the Rustlers Of West Fork (1951)

by L'amour, Louis - Hopalong 03

  Mesquite chuckled as he thought of Hopalong leading the Apaches into Sparr's outfit, who were, if anything, worse than the Apaches.

  That was like Hoppy. He was a man who knew how to fight, and when you started anything with him, he went all the way.

  "I think," Johnny Nelson said, "we'll go in and talk to them anyway!"

  Chapter 11

  GUN GHOST OF THE GOLD COUNTRY

  Arnold Soper hesitated. For an instant his anger had been about to get the better of him, but he realized the futility of that. Nor could he think of any diplomatic way in which the two Double y hands could be kept out of the bunkhouse. "Let them alone!" he protested. "Both men are wounded. They need rest."

  "They'll get rest." Mesquite's eyes turned to Soper's, and for an instant the two measured each other. Soper's eyes shifted first and he was furious. "You see," Mesquite added, "Johnny an' me aim to keep up with the news around here. Don't we, Joeyea[*thorn]

  "Uh-huh."

  Johnny Nelson teetered on his boot heels, his eyes hard but smiling as he looked at Soper.

  "We sure do. Figgers to get mighty interestin' aroun' here. An' we sort of figger to stick around," he added, "until Hoppy gets back. If he don't get back, we'll sort of finish what he started comall the way."

  The last three words were uttered with his eyes on Soper, and the smooth-talking front man for Avery Sparr felt a strange queasy feeling inside him. There was something about these men comand Hopalong Cassidy inspired the same feeling-that frightened him. No men he had ever seen seemed more ready for trouble. Inside the bunkhouse he could hear low voices as the two men talked.

  Maybe he was worrying needlessly, and nothing would be asked or mentioned that would reveal his own story to be lies. There were always ways out, anyway, for a clever man.

  "Talk to them if you like," he said carelessly, "but they are merely hands. They don't know anything, but what they suspect is probably plenty. The short one," he added, "is Tony Cuyas, a halfbreed badman from Sonora. The other is Hank Lydon. It was his brother who was killed in that Apache fight."

  "Thanks." Mesquite turned to the door.

  "We'll be seein' you." He opened the door and stepped through, then to the left. Johnny followed. The two men inside the room looked up, and the calm left their faces as they saw the two strangers.

  "Who are you?" Lydon demanded. He was a burly bearded man with cruel eyes.

  "Couple of passin' strangers with some questions."

  Mesquite sized up the two at a glance.

  Followers, not leaders they were, but still as dangerous to cross as a hungry puma with a cub. "We're interested in Injun fightin'. All kinds o' fightin', in fact. We'd like to hear the story of this fight."

  "We ain't talkin'." Lydon was surly. He did not like the looks of either of these men, and their ease put him on edge. It worried him, and Hank Lydon did not like to worry, for he did not like to think. He preferred to act, and usually the circumstances made his actions a matter that called for no thinking or planning.

  "Why not be sociable?" Johnny said easily.

  He dropped to a bunk and began to roll a cigarette. "We want to hear what hap- pened back up there in the mountains. Must be a good yarn. Who shot y"...[*thorn] Cuyas looked at them from his yellow eyes and looked away. His own temper was short, for his wound had bothered him. Neither man was seriously hurt, yet both had lost blood and they had made a killing ride to get back in time. Yet it was Lydon who answered with a question.

  "Who are you? What do you want here, anyway?"

  "Just a couple of hands. We got a friend out there."

  Johnny jerked his head toward the mountains.

  "Feller named Cassidy. Heard of him?" Both men lifted their heads, and Cuyas stopped bathing his wound. They stared at the two. "No," Lydon said, "never heard of him."

  Mesquite laughed, and the sound was unpleasant to Cuyas. He looked suddenly and warily at Mesquite.

  "Don't know heem."

  Cuyas spoke in a low voice, his eyes never leaving Mesquite. "Reckoned you might say that,"

  Mesquite said, "but we figgered we might convince you that talkin' was a good idea. You know you are through here? I mean Sparr an' all their outfit."

  "Through?" Lydon's laugh was ugly. "Don't be a fool! Sparr won't have no trouble holdin' this place. If he does"-Lydon chuckled again-"Soper will smooth it down for him."

