thing like a busted shoulder ain’t gonna stop Cavorca,” Rance assured him gloomily. “I betcha he’s twirlin’ his loop right now and when it settles, somebody’s gonna get yanked clean outa the hull.”

  Rance was right. Like a thunderbolt Cavorca struck. Silver City felt the weight of his hand first. The stage bearing the Alhambra mines payroll and guarded by two special deputies and a Ranger was raided. The Ranger and one of the deputies died. The Alhambra payroll went to Mexico. Cavorca, his left arm strapped to his breast, his bridle between his teeth and a silver-mounted Colt in his right hand, led his men.

  Soon after came disquieting news from below the Line. “The revolutionary, Cavorca, attacked a detachment of El Presidente’s soldiers and annihilated it,” said the dispatch.

  Adding with Mexican laconism, “No prisoners were taken!”

  Rance Hatfield’s lean jaw tightened even more. “This side the border’ll catch it next,” he predicted.

  Wails and protests began to drift in from outlying ranches and settlements. Cavorca had run cattle off here. He had burned and murdered there. He was expected daily at another place. Captain Morton sent Rance an urgent message.

  “For the love of Pete, try and do something,” wrote the captain. “People all over the state are pannin’ the Rangers ’cause they can’t be in a dozen places at once. The governor is thinking seriously of asking Washington for troops. If he gets them it will make things all the worse, and it’ll end the Rangers. If you can only grab oil Cavorca! Without his brains at the head of it, the whole business’ll bust up like a puff of smoke outside a gun barrel.”

  Rance watched the Canyon Trail day and night, and while he was watching it, a band of Cavorca’s men rode into Brazos, wrecked a saloon owned by the brother of the dead Cristobal, cut the brother’s throat and vanished in the night.

  “They headed straight south, acrost the Lazy-E cattle ranch,” a cowboy declared to Rance. “I follered them a ways, and hightailed back to town when one of ’em creased my cayuse with a slug.”

  Grim of mouth and eye, the Ranger rode to the Lazy-E ranch-hous
e. The Mexican cook admitted him. Gypsy Carvel received him coldly.

  “I have not seen Manuel since that night in Brazos,” she said. “I never want to see him again. He used me as a dupe and double-crossed me. No, I have no idea how he crossed the Line so quickly. I wouldn’t tell you if I did know.”

  “I heahd tell Cavorca’s Yaquis and half-breeds shot a woman and stole a girl baby in that raid on the Bowtie spread over east of heah,” Rance said softly.

  The girl’s face whitened. Her voice trembled.

  “I—I heard that, too.” She leaned forward earnestly and looked the Ranger in the eye: “Believe me, please, I really do not know the way through the hills. Manuel never told me, and he never used it in the daytime. It is a secret known only to him and his men and their like.”

  Rance rode away from the Lazy-E ranch-house in a decidedly mixed frame of mind. Gypsy Carvel had followed him onto the porch and hesitated a question:

  “You—you intend to keep on looking for the secret trail?”

  “I sho’ do,” Rance assured her as he swung into the saddle.

  “I fear you are exposing yourself to terrible danger,” she warned him earnestly. “I’m sure they guard that trail, day and night, and they are men who will stop at nothing.”

  Her round white little chin jutted forward defiantly. “And I want to tell you,” she added, “although I don’t suppose you’ll believe me, I did not shoot at you that day you met me in the grovel.”

  A pleased grim twitched at the corners of Rance’s mouth as he recalled that outburst.

  “Darned if I don’t b’lieve she was tellin’ the truth,” he declared. “If she’d shot at me she wouldn’t deny it, and the chances are plumb good she wouldn’ta missed, either. ’Sides, she jest nacherly ain’t the kinda girl what would sneak up behind a feller and kick him in the belly when his back was turned. If she took a notion to do some shootin’, she’d walk right straight up to yore face and plug you ’tween the eyes.

