“Where have the other men gone?”
“They moseyed out soon after the buryin’. I dunno where they went. Vince an’ some o’ them are in the front room o’ the house.”
“Who is with Vince?”
“Sawtell an’ Lombard an’ the man that talked with Bryant t’other night—Lonergan. They been chewin’ the rag in there ever since Bryant took Mort away.”
Gimlet turned to the huge stove and shoved a pan back from the heat. “Yuh sure yuh won’t eat?” he asked.
Penny felt that food would choke her. She wondered if there were anyone in the world to whom she might turn in confidence and trust.
The door swung open suddenly, and Yuma stood in the opening. The big blond cowboy’s face was grim. He glanced at Gimlet, then the girl.
“Saw yer hoss in the corral,” he explained. “I got tuh ask yuh jest one thing, Miss Penny.”
Penny nodded without speaking. She noticed that Yuma wore two guns, both tied low. His hat was well down on his forehead and he had a leather jacket over his shirt. He seemed to be dressed for a considerable ride. “Jest one thing,” he repeated ponderously.
“Well, what is it?”
“I’m fixin’ tuh pull stakes,” the cowboy said. “Yuh don’t know me very well, an’ yuh got no reason tuh trust me exceptin’ that I tell yuh I’m on the level. I know what I’m sayin’ will sound crazy loco an’ yuh won’t pay no attention tuh it, but I’m wantin’ tuh take you intuh Red Oak an’ see yuh outen this Hell Basin. They’s folks there that’d make yuh right tuh home. You c’d teach school if yuh wanted tuh. Will you leave right now?”
“Of course not!” retorted Penny.
Yuma nodded slowly. “That’s what I figgered. I’ll be there, though, if ever yuh need me.”
Penny could never know how Yuma had steeled himself to make the extravagant suggestion. The cowboy knew there wasn’t a one-in-a-thousand chance that Penny would agree, and when he saw the scornful look, he had no more to say, no argument to put forth. He had made his request and it had been turned down. His simple and straightforward way of thinking hadn’t grasped the thing in the same way that Penny did. He knew the girl was in a dangerous place and wanted to take her from it, make her safe. She refused to go. That was all there was to it.
The door closed, and Penny was about to voice her indignation, but Gimlet spoke first.
The old man said, more soberly than he’d spoken before, “Miss Penny, yuh should o’ gone.”
“Why, the nerve of that crazy cowboy! I don’t even know his name. He’s been here only a short time; he’s fought twice with Uncle Bryant, and told me what he thought of the only man in the world I ever cared for, my uncle. And now he expects me to leave home and go off to Red Oak teaching school! Leave here tonight! With him! It’s the most ridiculous outlandish nonsense I—”
Penny stopped for breath.
Gimlet said again, “Yuh should o’ gone.”
“I should, huh!” retorted Penny. “I’d have to be gagged and hog-tied to go with that crazy wrangler, and even then I’d fight every inch of the way.” She turned abruptly and pushed through the door into the living quarters of the house.
Gimlet blinked when the door slammed, almost in his face. He fingered his mustache reflectively and h’mmm’d through his knobby nose. “Gagged an’ hawg-tied, eh,” he muttered. “Keeee-ripes, but mebbe that’s a good idee.” He hurried across the kitchen in a busybody sort of stride and followed Yuma into the darkness.
Penny hoped to get upstairs and to her bedroom without having to talk any further. Her mental state was in the lowest depth of despondency she’d ever known. It seemed that the more she learned the more futile it became to look ahead to happiness in Bryant’s Basin. Her nerves felt drawn to a tension that threatened to snap them like catgut drawn too tightly on a violin. It seemed as if nothing that could happen now made a great deal of difference. She turned a corner of the hall and stopped. At the foot of the stairs stood Vince Cavendish.
At the sight of his cousin, Vince’s shoulders seemed to droop, and his eyes assumed a woebegone expression that was something new. He advanced to the girl and said, “God knows what’s goin’ tuh happen to us, Cousin.”
