The Cimarron Kid (A Sam Spur Western Book 5)

by Matt Chisholm

  Suddenly it was all over with the stud fighting the rope and with Spur and Ben being pulled away from the scene of battle. Spur jumped from his horse and shouted for Ball to get on his feet. Dazed the man obeyed. Winter reached the rocks and disappeared from sight.

  Spur said to Ball: “You damn fool.”

  “You goin’ to kill me, Sam?” the man asked.

  “Pick up your wounded and clear out.”

  “You’d best kill me because one day I’m goin’ to cut you down for sure.”

  Sam smiled.

  “Second man to say that to me.”

  Ben had slipped from his horse, the stallion had quieted down a little and the other two horses were holding him. He came up and looked at Ball and said: “You do this once too often, I reckon, Sam. This boy sure is a killer. Let me plant him an’ save you some grief.”

  Angrily, Spur shouted at Ball: “Clear out like I said before I change my mind.”

  Ball caught up Brocius’ and the Kid’s horses, heaved the two groaning men into their saddles and mounted behind the Kid.

  “You haven’t seen the last of me,” he told Spur.

  Spur turned away. Slowly the three men made their way east. The two outlaws watched them go. Ben shook his head sadly. That was twice he had caught his partner out in suicidal softness. It would do no good to explain to Spur that an outlaw only stayed alive through hardness.

  He grinned briefly.

  “Well,” he said, “we got the stud.”

  They mounted and headed back to camp. Spur felt tired, just like he had run a mile. Shooting always did that to him.

  The stallion fought the lines a little as they ran him down the valley, but he seemed on the whole suddenly and strangely reconciled to the ropes. He rolled his eyes and kicked up his heels a little, but that was to be expected. Ben wondered aloud if he had known a saddle, but he could see no sign of one having been worn. Between them they ran him along the flat by the creek and up on to the shoulder of the hill. Spur raised his eyes for sight of the Kid who must be showing some curiosity, if only over the shooting. But there was no sign of him.

  Neither man was surprised to find the camp deserted when they reached it and one of the horses gone.

  Chapter Six

  The Kid was scared and in pain. He didn’t like admitting either weakness to himself, because he had schooled himself to the hardest man in a hard school. The pain, of course, came from the wound in his leg which was throbbing as if it possessed a life of its own. His fear grew out of the fact that he was riding through a country which he didn’t know without a weapon of any kind.

  He was also afraid that Spur or Cuzie Ben would take out after him. And they were seniors in the school which had trained the Kid.

  One other thing scared him. The gunfire that he had heard earlier. It could mean that the two outlaws had been attacked by law enforcement officers. In that case, the Kid himself was in danger.

  In spite of the wound in his leg, he took off north as fast as he could travel. This took him, he knew, back in the direction from which he had come, but it also took him away from that sound of guns. He was on the bay that Cuzie Ben had saddled for him and he was glad that the animal was up to the general standard of the outlaws’ stock. There might not be much style about it, but it hit a steady pace and held it. He went along the valley for nearly ten miles, glancing back every now and then, fearful that he was being followed. At first he had been puzzled by his rescue by the two outlaws, but now the problem had been solved in his mind. Spur and Ben wanted the reward on his head. He could find no other explanation for their behavior. Why else would they have saved him from that posse? Why else would they have taken him with them after they had rid themselves of Sheriff Carmody? The fact that they would be risking their own lives in taking him to the law mystified him, but he dismissed it from his mind.

  Ben had wanted to kill him. Spur wanted to keep him alive—no doubt, he thought there was a better chance of getting the reward if he delivered a live body. A man must have an ulterior motive for doing a thing like that. The idea that Spur could have acted out of generosity never entered his head. To him the world was a place in which dog ate dog. The only law was the survival of the hardest and meanest. And he meant to survive.

  As he rode, he asked himself how he was going to survive. He had enough food to last him for some time, because he had taken most of the food carried by the two outlaws. He had also taken some ammunition from the packs. All he wanted now was a gun. He couldn’t survive without that.

  There had, he heard one of the outlaws say, been cattle range to the east of the cabin. That meant riders. Riders meant guns. He didn’t doubt that he could obtain one. The fact that the sheriff had ridden that way deterred him a little, but he wasn’t going to be scared off by a hick lawman like that one.

  He swung east and climbed the valley wall. By the time he had gained the top, he was tuckered out by the riding. He was still very weak from the wound and his leg was paining him like hell. The fever had abated, but just the same when he came to water, he drank ferociously. He slacked off the horse’s girth and rested a while.

  After about an hour, he thought he’d better move on in case Spur was pushing at his butt, so he tightened girth, climbed into the saddle and headed east.

  “Damn nigh cleaned us outa grub—the little bastard,” Spur said.

  He and Ben looked down at the untidy mess the Kid had left behind him. Saddlebags opened and packs torn apart. Utensils and articles of clothing were scattered all over.

  “I tol’ you an’ tol’ you an’ tol’ you,” Ben said. “We should ought to rid ourselves of that one an’ no mistake. He sure was a nasty kid.”

  “At least he didn’t take the pack-animals.”

  “But he took a fine hoss.”

  Spur built himself a smoke.

  “Put it down to experience,” he said.

  “Lak hell I do, boy,” Ben said with some asperity. “I’m goin’ after that li’l sonovabitch an’ I’m gettin’ that li’l ole hoss back. An’ if I’m as mad as I is right now I’m goin’ to put a coupla dozen holes in his no-good hide.”

  Spur said: “Take it easy, Ben, we got the stud. Call it quits, and ride.”

  “Lak hell I does.”

  They argued, but it didn’t do Spur any good. He knew he’d go along with Ben even if it meant riding back into trouble.

