The Western Megapack - 25 Classic Western Stories

by Various Writers

  She caught him by the arm and closed the door behind him and when she’d made him face her, she said, “What’d the sheriff say?”

  Hank shrugged. He wanted time to think, to figure out what was wrong with the poster and perhaps what might not be right with the bearded man with the broad, heavy shoulders and the wide set, piercing black eyes.

  “Answer me,” Belle said and she shook Hank.

  Hank said, “I believe we’d better get the kid out and on his way.”

  “Why?” Her eyes were blazing. “That sheriff isn’t going to try some trick to get that boy away from me. There’s something queer.”

  “I feel there is,” Hank said. “I sure do. But I can’t figure it out and—”

  “And what?” she demanded, staring up at him, desperately.

  “And there ain’t anything we can do, Belle, honey. You can’t mess with a U.S. marshal.”

  “What’s that?” She went pale.

  Hank slowly nodded. “He asked me first in front of the livery stable,” he said.

  “I didn’t see anybody until I saw you and the sheriff talking.”

  “He was there when I came out after turning over the horses.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Asked me about Wes. If Wes rode into town with me and if the sorrel was his horse.”

  Belle clasped her hands and wrung them a little. She said, “I hadn’t figured on this.” She walked over to the little hotel desk and back again. “How do you expect the marshal knew about Wesley?”

  “Maybe trailed him all the way up,” Hank said. “How do I know? Only thing, we got to get him out.”

  They turned toward the stairs and walked up fast. And in the parlor of Belle’s quarters Belle herself shook the kid awake. Her voice was soft and soothing, but vibrant underneath with the fear and anger that she felt.

  “Wesley. Got to get up and start moving. Wesley.”

  He turned over and opened his eyes. He jumped and Hank laid a hand on the kid’s forehead and he said, “Take it easy. Come to.”

  The kid sat up. “What’s the matter?” Belle told him as gently as she could. She said, “We’re going to try and get you out. I think we can slip you out of the back door of the hotel, and you can go across the street and get your horse saddled and light out.”

  Hank went out and down the hall. He looked out a rear window and hurried back. His face was long and somber. “We’re going to have to figure something better than that,” he said. “Sheriff’s got a deputy sitting in the doorway of the livery stable with a scatter gun.”

  “Oh, God!” Belle breathed. She looked at the kid with as much horror as if he was her own flesh and blood. “But we’ve got to do something,”

  “I’m trying to think,” Hank said. “There’s something wrong with those posters. The one I saw wasn’t just like the ones I saw below.”

  “It’ll be dark in almost an hour,” Belle said. “Maybe then if—”

  Feet clumped below in the entrance to the hotel. Belle Driscoll sat motionless, listening. The heavy feet were coming up the stairs. They were coming down the hall and they stopped at her door. “Open up,” Sheriff Rance’s voice barked. “This is the law.”

  Hank Shard groaned. The kid was white. He stood up. He said, “Let him come in,” gently, like he was ready to give up.

  Then, without invitation, the door opened and Rance and two deputies came in. “Come on, Wesley Kane,” Rance said. “There’s a U.S. marshal waiting to take you back.”

  Wes Kane nodded. He walked forward, past the sheriff and his deputies. He paused outside, “I thank you for what you did. I sure wish I could stay longer.” He half turned, then, “Whatever anybody says, I didn’t do anything that I knew was wrong.”

  Belle was too filled up to say anything. Hank just stood there and watched the sheriff close the door. Their feet clumped down the stairs and they could be heard walking up the boardwalk along Main Street. Then there was no sound except Belle’s soft sobbing and her words, “He—he was like my son—would have been.” She stared up at Hank. “We got to think of something, Hank.”

  “I’m thinking,” he said. “What the devil was wrong with that poster I saw?” He said it savagely. Then, suddenly, he grabbed his hat and stamped out and down to the street. He went across and looked at the poster in the dim light of evening and he studied it until it grew dark, until he heard the soft clop of hoofs on the back street leaving the livery stable in the dark.

