by John Glasby
At length, they rode over the top of the ridge, through the sword grass and chapparal that lay in their path. Shading his eyes against the glaring sunmash, he stared ahead of him, seeking the antagonists in this gunfight. At first, he could see nothing. Then, in the shadow of one of the uprearing boulders, he caught a glimpse of the flat wagon, drawn a little to one side of the narrow twisting trail. Even as he spotted it, there came another shot, followed by more from somewhere among the boulders. Somebody was down near that wagon, firing at men up in the boulders, he decided instantly. Gigging his mount forward, he rode down the steep slope, feet thrust out straight in the stirrups, right hand jerking the long-barrelled Colt from leather, finger across the trigger.
Rounding a sharply-angled bend, he came in full view of the wagon. The horses still stood in the traces, but they were restless, champing at the bit, ready to lunge forward any second if the firing continued. There was the body of a man lying across the back of the wagon, whether he was dead or merely wounded it was impossible to tell at that distance.
Swiftly, he slid from the saddle, diving for the cover of the rocks and crouched down on his haunches, the gun levelled, seeking some target. There had to be someone near that wagon down there, he mused, although he could see no one. Unless it had been that man and the bushwhackers had finished him. He waited to see if anyone came down out of the hills to check their kill. Nothing stirred among the boulders. Garth knew that he was well screened from view by the brush that grew among the boulders.
Time moved slowly in the dusty, arid draw, but he knew that the killer’s curiosity thought nothing of time and was an urgent thing. Less than thirty seconds later, his sharp-eyed gaze caught sight of the faint movement in the rocks on the far side of the trail. He lifted his head slightly, saw the man move from one concealing shadow to another as he began to work his way down the slope, angling across it slightly so as to bring himself close to the wagon. Garth’s first instinct was to lift his gun and draw a bead on the other, but he knew that the distance was too great for a revolver and his rifle was still in the scabbard near the saddle on his mount. No time to go back for it. If the other continued to move forward, he would soon come within range, and before he got to the wagon. He waited with bated breath. Maybe there were other bushwhackers among those boulders, but as yet, they did not seem keen on showing themselves. Could be they were waiting to see if that hombre on the wagon was really dead, or whether he was merely playing possum, ready to open fire as soon as they showed themselves within range of his gun.
The other seemed to be a big man and he moved slowly and with great caution. He came right to the lip of the overhang less than thirty yards from the wagon, peered down at it. A moment later, so suddenly that it took Garth completely by surprise, a shot rang out and the bushwhacker dropped from sight as the slug hit close beside him, splashing powder from the rock face. So there was someone else down there at the wagon.
He leaned forward, tried to make out who it was, then caught sight of the slight figure lying behind the rear wheel. Even from that distance, he was able to see that it was a woman. The fact struck him with an almost physical violence. Edging forward, he scrambled down among the rocks. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the other figures now, further along the trail, moving forward in an attempt to swing around the girl and take her from the rear. Sliding down on his heels in a cloud of dust and stones, he lunged to one side, loosed off a couple of shots as he came to a standstill.
One of the men, lifting himself up on to his knees to get a better shot at the girl lying behind the wagon, suddenly drew himself up on to his toes, clutching at his shoulder as he did so, dropping the gun in his fist. He fell back out of sight among the rocks. The other two men, a few yards away, turned sharply at this new menace, threw shots across the trail, then turned and fled into the rocks.
Total silence closed down. Very slowly, not sure of the welcome he would get from the girl at the wagon, he got to his feet and made his way down to the trail. From somewhere in the distance, there was the sound of horses moving off among the rocks, further back from the trail, horses being ridden hard. Clearly the bushwhackers, whoever they were, did not relish the idea of tangling with someone who could shoot as well as he could. So long as they had only a man and a girl to contend with, they were quite content to move in.
