The Western Megapack - 25 Classic Western Stories

by Various Writers

  Beyond were more rocky uplifts, then lowhills of sagebrush and scrub timber. Reardon left the road and climbed one of these knobby hills and peered into the darkness. He had a feeling of vast space beyond, a broadening valley, but he could see no lights that would mark the buildings of Monteros Rancho headquarters. He decided to hole up for the night and wait until daylight before running any more risks.

  Reardon hadn’t meant to sleep. But the night was long, and finally he dozed off.

  * * * *

  When he woke, the sun was in his eyes. He washed up at a trickle of water flowing from a cluster of rocks across the ravine, then took his horse over to drink. He saddled the animal, and was about to mount when he heard the sound of riders.

  They appeared from the direction of the road, three of them, following Reardon’s tracks. They rode with rifles across their saddles, and they were not vaqueros. The burly man in the middle looked enough like the dead Jess Hagar to be the brother, Matt. He caught sight of Reardon, and let out a yell. He jerked his horse to a stop, whipped his rifle up, squeezed out a shot.

  Reardon grabbed the rifle off the gray’s saddle and, crouched low, darted for the scant cover of the rocks and brush by the spring. Gunshots crashed, and slugs whined close. Hoofs drummed. Angry voices yelled. Reardon reached his cover, made himself small behind a boulder. He fired a shot that missed but halted the oncoming trio. The riders spread out.

  One disappeared from Reardon’s sight over by the rocky wall on the spring’s side of the ravine. A second swung over into the brush at the opposite side. Matt Hagar dismounted and advanced alongside his horse, using the animal to cover him. All three came on warily, grimly determined. A clammy sweat came out on Reardon. They had him boxed. He might get one, even two of them, but not all three.

  Hagar started the shooting again, this time with a six-gun. Slugs ripped at the bushes, thudded against the rocks and ricocheted wildly. The rider across the ravine began shooting with his saddle gun. Reardon had a glimpse of him, a tough looking youth. Reardon waited until the flurry of shots let up, then fired twice at Matt Hagar and once at the young rider. He was shooting badly. Every shot missed. Hagar now dropped flat in a shallow gully, better cover than the horse, and was patiently waiting. The youth kept working his way along the base of the slope beyond Hagar. The third man remained out of sight, but Reardon knew that he too was coming on along the rock wall.

  Hagar yelled, “Kid, get to shooting! Keep him busy!” The youth fired two fast shots, and again Reardon heard the shriek of lead. “Jake, crowd in on him!” Hagar shouted. “We’ve got him trapped!”

  Reardon flattened himself behind the boulder, peered down his rifle barrel which jutted along the side of the rock. He could afford to waste no more shots. He had little time left. He had to get the Kid first, then Matt Hagar, before the hidden Jake was able to bring his gun to bear.

  He hadn’t much hope.

  But they wouldn’t get him without a fight.

  Reardon had the Kid in his sights now. He squeezed out his shot just as Jake got into shooting position.

  Reardon’s 30-30 cracked, and the Kid’s scream echoed the report. Reardon saw the Kid drop his gun and double over his saddle horn, then he pulled all the way back behind the rock as Hagar’s shots probed for him and Jake’s rifle tried to target him. They fired half a dozen shots, then held their fire. Hagar called, “What do you think, Jake” And Jake answered, “I don’t know.” Across the ravine, riding back the way he had come, the Kid groaned, “I’m shot, I’m shot!”

  Reardon waited, straining to hear Jake approaching, ready to get Hagar as he’d gotten the Kid. He shifted his position slightly, getting to the side of the boulder again, Hagar’s hat was off. Only his bristly black hair, grown low on his brow, and his eyes showed above the rim of the gully. A small target considering the distance. Reardon beaded that narrow brow, his finger curling tighter about the Winchester’s trigger.

  Then he heard a boot scuff rock just beyond the spring.

  Jake was there, not fifty feet away.

  Fear was not only a coward’s weakness. It could come to any man, and Reardon felt it knife through him now. He held his fire, and the shot that ended the taut quiet came, not from Jake’s gun or Hagar’s but from farther away. Jake let out a startled yelp. Matt Hagar bellowed an oath.

  “You hit, Matt?”

  “Damn’ near! That slug knocked dirt in my eyes!”

  “Who fired that shot?”