  He walked up the stairs and Belle was waiting for him in her doorway. He came in, shook his head. “Once, about ten years ago I had a streak where I figured I was a business man. I went into the print shop business, with another fellow who knew about it. And there’s something on that poster that didn’t come out of a—” he stopped and was staring at Belle with his mouth open. “I got it!” he said. “The edges, they been cut crooked, like with a hunting knife. And now I remember the posters below were bigger, more white around the edges.”

  “What difference does that make?” Belle said, trying hard to understand him.

  “A heap of difference!” Hank barked. “These is posters that were hanging up down near the Border and this bearded hombre took ’em down and, so nobody would notice they’d been tacked up before, he trimmed the edges, and he didn’t get them even and square like they do where the posters are printed.”

  Belle Driscoll stared at Hank blankly, her eyes anxiously searching his face.

  “But I don’t see,” Belle said.

  “It means this man with the beard ain’t a U.S. marshal at all. Otherwise, he’d come bringing posters square and even and right off the press. This buzzard is”—Hank gaped at Belle, his eyes wide open. “You don’t figure the skunk who hired the boy to drive the cattle where he might get caught crossing the Border—you don’t figure that pole-cat would follow the kid up this way, after he’d broke out of jail, and take him back to get the reward?”

  Belle Driscoll’s face was hard. She said, “If he was a man like the man I married, he might.”

  Hank Shard had turned away, thinking hard. He whirled back. “What did you say? About the man that left you? Your husband? What he could do? And this man, the kid said—I didn’t tell you but that’s how come the kid headed for here.”

  Belle stood motionless glaring at him. “What did he say?”

  “He said one night the man he worked for was drinking heavy by the fire and he got talking about Bowie being a nice town and if the kid ever got into trouble, to come look up a woman named Belle in Bowie.”

  Belle’s mouth was wide. She said, “Did you see this man? Tall with broad, heavy shoulders. Wide set black eyes?”

  “That’s him,” Hank said. “That’s the man with the beard.”

  Belle was out of the door and heading down the stairs. She said, “He’s no U.S. marshal! That crazy sheriff is taking his word for it in order to get something on me.”

  Sheriff Rance stepped through the door from the bar.

  He said, “Were you mentioning my name, Belle Driscoll?”

  She told him she was and why. She said, “And you let him bluff you that he was a U.S. marshal. Why you locoed idiot!”

  “Wait a minute!” Sheriff Rance roared. “I saw his papers and his badge!”

  “Then,” Belle said savagely, “I’ll lay you a ten to one there’s a dead U.S. marshal somewhere down south of here.”

  She turned then and ran out of the hotel and Hank Shard rushed after her. She ran down the side of the hotel and across the back street to the livery stable. She called the stable boy for horses saddled and she said, “I want a Winchester. A loaded one!”

  Hank got his horse saddled and led out another horse for Belle. He said, “Hadn’t you ought to let me handle this, Belle?” but she wouldn’t listen and made him help her up and she sat like a statue of vengeance with the rifle across her lap.

  “They’ll be likely taking the same trail we came up,” Hank said.

  There was a moon rising. Bel
le reined her horse and made a sharp turn, “If Dan Colton hears us coming, he may shoot the boy,” she said. “That reward is for dead or alive. If he does, the boy won’t be able to name him as the boss that made him ride with the cattle. That’s what he’d figure on doing eventually, kill the boy.”

  “I’ll follow you,” Hank said.

  She gigged her roan into a wild run around a butte and down a gulch and up a steep bank and they came out onto a plain with clumps of jack pine here and there. And they reined their panting broncs over behind a pine bush and waited. The two horsemen should be along any time now. They’d be moving slow.

  Hank lifted his guns in their holsters and let them settle back again. He swung his arms a couple of times to limber them. They waited and listened and then, far off, there came the sounds of wild galloping and the thunder of hoofs was coming nearer the valley.

  The moon rose higher and it was full and bright, like the light of a dull day. The thudding hoofs came nearer and Hank Shard braced himself for the stop.

  A man was yelling now, yelling, “Kick that sorrel or I’ll shoot you where you sit in the saddle. Kick her, I say.”

  “That devil,” Belle said. “That’s him. I’d know Dan Colton’s voice anywhere.” She reined her horse out into the trail.