Now they were doubtless running as fast as they could and would not stop running until they were well away from this place and certain there was no pursuit. There was so great a weight of stillness lying over the area now that his own harsh breathing made a loud sound in the silence. Going down on to the trail he approached the wagon. The girl was on her feet now, facing him and she held the revolver tightly in her slim hand, the barrel pointed straight at him, her finger still on the trigger.
Deliberately, he thrust his own weapon back into its holster, held his hands well away from his sides as he continued to move forward.
‘Better be careful what you do with that gun,’ he said evenly. ‘It might go off if you’ve an itchy trigger finger.’
The girl regarded him stolidly for a long moment, still wary, still unsure of him, then he saw her shoulders slump fractionally, hurried forward and caught her arm as she fell against him.
‘You’re all right now,’ he said quickly. ‘They’ve gone. I guess they won’t be back here in a hurry. But we’d better take a look at him.’ He nodded towards the man slumped over the back of the wagon. ‘Who is he?’
‘My father,’ said the girl, her voice oddly hushed. ‘I think he’s — ’
‘I’ll take a look at him.’ Gently, he urged her towards the seat of the wagon, waited until she was seated, then turned his attention to the grey-haired man. Turning him over, he found the blood stain on the front of his shirt, felt for the pulse. It still beat in the other’s wrist, slowly, but strongly. Tearing the shirt aside, he noticed that the slug had torn across the man’s shoulder. It had made a nasty wound, but it looked worse than it probably was and a quick examination satisfied him that the bullet had merely hit the bone a glancing blow and emerged again. At least, there was no necessity to dig for the slug, he thought gratefully.
‘Is he dead?’ The girl’s quavering voice reached him from the front of the wagon.
‘No, he’s still alive. But I reckon we should get him to a doctor as soon as we can. Where’s the nearest town?’
‘Triple Peaks. That’s where we were heading when those men jumped us. It’s about fifteen miles away to the west.’
‘He should make it all right. Think you can handle the horses or would you like me to drive the wagon? I can hitch my own mount behind.’
‘I think I’d feel better if you’d drive,’ she said in a small voice.
Whistling down his horse, he hitched it to the back of the wagon, checked that the girl’s father was lying as comfortably as possible, then climbed up on to the tongue beside her, taking the reins between his fingers.
They drove slowly along the trail, taking care not to disturb the wounded man any more than possible. Garth was not sure how badly hurt the other really was. He had, like many other men who rode the wide trails, tended broken limbs and patched up wounded men before. But the other was an old man. He could not be expected to survive a bad wound like a younger, fitter man.
‘You got any idea who those dry-gulchers were?’ he asked at length, glancing at the girl out of the comer of his eye.
‘I’m not sure.’ She sounded dubious. For a long moment, she was silent. Then she went on in a low voice: ‘I’m Rosarie Glynn. My father owns one of the ranches outside of Triple Peaks. We left Culver City the day before yesterday on our way back. There’s been talk of outlaws operating in the hills on the edge of the desert. They’ve attacked a couple of banks, held up the stages along this trail, killed almost a dozen men since they began operating about a month ago. I think it must have been them. They’ve been getting stronger and more audacious all the time. If they dare to ride into a town like Triple Peaks in
broad daylight and rob one of the stores there, then they wouldn’t think twice about holding up a wagon along the trail.’
Garth nodded his head slowly. It made sense. But why were these outlaws allowed to get away with it? Was the sheriff in Triple Peaks working in cahoots with them? It was a possibility. He had met up with several crooked sheriffs in the past, knew them for the lowest form of being to walk the earth. Any man who hid behind a law badge and worked with crooks was lower than a rattler’s belly.
‘Who’s the law in Triple Peaks?’ he inquired.
The girl eyed him sharply for a moment, then shrugged her slim shoulders. ‘Sheriff Jessup.’
‘You know what sort of a man he is?’ The meaning behind Garth’s question was perfectly obvious to the girl. The look on her face told him so.
