Ralph Compton the Law and the Lawless

by Ralph Compton

  “Listen to you,” Lefty said, and laughed.

  Boyd liked the pair. They were easygoing and a lot alike except in how they looked. Sherm was the lady’s man of the two, tall and broad-shouldered, with blue eyes and black hair. Lefty was shorter and thinner and had buckteeth that made his upper lip bulge.

  “It weren’t no compliment,” Dale said, still raking the countryside with his spyglass. “It was fact. Any hombre who can’t sit a horse has no business nursin’ cows for a livin’.”

  “Ain’t that the truth?” Lefty said.

  Harvey Dale suddenly stiffened and took half a step. “Hold on. There they are. Eight, like we figured.”

  “Can you make out Cestus Calloway?” Deputy Mitchell asked.

  “How would I know what Calloway looks like?” Dale replied. “I’ve never set eyes on the man. And what difference would it make if I could?”

  “I was just askin’,” Mitch said.

  “Are you sure about the count?” Boyd was anxious to learn. Now and then Calloway added to his bunch, and there might have been more of them waiting outside town when the outlaws fanned the breeze.

  “One, two . . . ,” Dale began, then stopped and nodded. “Yep. Eight of the skunks. They’re almost to Alpine Lake.” He lowered his spyglass, the brass gleaming bright in the sunlight. “Could be they’re goin’ to water their horses and rest a spell. This is our chance to gain on them.”

  “Provided we don’t exhaust our own animals,” Boyd cautioned.

  “You’re the law dog,” Dale said. “Do we pussyfoot or take the gamble?”

  “I vote we gamble,” Sherm Bonner said. “Lefty and me can’t be all week at this. We have to be back to the Circle T by the day after tomorrow or the big sugar will skin us alive.”

  “Whatever you decide, Boyd, is fine by me,” Sam Wilson said.

  Boyd made a quick decision. “We ride like hell.”

  Nodding in agreement, Harvey Dale folded his telescope in on itself. “I reckon an hour, no more, and we’ll be there.”

  Mitch cleared his throat to ask, “What do you think the chances are that they’ll surrender without firin’ a shot?”

  Everyone looked at him.

  “What?” Mitch said.

  Dale assumed the lead. His small pinto could move like a mountain goat over the rugged terrain, and soon he was well ahead of them. He looked back once and shook his head as if to suggest they were a sorry bunch of riders.

  Any other time, Boyd would have been amused. Now he was worried. There were eight of them and eight outlaws. Even odds. But some of the outlaws were known killers and had no qualms about adding to their tally. His posse, on the other hand, was made up of amateurs, at least when it came to gunning men down. Mitch, Vogel, Parsons, and Sam had never shot a soul, so far as he knew. Sherm Bonner had shot two or three, but he didn’t know about Lefty. That left Harvey Dale. Boyd had a hunch the old scout had snuffed the wicks of more than a few hostiles, if nothing else. But that didn’t necessarily mean that Dale was in the same class of killer as those with Cestus Calloway.

  No, Boyd told himself, he must be mighty careful not to get them massacred. People claimed that Calloway went out of his way to avoid killing anyone, but that might change if the outlaws were cornered.

  It seemed they had hardly reached the bottom of the ridge when Mitch hollered, “There’s the lake!”

  They were near the south shore. The wind wasn’t blowing and the lake’s surface was so still it made Boyd think of a sheet of glass. Waterfowl were out in the middle, and an osprey winged over the eastern portion in search of fish.

  Dale had stopped to wait for them and was using his spyglass again. He swept the far end and both sides, and swore.

  “Don’t tell me,” Boyd said.

  “I don’t see hide nor hair of them. They must have . . .” Dale stopped and rose in his stirrups. “Hold on. I see them! No. Wait. It’s just horses. Six, seven, eight of them, at the other end. They’re just standin’ there with their heads hangin’. They look plumb wore out.”

  “The outlaws had a relay waitin’,” Mitch said to Boyd, “just like you reckoned.”

  “That’s that, then,” Clell Parsons said. “Our animals are tuckered out too. We can’t chase after fresh ones.”