  * * * *

  They could see the horses coming. The kid on his sorrel and the bearded man on his horse. And down the valley three other riders came, running their animals hard.

  “Must be the sheriff figured he’d better look into it,” Hank said.

  “He’s going to be late for this party,” Belle said through clenched teeth.

  ‘Whoa!” The bearded man yelled and tried to rein both horses and swing them. The sorrel wouldn’t swing. They came on toward the waiting pair by the jack pines.

  Belle Driscoll raised her rifle, and her voice was shrill and commanding. “Put up your hands, Dan Colton!”

  “Belle!”

  “Put up your hands, I said!”

  Colton swerved his horse and went for his right hand gun. It came out and swung to finish the kid.

  Belle’s rifle barked and Dan Colton’s right arm dropped and the gun fell out of his hand. He put spurs to his horse and the horse ran like a wild stallion for the brush.

  Flame spat from the sheriff’s guns. There was a moment while Dan Colton swayed like a drunk in the saddle. Then all the life went out of him and he pitched headlong out of the saddle and crashed into the mesquite, and the sheriff and his men raced in.

  * * * *

  When they left, Hank got the kid on one side of Belle and he rode close, on the other side. He held Belle’s arm to steady her. She rode with bowed head and now and then she shook a little, as if she might be weeping.

  Sheriff Rance came riding up as they were getting down at the livery stable. He said, “You were right, Belle. Colton wasn’t a U.S. marshal. I was mighty careless looking over his papers first time. I just looked again and they describe a smaller man than Colton. I reckon the cavalry’ll be up directly to investigate.”

  Belle didn’t say anything and Sheriff Rance lowered his voice. “I’ve been wrong about some things with you more than I thought, Belle,” he said. “I hope we’ll be more friendly from now on.”

  He rode off and Belle watched him go. Then, turning to walk with Hank and Wes to the hotel, she said, “He’s just laying it on because election’ll be coming up, soon.”

  A moment later at the entrance to the hotel, she turned to Hank. “That was hateful of me saying that about the sheriff. I don’t ever want to ever be hateful again.” She took a deep breath. “I guess I do need somebody like you to look after me, Hank. A person gets ornery alone.” She looked at the kid, pressed his hand a moment. “Good night, Wesley.”

  She went in quickly.

  Hank looked at Wes and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You know, Wes,” he said. “I got a hunch Belle’s going to want a ranch big enough so’s there’s work for two men around it.”

  Wes Kane grinned. “I sure hope so,” he said.

  DESERT JUDGMENT, by E. Hoffmann Price

  The pushcart parked in the lot opposite the Jefferson House, the only hotel in Poplar Junction, was crammed with every sort of gear for making good the slogan: Epstein Will Fix It, in big letters on both sides.

  At the moment, Saul Epstein was plying his razor at the horse trough. Finished, he crossed over to the Antler Bar, to see what news he could pick up about a boom in Panamint.

  The first person he ran into was Ben Hurley. He was blowing the froth off his beer and his angular face bore no sign of the beating he had taken when a run had cleaned him out of his Silver Bend National Bank. No one could have suspected that he had just sold every acre of land and every steer to pay off his depositors.

  “Yep! I’m makin’ a new start,” Hurley was saying.

  “Aim to drive freight clear across the Amargosa to Panamint. It can be done, and save that long haul from here to Frisco, then over the Mojave Desert.” Epstein sidled up, a glass in his hand. “Prosit Ben! I’m doing some freighting to Panamint by the Nevada backdoor myself!” Hurley turned, surprised. “Saul! Where in hell did you come from?”

  “When’s your first haul, Ben?”

  “Any day now. Mostly provisions. What me and Wiley, here, don’t eat we’ll sell.”

  “Got room to haul some freight for me?”

  “Plenty—and that makes you my first bona-fide customer.” He turned to the weather-beaten man at his elbow. “OK, Wiley—the jugheads are at the stable and the provisions at Hoskins’ General Store. Get them stowed.”

  Epstein chuckled. “Just to make it interesting, I’ll race you to Panamint.”