‘If you mean, is he working for these outlaws, then the answer is no. I don’t believe he is.’
‘Yet he doesn’t seem to be doing anything to stop them.’
‘No,’ she mused. ‘But I think it’s simply that he isn’t cut out to be a lawman. This is the first time that anything like this has happened in Triple Peaks for more than a year, before he became sheriff. I know he declined the offer of the job when they first made it. But since there was nobody else around to take it on, he eventually accepted.’
‘I see.’ Garth tried to keep the grimness out of his voice. A weak-kneed man for sheriff. No wonder these outlaws found it so easy to take over the town and operate in this territory. And once they had a start, unmolested by the law, within a little while they would grow too strong for it, when the time came for someone to try to move against them. That was undoubtedly the big danger. Outlawry was a disease that struck at these frontier towns and territories. A canker that infected the area, prevented them from growing as they ought to grow. Unless they were eradicated at the source, before they had a chance to increase in size, it was the devil’s own job to smash the gangs. Their weapons were fear and sudden, unexpected death. No man could really be safe from them. Weak-willed men fell in with them rather than try to face up to them; and even if a man did come along who dared to stand up to them, it was difficult for him to get guns to back up his play.
He thought of the piece of paper in his pocket, bearing the message sent by Wayne Thorpe. Now, he was beginning to see things a little more clearly, could understand the urgency behind that message. He wondered though, whether the outlaws had access to the telegraph office. If they had, and it was more than likely, then they would know of his impending arrival in Triple Peaks and his task and the danger associated with it, would be multiplied tenfold.
Two hours further on, they came within sight of the town. It lay slumbering in the heat haze of afternoon, a town that seemed to be without any sounds at all. It was much too quiet, Garth decided as he drove the wagon along the dusty river of the main street, the sound of the rattling wheels thrown back at them from the wooden buildings on either side.
He halted the wagon in front of the sheriffs office. The door opened and a big, broad-shouldered man came out, paused for a moment on the edge of the plankwalk, then hurried down into the street and came towards them, throwing a quick, suspicious glance at Garth and then switching his gaze to the man laid out on the back of the wagon.
‘What happened to your father, Rosarie?’ he said anxiously.
‘We ran into trouble about fifteen miles out, Sheriff,’ said the girl, climbing down from the tongue of the wagon. She shook her head a little so that the long, corn-coloured curls swung from side to side, catching the last light of the sun, forming a burnished halo about her head. ‘Outlaws. I don’t know how many there were, but we would both have been killed if it hadn’t been for this stranger here.’
The sheriff bent over the girl’s father, then straightened, called to one of the small knot of men gathered on the sidewalk. ‘Get Doc Wheeler. Hurry. Clem has been hurt bad.’
One of the men hurried away, came back a little while later with an oldish man, his hair greying at the temples. He carried a black bag with him, set it down on the corner of the wagon and bent over the wounded man. While he made his examination, the sheriff walked over to where Garth stood near the horses. His eyes were a shade hard as he said: ‘You’re a stranger in these parts, aren’t you, mister?’
‘That’s right,’ replied Garth easily. ‘The name is Martinue — Garth Martinue.’
‘Mind if I ask you why you’re here in Triple Peaks?’
‘I figure that must be pretty obvious. I drove this young lady and her father here to get help. I couldn’t very well leave them stranded out there on the trail. Those outlaws could’ve doubled back and finished them off.’
‘That don’t answer my question, Mr Martinue. I get the feelin’ that you were headed here in the first place before you met up with Rosarie Glynn and her father.’
‘That could well be.’ Garth spoke easily, his tone still pleasant, but a little of the steel beneath the surface was beginning to show through. ‘But if it is, I reckon it’s my own business.’