  "They work together, huh?" Johnny suggested.

  "What else?" Lydon's smile faded. "You better slope. I don't want no trouble right now."

  "No," Mesquite said softly, "it's you two who'll ride out of here. You'll ride out if you're lucky-if you talk. Otherwise, they can bury you when the coyotes are finished."

  "You talk mighty big," Lydon sneered. "Can you back it up?" "Why, sure!"

  Mesquite came to his feet as gracefully as an uncoiling snake. He stood there, looking down at them, and suddenly all of Hank Lydon's humor was gone and with it much of his truculence. Not a shrewd man, he yet knew danger when he saw it, and now he saw it all too plainly. "What you want to know?" he asked. "No use fightin' over nothin'." "Where's Cassidy?"

  Lydon chuckled again. "Ask me somethin' I know an answer to. He just dropped out o' the world. He left about as much trail most of the time as a snake on a fiat rock, an' then, when we did find one, we ran smack into a big hole in the mountain an had to go down a path that was mostly imagination.

  "At the bottom we found a fire, but when we closed in on it the Apaches was doin likewise.

  There was some scrap, but we come out on top "cept for Jake. He got one first crack out o" the box. While we was fightin', Hopalong dragged it. When we started back, they still hadn't found the new trail."

  Suddenly Johnny lifted his head. He seemed to hear the sound of horses moving, but when he glanced out the window he saw nothing. It was still and quiet, with the snow falling steadily. His thoughts went to Cassidy.

  Their friend was high in the mountains, and the snow up there would be heavier than here, and the air much colder.

  Tonight it would be piercing cold, and if the snow kept up, by dawn the trails would all be impassable.

  For the first time since he had known Cassidy, Johnny Nelson was worried, really and honestly worried, for this time it was not men with whom Hoppy must cope, but the bitter cold of winter in the icy peaks.

  "When you get fixed up," Mesquite said, rising slowly, "pack your duds an' get out. You won't be needed here."

  "You tell me?" Lydon sneered. His courage was returning now, and Cuyas, he noted, had finished bandaging his hand and was standing near the head of his bunk. Hank Lydon knew that under that pillow was a spare gun that Tony always kept for emergencies. This was the first one. The room was still as the fall of snow outside the window. The fire in the box stove crackled slightly. Lydon shifted on the stool where he sat and the wood creaked. The bunks were rumpled, and several old, shabby-looking boots lay around on the floor. In the corner by the potbellied stove there was a stack of stovewood. A few slivers were scattered around and some spilled ashes where the stove had been hastily cleaned out by someone who had not brushed up afterward. On the wall there was an old Sharps buffalo gun, and. both men wore pistols.

  Hank Lydon stared up at Mesquite, his big head deep sunken between his massive shoulders, the muscles of his thighs stretching tight the heavy material of his jeans. Cuyas, stocky and alert, stood at the head of the bunk, his body curiously poised.

  It was that poised alertness which warned Mesquite.

  He did not shift his eyes but kept the two of them in his view. "What's Soper aroun' here?" he asked casually. "Is he boss or is Sparr?"

  "Span." Lydon dropped the word flatly.

  "Soper figgers he's purty big hisself, but he ain't so big as Span. Although," he added, with penetration beyond his usual scope, "if I was Sparr I'd keep an eye on him. That Soper," he added, "ain't a healthy hombre. Span, he'd shoot a man down as soon as look at him.

  Soper, he'd pull the legs
off a fly in private-or mebbe a man, for that matter. He's cold-blooded."

  "Well, we'll drift." Mesquite let his eyes shift from one to the other of the two. "Remember what we told you. Get out! Don't try nothin' fancy, because it will only get you hurt. Get out while the gettin' is good, because the cleanup has started.

  This deal is finished. You got an hour," he said, "so get movin'!" There was, he remembered, a shaving mirror alongside the door. It was right where he could see Cuyas reflected in it as he turned. So with a jerk of his head to Johnny, Mesquite spun on his heel.

  Instantly Cuyas grabbed the gun under the pillow.