  “That’s a bet.” Wagging his hand at Epstein, Hurley walked out. But once alone his fierce animation quit him. His thoughts went back to the day after the bank failure, when he had faced Emily Crawford.

  On his advice, she had bought into the bank. Like other stockholders, she had been forced to make good. Everyone had been flattened except Lucky Ballard, who a month before had sold his shares to invest in a cattle outfit in Arizona. That was the rub—competitors in all things, Hurley and Ballard had been courting Emily.

  “Honey,” Hurley had said, “saying I’ll make good might sound like big talk. But I see a fresh start, the way I got my first break—skinning mules.”

  Though the well-shaped blonde was tall, she had to look up to meet his eyes. She forgot the bank disaster. Then, as he caught her in his arms, she said more than she had intended. “Don’t go yet—”

  The catch in her voice, the misting of her eyes, and the ardor of her lips told him this was his moment, and that he had won an advantage over Lucky Ballard.

  This had been in Silver Bend, a month ago. Raising a grubstake had been harder than Hurley had realized. Meanwhile, Lucky Ballard would be on the job, smoothly sorry for a girl who had left her home and lived in a boarding house.

  No one had known until after the bank failure that Ballard had gotten out. There had been nothing wrong with the bank; but one night when the vault was packed with cash and securities it had been blown open. Even so, it might have survived, had not the depositors stampeded.

  He had all this in mind, and it drew his attention inward as he stepped into the lobby of the Jefferson House.

  Drawn into himself, Hurley was not prepared to meet the couple leaving the dining room.

  The girl had not put on her gloves. A diamond gleamed from her left hand. She was flushed and gay. Looking past the pair, Hurley saw the champagne bottle in the cooler beside the table they had just left.

  The girl was Emily Crawford. From the grey tailored suit, Hurley judged she was traveling. The man was Lucky Ballard.

  “Well, Ben!”

  Ignoring the man, Hurley snatched the hand Emily had tried to draw from sight. His glance flickered toward the ring, then back to her face. “Not your honeymoon, anyway!” He thrust her aside. Caught off balance, she came near plopping into a chair, but mi
ssed. She landed in a tangle on the floor.

  Hurley, swinging toward Ballard, had gone for his gun. Ballard clawed for his hip pocket. Hurley, only now aware that he had unintentionally floored a woman was gripped by the urge to pick her up. The conflict within him cost him his advantage.

  Ballard’s gun was the first to come into sight.

  And then Saul Epstein, who had followed Hurley, made a darting lunge, catching Hurley just above the knees, knocking him down and pitching him against Ballard before his gun could rise into action.

  A shot smashed into the pigeonholes behind the desk. The other raked the floor.

  The marshal and his deputy ran out of the bar off the lobby. “That mule skinner again! Sam, help me haul this jigger to the hoosegow.”

  Epstein said, “Listen, officer, nobody was hurt. You can’t put him in the calaboose.”

  “The hell I can’t!”

  “Well, I’ll go his bail. He’s got freight to haul.”

  “That’s up to the judge,” the marshal spat, “If he gets off, he’d best haul freight out of this man’s town!”

  Epstein waved as Hurley overtook him at the outskirts of Poplar Junction. Whip cracking, Hurley’s voice boomed as he cursed the jugheads and the eighteen-foot wagon rolled on.

  The second day out, Epstein got his chance to whittle down Hurley’s lead. There were arroyos, which a freighter could not cross. There were dry-lake beds—a hard crust of salt and soda, with a foundation of muck—into which a wagon would sink to the brake blocks. Epstein played the shortcuts as he made for the Amargosa Desert.

  Lips cracked, eyes reddened by alkali dust, Epstein tramped along. Then the air became oppressive, the sky bronze-colored. An unnatural dusk darkened the desert. An icy wind whined across the flats. Raindrops, the size of grapes, plopped down, foretelling the rage of Nature that was poised in the skies overhead.

  Epstein first was tempted by the gully ahead, The undercut bank offered shelter. Instead, he got under his cart. The rain came down, drenching, blinding, choking.

  The dry wash became ankle-deep in water. Some moments later, a six-foot wall of water came down the channel. It was as though a dam had burst.