‘That’s as maybe,’ retorted the other. His face grew hard. ‘But as sheriff here, it’s my duty to make sure that there’s no trouble and — ’
‘It would seem to me from what I’ve heard on the way here that there’s trouble aplenty in Triple Peaks and so far nobody has done anythin’ about it. If I had outlaws operatin’ within a few miles of my town, I’d want to know where their hide-out was and then get a posse ready and go out after them, hunt them down.’
‘You seem to know an awful lot about what’s been happenin’ here for somebody who’s just ridden into the territory.’ The look of suspicion flared up into the lawman’s eyes again and he let his gaze roam over Garth’s face as he stood off a few paces.
‘I make it my business to know what I’m ridin’ into,’ Garth said softly.
‘It could be that you’re ridin’ into a heap of trouble.’ The other lifted his brows a shade. ‘My advice to you is tread carefully so long as you’re in town. We had a stranger ride in a few weeks ago, shortly before all this trouble broke out. Ain’t nobody seen him since.’
‘I’ll watch out for myself,’ Garth said. He turned to where the doctor had straightened up after finishing his examination. ‘How is he, Doc?’
‘He’ll live. It’s a bad flesh wound and he’s lost a lot of blood. Having to bring him here in the wagon all that way didn’t help none. Still, I reckon he ought to be up on his feet in a few weeks as good as new. That shoulder of his is going to be a mite stiff from now on, but it oughtn’t to worry him too much.’ Wheeler turned to a couple of the men standing near the wagon. ‘Lift him down, boys, and carry him along to the surgery. And be careful how you handle him. No sudden movements or you could start that bleeding again.’
Two of the men stepped forward, took the wounded man by the legs and shoulders and lifted him gently from the wagon. The small, interested crowd which had gathered in the street parted to let them through and Doc Wheeler followed close on their heels, carrying his bag in his hand. He vanished into the crowd.
Garth turned to the sheriff. ‘Is there anythin’ more you want to ask me, Sheriff. Or can I go and fix myself up with a room at the hotel?’
Jessup turned his gaze on the other for a long moment, then shrugged. ‘Just so long as you don’t make any trouble, you’re welcome to stay. But I’ll be watchin’ you until I’m sure of you.’
After the other had walked back into the sheriff’s office, the girl touched Garth’s arm, said in a low voice: ‘Don’t pay any heed to him, Garth. It’s just that he’s jumpy. There have been too many things happening these last few weeks and the job seems to be getting on top of him. He’s ready to suspect everybody who rides into town of being in cahoots with the outlaws.’
‘I understand,’ Garth nodded. Going to the rear of the wagon, he unhitched his horse, led him back. ‘Reckon I’ll get my mount bedded down and then get myself a room in the hotel.’
‘I’m sure we’ll meet agai
n, Mr Martinue,’ said the girl, smiling. She held out her hand, her grip warm and friendly. ‘And thank you again for what you did.’
‘It weren’t nothing, Miss Glynn.’ He gave her a lopsided smile. After she had gone, he stood there for a further moment in the middle of the street, but his gaze was not on her retreating figure, but was fixed further in the distance, to where the darkly-hazed mountains were just visible in the deepening gloom of the approaching night and there was something of hardness and a grim determination in his gaze, a look that was almost frightening.
After he had registered in the hotel, he went up to his room on the top floor, washed the dust of the trail from his face and neck, rubbed himself down with a rough towel, then buckled on the heavy gunbelt and went downstairs into the diner. He chose a table set a little distance from the door, ordered a meal, and ate ravenously. He had eaten little since dawn that day and when he had finished his meal and drunk two cups of hot, black coffee, he found that his supper had acted as a stimulant. He turned over in his mind everything that had happened that day, particularly the information he had gleaned from the girl.
He wondered vaguely about Jessup. He had not expected him to be the kind of man he had turned out to be when he had met him face to face. He had not expected this man to be afraid of riding out after the outlaws, nor of being in league with them. Still stranger things had happened and he knew how the promise of wealth could sway a man, even a man sworn to uphold the law.