  The grin left his face and his eyes became calculating. “And that means some horned toad was holed ’mong the rocks somewheah. I musta been gettin’ sorta dost to their blasted trail if they felt they’d better start throwin’ lead at me. Feller, we’ll jest give them another chance to do some gun slingin’.” Slowly, keen eyes searching the rocks, he rode along the frowning wall.

  “Theah’s that big white-lookin’ cliff I noticed that day,” he mused. “Funny sorta outcroppin’, ain’t it? Kinda shines now it’s gettin’ dark. Yeah, it was jes ’bout heah I purty neah stopped that slug.”

  Once again the Ranger rode along close to the cliffs, scanning every inch of them and finding nothing. Abruptly he turned the black horse and rode across the prairie until he was a mile or more from the hills.

  For a long time he sat studying the cliffs, plotting their position in relation to the higher mountains to the north.

  “That old bald-headed feller t’other side of Brazos is right in line with that big white cliff,” he decided. “Now if I was on t’other side the cliffs and could keep a eye on his top, I got a hunch I’d hit the back door end of that darned trail. It’s wuth tryin’, anyhow.”

  Near Brazos, Rance met Doc McChesney ambling along on his easy-going horse.

  “Jest ’tendin’ to a little chore,” said Doc. “You look tuckered. Didn’t I tell you to take it easy with that half-healed hole through you? Some jigger’s gonna be pattin’ you in the face with a spade if you don’t slow up a bit.”

  Rance rode on to bed. Doc rode to the Lazy-E ranch-house. He found Gypsy at home.

  “Met that long-legged galoot of a Ranger ridin’ from this direction,” he observed, accepting a cup of coffee, “did he stop heah?”

  “He did not,” Gypsy replied coldly.

  “Any notion wheah he’d been?” asked Doc.

  “I’m not in the least interested in his comings or goings,” said Gypsy.

  “Didn’t look so well,” remarked Doc casually. “Got a notion that bullet hole ain’t healin’ jest as it ought to. He’d oughta not be ridin’ ’round so much.

  “Is—isnt there some way to make him stop?” faltered the girl.

  “Got a notion he might if you’d ask him to,” countered Doc, giving her a shrewd glance.

  “I—I couldn’t do that,” she breathed.

  “Might save his life,” remarked Doc.

  There was a soft little gasp. Doc looked up quickly and saw tears on her dark lashes. His old face suddenly became all kindness.

  Gypsy was crying openly now. “He—he killed my father! I—I hate him! At least I—I ought to hate him—”

  “Jest s’posin’ he didn’t kill yore father?”

  “Oh!” exclaimed the girl breathlessly. “Oh, what do you mean?”

  Old Doc McChesney fumbled a little wooden box from his pocket and shook a battered lead pellet onto the table.

  “That’s yore dad’s gun you carry, ain’t it?” he asked. “Uh-huh, I thought so. What calibre is it?”

  “Why it’s a .32-20,” replied the mystified girl.

  “Uh-huh, a calibre that’s darn scarce in this section o’ country. You hardly ever run acrost one. Guess you know the Rangers don’t carry nothin’ but .45‘s. That’s sho’ what Rance Hatfield allus carries, ain’t it?”

  “I’ve never seen him with anything else,” admitted Gypsy. “No, nor nobody else,” stated Doc emphatically. He handed her the battered bit of lead.

  “Gypsy, that’s the slug that killed yore dad,” he told her.

  “Oh!” exclaimed the girl, shuddering away from it. “Why—why do you bring me the awful thing?”

  Doc seemed to hesitate for words. “I ain’t never been able to piece the whole story t’gether,” he admitted, “but one thing I do know—Rance Hatfield never shot yore dad.”

  “But—but his own report said he did!” gasped Gypsy.