Penny had never heard Vince speak in that sort of tone. She looked at him suspiciously, wondering what was behind the beaten manner that was like a plea for sympathy. She moved her hand behind her as Vince sought to take it in his own.
“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded. “You act like a sick calf.”
“Double-crossed,” Vince said hollowly. “Double-crossed by Uncle Bryant. He’s sold the lot of us out.”
Penny recalled some of the things Gimlet had told her. “How?” she asked.
“I already signed,” said Vince. “The men ’re upstairs now, gettin’ Jeb’s name on the paper, an’ they’ll get yours when they come down.”
“My name to what paper?”
“One that Bryant had drawed up,” went on Vince in a melancholy voice. “We gotta sign away any claim we might have on the ranch as his heirs. He wants tuh leave it all tuh someone else.”
“Who?”
Vince shook his head. “Dunno.”
“Why didn’t Uncle Bryant tell us to sign the agreement, or whatever it is?”
“Left it tuh some o’ the men tuh handle. He’s gone in tuh Red Oak with Mort. Reckon they’re waitin’ there fer the boys tuh git the paper signed an’ bring it tuh them there.”
“I’ll not sign a thing until I talk to him,” said Penny flatly, “and in the meantime, I’m going to bed.”
Vince shook his head slowly. “Yuh can’t.”
“Who’s going to stop me?”
“Sawtell an’ Lombard an’ Lonergan will be done with Jeb in a few minutes. They’ll see that you sign somehow.”
Penny turned to go upstairs, but Sawtell’s stocky figure appeared at the top of the flight. His voice was soft and smooth to match the bland expression of his wide face.
“Miss Cavendish,” he said as he started down the stairs, “I’m glad you’re back. We’ve something to talk about.”
“You’ve nothing to talk about with me,” the girl said to the descending man. “Any business you have for Uncle Bryant can wait until he gets back here.”
Sawtell smiled. “I guess you don’t understand. He won’t be back here until we take some documents to him with your name and the names of your cousins signed to them.” He halted at the bottom of the flight, and took a folded paper, covered with close writing, from his pocket. “Shall we go into the other room?” he said.
“You can do what you want, I’m going to bed,” retorted the girl, starting once more.
Sawtell gripped her arm.
“Let go of me!”
“I don’t want to use any harsh methods, Miss Cavendish,” Sawtell said with his smile gone, and an impatient edge to his voice. “But I promise you, you’re going to sign the agreement so we can start for town as soon as possible.”
Penny jerked her arm free. She felt panicky, helpless, but dared not show it. Her gun was still on the belt about her waist, but the cartridges it had held were somewhere in the brush on Thunder Mountain. She was determined to get to her room, bar the door, and stay there until her uncle came home. No matter what Bryant did, she knew that he would let nothing serious happen to her. It was incredible that he’d left instructions, such as Vince had told her about, with men like Sawtell and Lombard. She wondered about Lombard and Lonergan. Gimlet had said they were here in the house. Upstairs? It was quite possible.
The girl looked toward the front door, then at Sawtell.
“There’s no use putting us all to a lot of extra trouble,” Sawtell told her. “You’ll only make it harder for yourself.”
“He’s right,” put in Vince, in a resigned voice. “They ain’t no use puttin’ off the signin’
o’ that paper. Might as well do it an’ git it done with.”
Penny’s jaw was firm. “I won’t do anything until I talk to Uncle Bryant.”
Sawtell nodded slowly. “All right then, we’ll have to bring Jeb down here.” He called curt orders up the stairs, and in a moment Jeb, struggling between Lonergan and Lombard, was practically carried down the stairs. His eyes were wide and staring, and his lean face white with terror.
“Do what they want,” he cried to the girl. “No matter what it is, you sign it like what I done. If yuh don’t they’ll brand me with a poker.”
“Take him to the fireplace,” ordered Sawtell, “put some ropes around him, then come back for Vince. This girl will do what Bryant says, or she’ll see slow murder, with a lot of pain.”
“No, no,” cried Vince, “not me!”
As if by magic a gun appeared in Sawtell’s hand.
“You,” he said, “as well as Jeb.”