  Mesquite had been facing the door when he saw the flash of movement in the mirror. He drew as he turned his body at the hips and fired with the gun flat against his waist. Cuyas took the bullet in the chest with his gun almost level and, sagging at the knees, slowly spilled over on his face. Hank Lydon, his face gray, was frozen in position with his hand on his gun butt, covered by two guns that had sprung seemingly from nowhere. "Want to finish that draw?" Johnny asked pleasantly. "If you do, I'll holster my gun an' we can start from scratch."

  "I had trouble enough." Lydon touched his lips with his tongue. "I'm gettin' out of here. All I want's a chance."

  "You've got it."

  Lydon got to his feet, glancing at Cuyas. Hollow-eyed, he looked back at Mesquite. "That's shootin', mister. That boy, he always did set store by sneak guns. Proctor used that' tell him one would get him killed someday, an' it shore did"

  He got his bedroll and started to the door.

  Outside in the snow he turned to them again.

  "Which way shall I ride?"

  "Suit yoreself," Johnny said; "anyway you like, only if you get in our way again, by purpose or accident, fill your hand an' come shootin' because we don't aim to bother with you again. If you like," he added, "ride to Horse Springs. Tell that outfit that anybody there who cottons to Avery Sparr had better head for a warmer climate before we start "em."

  As Lydon rode off, the two started for the house once more, and then they stopped. The snow was crushed by the hoof-marks of a half-dozen or more horses, horses that had walked by the bunkhouse in the snow and off up the trail. Unknown to them, these were the riders bound for Alma to head off Hopalong. Soper had started them as soon as they appeared. And he himself had mounted and headed north. It was time, he decided, to get his own men on the job. The hideout in Turkey Springs Canyon had served its purpose.

  "Shall we foller them?" Johnny asked doubtfully.

  "Let's find Soper. I want to talk to him some more."

  They started for the house, walking warily, their eyes alert and their hands ready.

  Snow was falling steadily in the mountains, and already Hoppy was having a hard time staying on the trail.

  Only in places did the growth of brush to left and right show its borders, and often that was misleading when some avenue of trees gave off to right or left that could easily have been a trail. They had crossed Willow Creek and were heading through the trees toward a trail that Hopalong believed he could see ahead of them, a switchback trail that climbed through the mountains. The flakes fell steadily, blotting out all the usual landmarks and shrouding everything in a thick mantle of white. In actual distance they had not come far, but the trail was rough, and of necessity they must come slowly, for at times it was possible to lose the trail entirely, and obstructions were hidden beneath the snow.

  The gray of Dick Jordan's beard made him seem even older. He moved his horse alongside Hoppy's. "Sparr won't foller in this," he said. "He'll turn back."

  "What I figger." Hopalong studied the old man's face keenly. The man looked beat, there was no question about that. He was dead tired and in bad shape, yet to stop now meant certain death, not for one alone, but for all.

  "I also figger he won't let it lay like that.

  He'll try to head us off."

  Jordan frowned. "You think so? 0" course he could get a bunch of riders around to Alma if he had the horses-an' he's got em. 11 "Could he get fresh mounts along the way?"

  "He sure could. Half-dozen hangouts for horse thieves an' rustlers along that route. He could get all the horses he would need. Yeah,"

  Dick Jordan agreed, "I think you've figgered it right. I think he'll be waitin' for us, or somebody will, when we come out of the mountains. If we get out." "We'll get out." Hopalong considered.

  "How about Alma? I suppose he has friends there?"

  "Uh-huh. That Eagle Saloon is a tough place. Hangout for outlaws an' every kind of rapscallion in this neck o' the woods. I figger we should have burnt that place over their heads long ago."

  This was high country, for the trail they rode was now nearing nine thousand feet and the horses were laboring heavily, slowed by the ankle-deep snow. Hopalong kept his buckskin moving, and now as never before he appreciated the true worth of the horse.

  Breaking trail was a tough job, but there was a heart in the buckskin, and it walked steadily on, twitching its ears to Hopalong's occasional comments.

  Now the trees were coming down closer to the trail, and at times it was difcult to be sure where it lay.

  All three were cold. Hoppy could judge the cold of the others by his own, for he was tough and used to exposure to the elements in all sorts of weather.

  Nor did the snow give any indication of stopping.

  This was it, he knew. From now on all trails would be blocked, and if they stopped now they would be snowed in for sure. Yet, short of a brief rest, he had no intention of stopping, for he knew better than the others the gravity of their situation.