  “We’ll collect those they left and take them back,” Boyd proposed. They might as well have something to show for their effort. Disappointed, he looped around to the west shore.

  Sam Wilson caught up and made a clucking sound. “Don’t look so glum. You tried your best, and now you can see my sister that much sooner.”

  “I wanted to be the one who brought Calloway to justice,” Boyd said.

  “He’s long gone, him and all his curly wolves,” Sam said. “We won’t get within twenty miles of them now.”

  No sooner were the words out of Sam’s mouth than his horse’s head exploded.

  Chapter 5

  Or so it seemed to Boyd.

  There was a loud fleshy thwack simultaneous with the distant boom of a shot, and the animal’s left eye and part of its forehead burst and flew every which way. The slug cored its brain and the animal pitched forward, causing Sam to yelp in surprise and clutch his saddle horn to keep from being thrown. At the last moment he tried to leap clear, but his leg became caught and the horse fell on top of it, pinning him.

  All this Boyd caught out of the corner of his eye as he reined his own horse toward the trees. He used his spurs, and the chestnut, spooked by the splash of gore and the scent of blood, gave a long bound. “Hunt cover!” he hollered.

  Harvey Dale and the cowboys were already turning their animals, but everyone else was slow to react. Shock had riveted them to their saddles.

  Deputy Mitchell started to haul on his reins just as his horse was struck. Blood and bits of hide showered from its neck, and it whinnied stridently. Mitch used his spurs and his horse took a couple of steps, but the shower of scarlet had become a torrent and its front legs gave out. “Oh hell!” Mitch bawled. Like Sam Wilson, he attempted to push clear and he succeeded, hitting hard on his head and shoulders. His hat fell off and he lay still, apparently dazed.

  Boyd almost went to get him. But no, his animal might be brought down. He reached the pines about the same moment as Dale and the cowhands and they all vaulted off and grabbed their rifles.

  Vogel was almost to cover too.

  Clell Parsons, though, was farther out, having trouble. His zebra dun was terrified and wouldn’t respond to his spurs or the reins. “Move, consarn you! Move!” He had leaned down and raised his hand as if to swat it on the neck when without warning part of his cheek and his nose were separated from his face.

  The boom of the distant shot reached them an instant later.

  “Clell!” Dale shouted.

  The stable owner sprawled half out of his saddle, lifeless, and the zebra dun just stood there, a perfect target for the shooter. The next slug cored its head and it sagged in its tracks.

  Vogel reached the trees. Coming to a stop, he sprang down and slid his hunting rifle from the scabbard.

  Mitch still wasn’t moving, but Sam Wilson was cussing and pushing at his saddle, to no avail.

  Bile rose in Boyd’s gorge. One man dead and three horses down. His posse had become a disaster.

  “Did you see that?” Lefty said. “The polecat shot Parson’s face off.”

  “I think he was going for the horse and hit Parsons by mistake,” Boyd said.

  “The hell you say,” Harvey Dale declared in fury. “Mistake or not, whoever it was will by God pay.”

  Vogel had squatted next to a small pine and was peering around it. “Where’s the shooter?”

  “Careful,” Boyd cautioned. “Don’t show too much of yourself.” Whoever the shooter was, the man was good.

  The blacksmith pressed the Maynard .50 caliber to
his shoulder and put his eye to a scope. “This is a Davison,” he said, referring to the sight. “I’ll see him before he sees me.”

  “Unless he’s using a telescopic sight too,” Boyd warned.

  “He has to be at that range.”

  “Maybe not.” Boyd knew of shooters who made remarkable shots using the sights a rifle came with. “Be careful,” he said again. He didn’t want to lose anyone else.

  “Marshal Cooper?” Sherm Bonner said, and pointed.

  Deputy Mitchell was stirring. Groaning, he raised his head and looked around as if unsure of where he was.

  “Mitch, stay down!” Boyd shouted. He might be wrong about the shooter killing Parsons by mistake. “Play dead.”

  “Play what?” Mitch said confusedly, and gave a start. “Is that Parsons lyin’ there?”

  “Don’t move!” Boyd yelled. “The shooter might go for you.”

  Mitch gazed to the north, and gulped. Laying his head back down, he said, “My horse. My poor, poor horse.”