  “Somebody up in that timber,” Hagar said, and swore bitterly. “A Monteros rider, maybe.”

  Jake said that they’d better get out there, and the words were hardly out of his mouth when the gun in the trees on the west slope of the ravine spoke again. Jake swore, and his boots scurried as he began to run. Reardon, grasping at hope, yelled at Matt Hagar.

  “Throw your gun out, Hagar! You hear?”

  Matt Hagar looked after his retreating partners, glanced in the opposite direction, toward the timber, then tossed his gun out. Reardon left his cover, walked toward the gully, and saw that Jake was now mounted and riding with the wounded Kid. He said, “Come out of there, Hagar.”

  Hagar came from the gully, a bull-like man. His big hands were balled into fists. His ugly face was flushed a dull red. He showed none of the panicky fear Reardon had seen in his brother at the Frisco Bar.

  “All right; you’ve got me,” Hagar growled. “What are you going to do about it—kill me in cold blood?”

  “I killed Jess in self-defense,” Reardon told him. “Plenty of witnesses will back me up on that. If you’ve got any sense, you’ll let this thing end here.”

  “Only one thing’ll end it here,” Hagar retorted. “Your putting a bullet in me.”

  “Ride out, Matt, before I do just that.”

  “I’ll get you, hombre, if it takes a year.”

  “Ride out,” said Reardon.

  * * * *

  The other two had already disappeared, and now Reardon watched Matt Hagar ride out. When Hagar was gone from sight, Reardon turned and gazed at the west slope. A rider came from the timber. The pinto pony carried a woman.

  The closer she came, the more attractive she became.

  She appeared tall. Her hair was a dark shade of blonde. Her eyes were a clear gray. Her features were finely molded. She wore a divided skirt that permitted her to ride astride, and a mannish gray shirt. Her hat hung at her shoulders by its chin strap. There was a rifle on the pinto’s saddle, a fancy Mexican saddle.

  Reardon stepped forward to meet her. “You did that shooting?”

  “Yes.”

  “I owe you my life.”

  “I could see that.”

  Reardon was taken aback by her unfriendliness, and he began to squirm mentally under her steady scrutiny. “I had some trouble in San Alejandro last night,” he said. “The marshal loaned me a horse and helped me get away. I holed up here and fell asleep. Then—”

  The girl said, “I know. I was watching you from sun-up.”

  Reardon squirmed some more in his mind. It made him uncomfortable to know that a girl like this, a startlingly attractive girl, had been watching him while he slept. He said, “I was on my way to Monteros Rancho. My name is Ed Reardon and I—”

  The girl had an annoying way of cutting him off. “So that’s who you are. A Monteros vaquero was in town last night. He rode in late, all excited, with a story that Juan Forbes was in San Alejandro. He said that Juan had killed a man named Jesse Hagar and fled toward Monteros Rancho. I started searching at daybreak.”

  “A crazy idea that I’m Juan Forbes got around town.”

  “I should have known that it wasn’t true.”

  “You’re Juan’s sister, Elena?”

  The girl nodded. She didn’t look very happy. “I received your letter about Juan’s death,” she said tonelessly. “But I hoped for a little while last night....” Her voice trailed away, was silent for a long moment. Then she said, “You were Juan’s friend?”

&nbs
p; “Yes. I’d known him for two years,” Reardon said. “We were pretty close, but Juan never told me about his family until he was dying. Then he regretted not having come home for so long. He asked me to come see his folks, and give you, Elena, his watch.”

  Reardon took the watch from his pocket, gave it to the girl.

  Reardon said, “Juan had received a letter from you some weeks before he died —so he told me at the end. You’d begged him to come home. He planned to come, but he kept putting it off.”

  “And now he’s dead,” Elena said thickly.

  “It was because of the watch that some men in San Alejandro took me for Juan,” Reardon told her. “I told them my name, but they didn’t believe me. Even Pat Newlin thinks I’m Juan Forbes.” He frowned, puzzled. “Doesn’t anybody around here know what Juan looked like?”

  “Juan hadn’t been here since he was twelve years old,” Elena replied. “His father—my father—took Juan away with him after my mother’s death. After a quarrel with my grandfather, Don Luis.”

  “But these people must have known that Juan is dead.”