  His mind, however, was already leaping ahead, trying to foresee what would happen if and when they reached Alma or its vicinity. When he glanced around, he saw behind him two snowcovered figures,. and he drew up. For some time he had been hearing running water, and he knew there must be a still unfrozen stream close by. Glancing around, he found a nest of rocks not far away that appeared to be the source of the sound, and turning off the trail he led the way down to them.

  Dismounting, he helped Pamela break branches from the trees to make a place for her father to sit, then helped him from the saddle. Dick looked at Hopalong grimly. "Hard to be helpless," he said; "been a fighter all my life, an' now when the chips are down I got to be carried like a baby!" "Aw, shut up!" Hopalong said roughly, grinning at him. "You like it, an' you know you do! What would you do if you ran into Sparr right now? He's too much for any Circle J man! Now a Bar 20 puncher, or "most any hand from the Double y, that would be different!"

  "Different? Blazes, Hoppy!" Dick Jordan reacted as Hopalong had believed he would, and was all fire and vinegar in an instant. "You know durned well that outfit o" yours never could stack up with any o' mine! Remember that time we tangled with the Comanches on the Staked Plains? Who pulled Bar 20 out of the soup then?"

  "One time!" Hopalong protested. "Just one time!

  An' after three Bar 20 men had stood off seventy Comanches for two days! You come ridin' up with your whole outfit, an' then you come durned near gettin' yoreselves killed!"

  "That scalp o' yours would have been hanging in some Comanche lodge right now if we hadn't come along!"

  Jordan said.

  Then he simmered down. "O' course you did make a fight of it. I'll admit that!"

  As he talked, Hopalong was working swiftly.

  Breaking lower branches from the trees, he got a fire started and then scouted some good-sized chunks from under a fallen log and some huge slabs of bark.

  When the fire was blazing brightly, Pamela got some water from the creek and started coffee. There was little left, but enough for twice more. Once more, after this.

  Meanwhile, Hopalong got their blankets from their bedrolls and with some rawhide piggin' strings made three capes that could be thrown over their shoulders and drawn around their bodies, being laced through a half-dozen holes with the piggin' strings, and tied.

  Working around through the thick dead grass on the ba
nks of the stream, he found some on the bottom that was dry and untouched by snow. This he brought to the fire, and slipping off Dick Jordan's boots, he put some of the dry grass inside. "Help keep "em warm," he said. "That's an Injun trick."

  "Sometimes I wonder where you picked up all you know, Hoppy," Jordan said. "You always come up with some kind o" trick."

  "Keep my eyes open," Hopalong said, straight-faced. "We on the Bar 20 learned how to do that mighty young. That outfit o' yours never could see much further'n their noses. Not unless it was whisky," he added. "They could smell a barrel o'

  Injun whisky tight far!"

  Hopalong glanced at Pamela. Her lips were red and her cheeks flushed by bending over the fire.

  He grinned at her. "You get prettier all the time," he said. "I think this cold weather is good for you."

  She smiled. "I've been cooped up too long, Hoppy. I needed to get out. Although not like this."

  "Don't worry about it." He shrugged off her obvious doubts. "We'll get through."

  "What would we have done without you?" she wondered.

  "I have been thinking of that as we rode along. It seems so strange, somehow, because I knew you when I was just a child, I thought you'd be older than you are.

  Older-looking, anyway."

  "In this country a man doesn't change much.

  He goes on for years; then all of a sudden he cashes in his checks and that's it."

  He nodded toward the peaks. "You know, in spite of the fact that I wish we were somewhere else, I never saw anything much more beautiful than old Whitewater Baldy there."

  She followed his eyes toward the huge mass of granite that shouldered brutally against the dull gray sky, its mantle of white blazing like a lighted beacon. "It is beautiful," she agreed. "I wish we were seeing it together, Hoppy, and there was no trouble. That Dad wasn't crippled and we weren't having to go so fast. We could enjoy it then."

  They started again within a matter of minutes, but Hopalong had uncovered more of the grass for the horses and they ate a little, and all three drank from the stream. Once mounted, each put on the blanket cape that Hopalong had made for them, drew the laces tight, and tied them. Moving on, they were warmer, but even in that short stop the snow had grown appreciably deeper.