Penny watched the wide-eyed Jeb and the cringing, wincing Vince being dragged, howling, to the fireplace, where Lombard and Lonergan tossed ropes about them. The two were jerked off their feet and stretched on the floor, and more ropes looped about their ankles made them helpless. Sawtell, gun still in hand, watched the procedure, unmoved and expressionless. Lonergan’s black eyes reflected the leaping flames when he faced Sawtell. His black mustache, so carefully brushed and tapered, seemed to twitch with his eagerness to make the next move.
Sawtell nodded, and the former gambler grabbed the poker in lean fingers and shoved it deep among the red-hot coals. Stark terror from their souls showed in the eyes of the captured men. Vince drooled supplications for mercy, begging Penny to sign Bryant’s agreement and save him from the torture of the heated iron. Jeb wailed conglomerate quotations, misquoted, from the Scriptures.
Sawtell approached Penelope. “You have a few minutes to think it over,” he said, “while the iron gets red-hot. Have you ever heard a man scream with the pain of being branded”—he paused, lowered his voice, and added “—in the eyes?”
CHAPTER XVI
ONE-EYE SEES DEATH
The Lone Ranger stood close to his horse at the edge of the Basin where thick foliage marked the beginning of the rise of Thunder Mountain. He strained his eyes and ears to detect what he could in the Basin. Motionless and tense, the masked man waited like a hunter that tried to catch a scent from a wind that held its breath. He heard the usual night sounds of cattle, katydids, and frogs. There was an occasional call from a creature of the forest that rose behind him. Nothing more.
On the downward path, the masked man had met no one. He had dismounted on several occasions to examine the trail by matchlight, and near the bottom, where it was overgrown with weeds, he had lighted a candle to inspect it further. He found that many head of cattle had traveled where the path was smooth, but the beef had been fanned out in many directions near the bottom of the mountain and driven into the Basin at several points. He decided that this had been done so that a path would not be seen from the Basin itself.
The Lone Ranger guided Silver back among the trees where the white coat wouldn’t be so obvious if someone rode near. He whispered softly, then left the horse untethered.
He paused to make sure that his mask was snugly in place. It had become so much a part of him that he couldn’t be sure of its presence unless he felt it with his hand. When Tonto had, at first, suggested wearing the mask all the time, he had thought it a bit dramatic, perhaps even silly, but consideration made him realize that he already was hampered by the determination not to shoot to kill, by great odds, and by the weakness of his wounds and recent fever. He might have to fight, to rope and shoot, and the mask must be no handicap. He checked his guns, making sure that they were fully loaded by replacing the shell that had been used to disarm Rangoon. Then he was ready.
An experienced black cat stalking a nervous bird could be no more quiet than was the Lone Ranger as he moved across the Basin. His clothing had no flapping superfluities; he wore no jingling spurs; his guns were tied down so that the holsters could not slap his legs. Boots oiled to preclude the slightest possibility of any squeaking leather, he moved swiftly and surely toward the buildings of the ranch. He saw the house and, not far from it, the row of lighted squares that marked the bunkhouse.
Halfway to the buildings, the Lone Ranger froze. He wondered if his eyes were playing tricks, or if he actually had seen someone, or something, move at one end of the bunkhouse. Now he saw a moving figure in the beam of light that slanted from a rear window. In an instant, whatever he saw was obscured by the darkness. He glanced over his shoulder. Silver was well out of sight. His own dark clothing would be barely visible unless someone were quite close to him.
Then he heard the sound of hoofs. A horse and rider appeared as a vague shadow against the lighted bunkhouse windows. The masked man dropped flat on his stomach, hugging the ground as closely as possible. The rider was coming straight toward him.
He drew a pistol, holding it in readiness if he should be seen. He knew that his hat was light, and might attract attention, but he dared not move it. He felt the ground tremble with the beat of hoofs. He heard the crack of a quirt, cruelly applied, and a man’s husky voice. Now the rider was almost upon him, without slackening his speed. The racing horse looked tremendous as it passed within twenty feet of the Lone Ranger. It was impossible to tell who was in the saddle. All details were shrouded by the darkness, but whoever that horseman was, he was in a hurry. He swept across the Basin toward the foot of Thunder Mountain, and the last the masked man saw was the barely perceptible shadow breaking through the underbrush that hid the uphill trail.