  Just then Vogel exclaimed, “I see him! At the far end of the lake. Just part of him is showing.”

  Boyd went over and sank to a knee. “Has he seen you?”

  “No. He’s behind a log he’s using for a rest. He has a Sharps, I think. And damn, you were right. He’s not using a scope. That is damn fine shooting.”

  “A man is dead, mister,” Lefty said. “What’s fine about that?”

  “What is the shooter doing?” Boyd said.

  “He has his head up and he’s looking this way,” Vogel said. “I think I can drop him.”

  “You think?”

  “I can only see part of his head and one shoulder. He’s crafty, whoever he is.”

  “Which one do you reckon it is?” Lefty asked. “And do you see any sign of the others?”

  “I don’t know, and no, I don’t,” Vogel said.

  “It might be just the one,” Boyd reasoned. “Calloway left him there to delay us while the rest make their escape.”

  “I have a question,” Sherm Bonner said. He was hunkered by his horse with his hand on his Colt.

  Boyd looked over. “Ask it.”

  “Where did that old scout get to?”

  Startled, Boyd looked around. The puncher was right. Harvey Dale had disappeared.

  • • •

  Dale ran as he hadn’t run in years. He ran as he had run in his younger days when he scouted for the army and went up against the likes of the Sioux and the Arapaho. Folks sometimes said he was spry for his age, and he proved it now by doing what might daunt a man half his age.

  As he ran, Dale fumed. He was mad at himself. In all his years as a scout, he’d never once led a patrol into an ambush. He’d always sniffed out trouble before it struck. But not this time. He’d been overconfident and reckless, and now a good man like Clell Parsons was dead on account of it.

  Dale had liked Parsons. The man let him do pretty much as he pleased so long as he kept the stable clean and the animals fed and groomed. Dale didn’t earn much, but the work wasn’t hard and he’d been content. Now someone else would take over the stable, and who knew how he would be?

  Dale would avenge Parsons. An eye for an eye, that was what the Bible said. He’d heard a preacher say that once, and liked it a lot. Whoever shot Parsons had to pay.

  Dale only hoped the killer hadn’t ridden off.

  His Winchester ’66 in his left hand, he wound through the pines until he was near the north end of the lake and slowed so the shooter wouldn’t hear him.

  Dale had bought his Winchester the year it was first manufactured. Scouts were allowed to use whatever they wanted, and he’d liked the notion of having a repeater. The soldiers had to take whatever the army issued—at the time, single-shot rifles. Dale often reflected that if Custer and his troops had repeaters at the Little Bighorn, things might have turned out differently.

  Called the Yellow Boy, the Winchester ’66 sported a brass receiver. His had a round barrel, not the octagonal, and a saddle ring. It was the prettiest gun he’d ever set eyes on and he wouldn’t part with it for anything.

  Now, molding his other hand to the trigger and the hammer, Dale cat-footed toward the log where he’d seen the shooter.

  It brought back memories of his Injun-fighting days. Of the time he snuck up on a Minneconjou war party that had slain several settlers and blasted three of the warriors before they knew what was happening. And the time he and a bunch of soldiers surrounded a group of Blackfeet who had scalped four trappers.

  Stopping, Dale gave a toss of his head. Now wasn’t the time to be recalling the good old days.

  Crouching, he moved from tree to tree. He glimpsed the horses the outlaws had left behind off to his right, near the lake. As bait, he bitterly realized. And he’d fallen for their ruse.

  That was what getting old did to a man, Dale reflected. He got soft and careless. He made mistakes he’d never have made in his younger days. Well, Dale vowed, never again. He’d learned his lesson.

  A slight sound brought Dale to a stop. Straining his ears, he heard it again. He couldn’t tell what it was, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Flattening, he crawled.

  Dale came to a small blue spruce. Its lowest limbs were a foot and a half off the ground, enough space for him to crawl under and peer out. A tingle of excitement ran through him, and he scarcely breathed.

  Not thirty feet away lay the log. Behind it was the shooter, an older man, like Dale, holding a Sharps, as fine a buffalo gun as was ever made. Dale had used a Sharps himself before he switched to the Yellow Boy, and he fondly remembered how powerful and accurate that old rifle was.