  “I told no one of your letter.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s easily explained,” Elena said. “My grandfather is very old and sickly. He had no sons of his own, and that isn’t good—for a don of the old blood. He had one daughter, and she married a gringo. Dixon Forbes.” She spoke the name as though it belonged not to her father but to an unimportant stranger. “Dixon Forbes was not all a man should be. But Don Luis always hoped that his grandson, Juan, would one day return. He wanted Juan home to fill his place as master of the hacienda when he passed on. I—I couldn’t bear to tell him that Juan had died.”

  “You mean,” Reardon said, frowning, “that Don Luis is still hoping that Juan will come home?”

  “Yes. And I’m to blame.”

  “If I’d known, I’d have seen to it that Juan did come.”

  “I don’t hold it against Juan,” Elena said tonelessly. “When my—my father left with Juan, he broke all ties with Monteros Rancho. We never heard from either of them again. Six months ago Don Luis employed a lawyer to search for them. The lawyer learned that Dixon Forbes was dead. He learned of Juan’s whereabouts only with difficulty. Juan had no real reason to come home— or even to remember us.” She looked at the watch again. “How did he die, Mr. Reardon?”

  “He was murdered, Elena.”

  “Murdered?” The girl shuddered.

  “By the man I killed in San Alejandro last night—Jess Hagar.”

  Elena looked up, stark fear in her eyes. “They sent him to kill Juan!” she cried.

  “They?” said Reardon. “Who?”

  “The squatter crowd. The Venturilla outfit!”

  “John Morrell’s outfit?”

  “Yes. Venturilla has started a range war with Monteros Rancho,” Elena said shakenly. “That is another reason why Don Luis wanted Juan to come home. He hoped that Juan would be the sort of man who would fight back. That must be why Jess Hagar was sent to kill Juan. Venturilla didn’t want Monteros Rancho led by a young man who would put up a fight. They know that they will win out, with only an old man and a girl standing in their way.” She stared at Ed Reardon, her eyes wide and excited. “Mr. Reardon, you were Juan’s friend. Everyone believes that you are Juan....”

  “Yes?”

  “Would you, if I made it worth your while, be Juan?”

  III

  Fill a dead man’s boots? Ed Reardon was jolted by the idea. He didn’t like it. The girl leaned forward in the saddle, the excited look still on her face. “Will you?” she asked. And added, “With my brother dead, I am Don Luis’s sole heir. Help me save Monteros Rancho, and I’ll pay you whatever you ask—after Don Luis is gone. It will not be long to wait.” Again her voice turned husky. “My grandfather won’t live much longer. You can trust me. The word of the Monteros is good.”

  “How do you know that you can trust me?”

  “Juan trusted you.”

  “My price,” said Reardon, looking her over, “might be more than you’d want to pay.”

  Elena flushed. “I’ll pay,” she said, and looked squarely at him.

  Reardon felt a strange excitement of his own. He’d been a mere cowhand except for a few months of unsuccessful prospecting with Juan. He’d had dreams of one day owning a spread of his own, but all men had such dreams—and they were hazy ones with little chance of becoming reality. Now here was this girl offering him—what? Practically a blank check! And she went with Monteros Rancho. He would be risking his life, without a doubt, but if he lived, he had much more to gain than he’d ever dreamed of possessing. He’d make his price high enough!

  “You’ll do it?” Elena asked, watching his face.

  And she was holding out Juan’s watch to him.

  Reardon nodded. “I’ll do it,” he said, taking the watch.

  They rode south across Monteros range. Grazing cattle in scattered bunches bore the Monteros brand—M. Bands of sheep grazed on low hills to the west. Vaqueros rode in the distance. The miles fell away, and still Reardon saw nothing of the ranch headquarters. He began to view Monteros Rancho with awe.

  It was very old, the girl told Reardon. It had been founded by her great grandfather in 1790, under a land grant from the Spanish Crown. Don Luis had been born there, inheriting the ranch when he was but twenty. He’d held it through the revolution when the Mexicans freed themselves of Spanish rule, and he’d kept it intact when Los Americanos seized New Mexico in ’Forty-six. Don Luis, Elena said proudly, had been a great man in his prime, and even the Apaches had respected him and his hard-riding, straight-shooting vaqueros. The rancho was still its original size except for a portion of its south range which had been given to Dixon Forbes—along with the watch—as a wedding present.