  “Uh-huh, but he didn’t. The bullet what killed yore dad was shot from a .32-20 hawgleg, and Rance Hatfield carried .45‘s! I hate to tell you, Gypsy, but theah ain’t no doubt ’bout it—yore Dad shot hisself. Mebbe he got sorry afterward and told Rance so ’fore he cashed in. Anyhow. Rance shouldered the blame and kept yore dad from goin’ to a suicide’s grave. If things had worked out different, I’d never said anythin’ ’bout it to nobody, but the way things is, I figgered you oughta know.”

  For a long moment Gypsy Carvel sat staring at the battered bullet. “Poor old Daddy,” she said at last. “He wanted to spare me—I know that was the way of it; and Rance helped him! Oh, Doc, think of the things I’ve said to him and how I’ve treated him! Will he—will he ever forgive me?”

  CHAPTER 26

  Rance Hatfield rode north-west out of Brazos. Blanket and poncho were strapped behind his saddle. In the saddle bags was food. Rance was prepared for several days in the hills.

  He reached the Canyon “Trail and turned south. Then east into the gloomy fastness of the Black Hell hills. For two days he threaded his way among canyons and gorges, checking his position with the plainsman’s uncanny sense of distances and directions. Late afternoon of the second day found him guiding his horse along a scrambling ridge, his eyes glancing frequently toward where, misty with distance, a huge rock-crested mountain loomed in the northern sky. That mountain was the “bald-headed old feller” Rance had lined with the white cliff the morning the two Mexicans had attempted to drygulch him.

  “Onless we done played a bum hunch, it oughta be some-wheah clost ’round heah,” he told the horse. “Let’s do some lookin’, feller, and see if we can’t find it.”

  Before the last light faded he did find it. “It” was a plainly marked trail winding away southward. Eyes vigilant, guns loose in their sheaths, Rance headed north along the trail.

  Through canyons and gorges it wound, over steep ridges and along dizzy hogbacks. Soon after the sun vanished in a riot of scarlet and gold and burnished copper, a great white moon soared up over the hills to make the going possible.

  Nearer and n
earer loomed the giant buttresses of the cliff wall that battlemented the north extent of the Black Hell hills.

  “Hoss, it sho’ looks like yore gonna need wings to get over that,” Rance declared. “I can’t see a split in them cliffs now-wheah.”

  With startling abruptness and a simplicity that disgusted the Ranger with himself, the mystery was solved. Right up to the base of a steeply sloping rocky hill ran the trail, and lost itself in the jagged face of a blacker shadow. Rance rode into the shadow and found himself in a fairly narrow passage, walled and roofed.

  “A cave!” he grunted. “Jest a darned nacherel tunnel through the cliffs! But how in the blankety-blank bloomin’ blue blazes does it open out on the nawth side of these rocks so that nobody can see it?”

  Suddenly he pulled the black horse up. In his ears sounded Gypsy Carvel’s warning—guarded day and night!”

  He had seen nothing of guards so far, but then they would have little reason to fear attack or discovery from the south. Where the cave opened through the cliff wall, if it really did open, would be the logical point for a guard to be stationed.

  “We jest won’t take no chances,” decided Rance, heading the black horse toward a manzanita thicket a little distance from the trail.

  He hobbled the bronk loosely and re-entered the cave on foot. The floor was soft with slippery mud and his passing created little or no sound.

  Yard after yard he groped along through the black dark, testing each step before he trusted his weight upon it. Caves were tricky things and there might be pitfalls in this one, awaiting the unwary.

  ‘Wonder how long this darn ditch-with-a-roof over it is, anyhow,” he growled. “She’s twistin’ and squirmin’ like a snake with the itch, too. I’m liable to meet myself comin’ back most any minute new.”

  Water dripped continually from the roof and trickled down the rock walls. Rance shivered under the icy drops and quickened his pace a little. A dozen steps more and he slowed to a crawl.

  There was a faint glow sifting through the dark ahead. Rance crept on, rounded a turn and blinked at a fire a scant dozen yards from where he stood.