The Lone Ranger presently rose to his feet, waited several seconds, and then moved ahead again. This time his destination was the bunkhouse. He could call on Bryant and Penelope later. First, he would investigate to learn, if possible, the reason for the unknown rider’s sudden departure.
There was no sound from within the bunkhouse. The masked man advanced toward the side of the long and rather narrow one-story building. The rear, from which the unknown rider had started, was on his right, the front of the building on his left. He could see that a door which opened out was wide, but from his point of view the Lone Ranger couldn’t see the inside of the place.
He could hear something going on inside the ranch house, a couple of hundred feet away, but couldn’t distinguish the sounds clearly enough to know what they might mean. “Go there,” he muttered, “later on.”
With increasing caution, he approached the objective until his back was pressed close to the slab side of the bunkhouse at the corner between the lighted windows and the open door. Still there was no sound inside. His gun in readiness, he rounded the corner and looked in the door. He saw a well-lighted room. Double-deck bunks lined each of the side walls, divided by a narrow aisle. In the front part of the room there was one large table, and several chairs. At least twenty men slept here, but now there was no one in sight.
The table had held a poker game which seemed to have been interrupted suddenly. Freshly dealt cards lay face down on the table as they had fallen, before the chairs of the players. The room was littered with battered pictures, extra boots, blanket rolls, and other paraphernalia that would naturally be accumulated by those who slept there. The Lone Ranger stepped inside and drew the door shut behind him.
At the poker table he paused and examined a few of the cards. Riffling through them he came across two aces. He held these cards close to a coal-oil lamp and studied their backs. In one corner, he found a barely discernible indentation that might have been made by a fingernail. He nodded slowly.
“Looks like it might be Slick Lonergan,” he mused. Slick hadn’t been seen in any of his familiar haunts since the time he had disappeared before a trial in which he was to be questioned about a murder. The Lone Ranger knew Lonergan’s entire background; a crooked gambler, a crafty lawyer, and a shrewd sch
emer, who should have been jailed long ago, but who had repeatedly found loopholes that served as ratholes for him to slip through and remain free.
Leaving the table, the Lone Ranger began a quick but systematic search of the building. He moved down the aisle, studying the possessions near each bunk. He found a handbill that had Rangoon’s picture on it, but the name at the time of its printing was Abe Larkin. Larkin apparently hadn’t taken any pains to hide the fact that he was wanted by the law.
Once he thought he heard a faint, low moan from somewhere close at hand. He stood attentive, but the sound was not repeated. He continued in his search, oppressed by a somewhat guilty feeling as a prowler and an unexplainable sensation that there was someone else in the bunkhouse with him.
He studied two more bunks and then heard the moan again. This time it was unmistakable. The Lone Ranger hurried to the far end of the bunkhouse, and there, in the lower bunk on his right, he found a man unconscious. The window over the head of the still form was open. It was outside this window that the unknown rider had been first seen.
The unconscious man—the Lone Ranger could see in the dim light that he was old—was shadowed by the shelf-like bunk of the second tier. The Lone Ranger unhooked a lamp that swung from the ceiling and placed it so that the light fell across the bald head, which lay in a widening pool of red. He jerked his bandanna from a pocket and soused it in a near-by water pitcher; then he bathed the old fellow’s face. A tremulous soft sob broke through the white mustache. The eyes of the wounded man fluttered slightly, then stared up. There was an empty socket where the left eye should have been, but the other eye was bright with pain.
“Take it easy,” the Lone Ranger whispered. “I’m going to have a look at that wound and see what we can do for you. Don’t try to speak just yet—wait a little.”
He turned the old man gently to his side and saw the handle of a knife protruding from high up on one shoulder. The blade was out of sight. He didn’t touch the knife—there was no use. The wound was fatal; Gimlet at best had only a few minutes.
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