  “The DIX, my father called his ranch,” Elena said. “It was stocked and equipped for him, but he cared more for town life. He was a sporting man. He drank and gambled hard. When he left after my mother’s death, he sold DIX to Arturo Monteros. Arturo is Don Luis’s nephew. He comes from the Sonora branch of the family. He is a man like my father. Dixon Forbes had no right to sell DIX to anyone, for Don Luis meant that it was always to be a part of Montros Rancho. But he accepted Arturo as the new owner, and now, after all these years, that has led to trouble.”

  “How?” asked Reardon, as the girl paused.

  “Arturo Monteros has made some sort of deal with John Morrell and his Venturilla Land and Cattle Company,” Elena replied. “DIX is now owned by Venturilla, and both Arturo Monteros and John Morrell own Venturilla. Part of DIX has been sold to nester-ranchers. With them came the squatters.”

  “Squatters?”

  “Yes. They crossed from the DIX onto Monteros range. Our vaqueros ordered them out, but they were defiant. They threatened to fight. Those squatters were sent in by Venturilla, of course, and they’re actually gunmen—hired by Venturilla. The scheme is simple enough, to seize Monteros range acre by acre.”

  “Why didn’t Don Luis have his vaqueros fight?”

  “He planned to,” Elena said. “But first he tried a peaceful method. He sent for Arturo Monteros and gave him a warning. Arturo is a weakling but no fool. Besides, he’d been primed by John Morrell. He defied Don Luis. He produced a paper—a quit-claim for the DIX—that he said Dixon Forbes had given him at the time he bought the ranch. The signature seemed to be my father’s—but it could be a forgery. If it’s genuine my father . . .” again Elena stumbled over the word— “sold more range than he had any claim to. The quit-claim not only described the boundaries of DIX, it also showed a map. The boundaries of DIX, according to the quit-claim, take in all of Monteros Rancho’s south range!”

  Reardon whistled in astonishment.

  This was a real range steal.

  He asked, “Did your grandfather accept the quit-claim?”

  Elena shook her head. “He threatened to take the dispute to court. Arturo Monteros then warned Don Luis tha
t litigation might lose him all of the rancho. You see the land grant paper for Monteros Rancho has been lost.”

  Reardon swore under his breath.

  “Arturo knew that,” Elena went on. “He pointed out that if there was a law suit, Don Luis would be called upon in court to prove his ownership to the hacienda. Without the paper from the Spanish Crown, Don Luis can’t prove his title to a single acre of the land he holds. He’d be considered a squatter on his own ranch!”

  The girl brightened a little.

  “There’s ranch headquarters,” she said proudly.

  The old haciendas supported many people. Vaqueros married and raised families. So did the sheepherders, the farmers, the workmen, and the servants. In time, the population of a hacienda might grow to many hundred. It was so with Monteros Rancho.

  Beyond the village, where children romped and women gossiped, were barns and other ranch buildings. Dogs and goats roamed about. Peppers hung drying in the sun. A pretty girl drew water from a well. Beyond were tilled fields where farmhands worked. It was a pleasant scene, a peaceful one. The ranch was different from any Ed Reardon had ever known.

  He glanced at Elena, found her watching him intently—hoping, no doubt, that he liked what he saw. He said, “You and Don Luis had to hire somebody to find Juan. How was it that Jess Hagar, the man Venturilla sent to kill him, found him so easily?”

  Elena was disappointed because he said nothing of the ranch. She replied, “I—I don’t know.”

  “The lawyer who located Juan for you. Who is he?”

  “Senor de Baca, of San Alejandro.”

  “Maybe he told the Venturilla crowd of Juan’s whereabouts?”

  Elena considered. “Perhaps,” she said slowly. “But Don Luis has always trusted Senor de Baca. He told the lawyer to speak of Juan to no one.” She smiled. “Don’t you like it?”

  “The ranch?”

  “Yes! I’m beginning to like everything about it.”

  A rider came from the corrals, a gaunt figure of a man in a big sombrero and a gaily-colored serape. He had an Indian-dark face, beady black eyes, a beak of a nose, a traplike mouth. His skin was creased by a thousand seams and myriad lines. A straggly gray mustache drooped past the corners of his mouth. He seemed a century old, but he held himself stiffly erect. He rode a fine sorrel horse. There was a six-shooter at his thigh and a rifle in his saddle scabbard.