  Dale racked his brain for everything he’d heard about the outlaws. Their leader was Cestus Calloway. That much everybody knew. There was the gun hand, the Attica Kid, who always used a pistol. Mad Dog Hanks was also halfway famous, and there was another one with a cockeye. But which one was this?

  A vague memory bubbled. One of the outlaws was supposed to be an old buffalo hunter. This must be him, Dale reckoned. Absently biting his lip, he concentrated, and suddenly the name came to him. The man’s name was Larner. Ben Larner.

  Well, Mr. Larner, Dale thought, you’re about to meet your Maker.

  Dale wedged the Yellow Boy to his shoulder. At this range he couldn’t miss. Inwardly smiling, he thumbed back the hammer and tensed at the click. But Larner didn’t hear it. Smothering a chuckle of elation, Dale put his cheek to the brass receiver, held his breath to steady his aim, and squeezed the trigger.

  There was another click, and nothing happened.

  Dale looked at his rifle, horrified by his own stupidity. When he’d jumped down from his pinto, he forgot to work the lever to feed a cartridge into the chamber. Something he never would have done in his younger days.

  Dale glanced at Larner, hoping the outlaw hadn’t heard the second click either.

  But Larner had. The old buffalo hunter was swinging the Sharps toward him.

  Scrambling back, Dale flung himself to one side as the Sharps went off. He swore the heavy slug missed his ear by a whisker. Then he was up and running, past several pines to a boulder he dived behind.

  Dale broke out in a sweat. That had been close. Too close. His mouth had gone dry; he had to try twice to swallow.

  He listened for hoofbeats but didn’t hear any. That puzzled him. By rights the outlaw should light a shuck. Why hadn’t he?

  The answer sent another ripple down Dale’s backbone, but this time of apprehension. The old buffalo hunter was doing what hunters did best; Larner was stalking him.

  A lot of men would be scared witless at the prospect, but Dale almost cackled. He hadn’t had this much fun in a coon’s age. Hell, in ten coons’ ages. Sinking onto his belly, he snaked toward a pine with a broad trunk. Once there, he rose to his knees, removed his cavalry hat, and peeked aroun
d.

  The forest was unnaturally still. The shots had silenced the birds and driven the squirrels into their nests.

  Dreading the worst, Dale jacked the Yellow Boy’s lever. The ratchet seemed terribly loud, but that was just his nerves. He peeked out again, and almost lost an eye when the Sharps thundered and the lead struck the trunk and sent sharp slivers flying at his face. Jerking back, Dale snatched his hat and bolted, jamming it on as he went.

  Dale was counting on the fact that a Sharps was a single-shot rifle and it would take a few seconds for Larner to reload. He reached another pine and darted behind it.

  To his surprise, from out of the trees came a laugh.

  “Not bad, you old goat,” Larner called out.

  “Who are you callin’ old?” Dale hollered, and realized the mistake he’d just made. He’d told Larner right where he was, which was probably what Larner wanted him to do.

  “Damn me,” Dale muttered, and broke into another run. Zigzagging madly, he nearly tripped over his own feet when a gully appeared almost at his toes. He had to dig in his heels to keep from falling in.

  Jumping down, Dale hunkered. He removed his hat again and raised his head to see over. Not so much as a leaf moved. Extending the Yellow Boy, he waited. Larner was bound to show himself. He needed to be patient.

  A minute went by. More. Dale was beginning to think he was mistaken and the outlaw had snuck off when he was jolted by a blow to the back of his head that set the world to spinning and flooded him with pain. He was aware of losing his grip on the Yellow Boy, of sliding down and coming to rest doubled over with his cheek in the dirt.

  Larner had clubbed him with the Sharps and now stood with his feet planted wide and a smirk on his face. “Snuck right up on you. Any last words?”

  Dale forced himself to sit up. He felt weak and queasy. Licking his lips, he said, “Go to hell.”

  “You first,” Larner said, and pointed the Sharps.

  At the blast of a shot, Dale winced. There was no pain, nothing. Bewildered, he saw Larner look down at a red spot on his own buckskin shirt.