  The Kid had headed out north and there could be trouble aplenty back that way.

  “All right,” he said, “if you’re set on it.”

  They gathered together their scattered gear, packed it on their two animals and set out north, trailing the stud behind them.

  Sheriff Carmody rode into the yard of the Circle 8 toward the tail end of the afternoon more by luck than judgment. Here he found the only man present was the Chinese cook who, seeing a stranger securely tied to his horse, gobbled alarmingly for what seemed to Michael Carmody to be a very long time indeed. The sheriff cursed, prayed, pleaded and threatened at first to no avail. When he felt that he would burst a blood vessel if the damned Chinese didn’t do something to help him, the cook retired to his cookhouse and appeared a moment later with a large butcher knife in his hand.

  At first the terrified lawman thought he was going to have his throat cut, but the cook merely cut him free. He then fled to his cookhouse and peered fearfully out of the doorway.

  Very, very stiffly Carmody climbed down from his horse. He thought he was never going to walk again, but gradually the circulation returned to his legs. He then begged for a drink of water. Having been given the water and finding some of his strength of character and body return to him, he demanded food and was given it.

  It was about this time that the foreman of the ranch and a couple of hands came riding in. They seemed glad to see a new face and told him that they had been up on this god-forsaken range for several months and in that time had seen scarcely anybody. The foreman informed the sheriff that his name was Chuck Lomax. He seemed t
o be a well set-up, self-assured man with real authority. He showed some interest when Carmody told him who he was. He showed some awe when the sheriff told him that he was in the hills after the Cimarron Kid. But he didn’t show much enthusiasm when Carmody asked him for help. Any enthusiasm he might have shown evaporated entirely when Carmody informed him that he was also after Sam Spur and Cuzie Ben.

  Chuck Lomax was too polite to say so, but he indicated that the sheriff was plumb loco to even dream of taking one of those men. To think of taking all three made him certifiable.

  “Hells bells, man,” Carmody exclaimed, “Isn’t there any law in these hills?”

  In reply to that the lank Lomax patted the gun at his hip and declared that was the only law he knew of.

  “All right,” said the indomitable sheriff, “then I deputize you.”

  “I don’t aim to be deputized, sheriff. It’d take an army to bring in those men.”

  “So let’s get us an army,” said Carmody.

  “Where?”

  “There must be other ranges in the hills.”

  “Sure an’ there’s as many outlaws as there’s hired hands. Why, do you know the Ball gang is up here. There ain’t a horse or a cow safe from them. We can’t spare a man.”

  Carmody argued: “It’s your duty, not only to yourself as a citizen, but to your owner. You think your stock’s goin’ to be safe with them three horse-thieves around?”

  One of the hands said: “Mister sheriff, Sam Spur wintered in the hills an’ I guarantee we ain’t lost a single head to him.”

  Lomax showed surprise.

  “You didn’t tell me any thin’ about that, Jim,” he exclaimed.

  “You didn’t ask, boss,” came the reply.

  Carmody argued on. He was a man of some powerful personality and he knew if he could keep talking long enough and hard enough he would make some impression. Finally, Lomax, worn down by the weight of words, declared that he was only the straw boss here; the owner was on the range to the north. He was a law-abiding man and he sure knew his duty. He would ride to the boss and confer with him.

  “We want men aplenty. Is there another owner around here?” Carmody asked.

  Yes, they told him, there was the Box R and the Double C Connected. Carmody said let him have a fresh horse and he’d ride and rustle up some more help. They should know that there were healthy rewards on the heads of all these men. The man who took even one of them wouldn’t have to work for a year. They brightened a little at that.

  The three men ate in the cookhouse, then Lomax saddled a fresh horse and rode off into the night. The sheriff did likewise, heading south. They promised that they would return to the ranch and meet the following day if it were at all possible.

  Chapter Seven

  Tom Ball was rattled and he was mad. He had two wounded men on his hands and he had taken a defeat in the eyes of all his men. When he and the two wounded men returned to their hideout in the hills and the dozen or so men hidden away up there came out to meet them, the bitterness of defeat burned his guts to ashes. Tom Ball had been for some good time a name to reckon with. Men lost their courage when he appeared on the scene; stage guards laid down their shotguns when he stopped a coach; armed guards on railroad trains panicked. Now he came back from a fight in which he had outnumbered the enemy two to one and he had his tail between his legs.

  But there was something more than that. Ball had three passions in life: horses, drink and women—in that order.

  He coveted the red stud and had done for weeks. He had come within an ace of taking him and had had him stolen from right under his nose.

  He aimed to do something about it. Soon.

  The hideout to which he repaired was known throughout the West as the Wolf’s Lair. The general area in which it was to be located was generally known, its exact position was not. Not that it mattered, for there was surely no posse that could be gathered together that was strong enough to take it. It was in an almost inaccessible fold of the hills, its two approaches could have been guarded against an army by two men and no more.

  There were some dozen cabins that made up the homes of this strange outlawed community. As soon as the cry went up that Tom had returned and that he had met trouble, every man there made an appearance. And every woman there, too, for the company of outlaws were not without their home comforts. There were men and women of every description there. There were even two or three children. Wild ragged little buttons.

  The woman who ran to meet Ball was striking and ugly. This was Annie Coleman. Legend had it that she was beautiful and young, but legend, as usual was wrong. She had a superb body and red-gold hair that, when combed, which was seldom, would have been the envy of any woman. Her face and her voice, as they say, didn’t do much for her. Her face was worse than homely and her voice grated like a file on metal. She dressed, rode and, legend said, shot a gun like a man. Only in bed was she all woman and more than one outlaw in the Wolf’s lair could vouch for that. She didn’t belong to Ball, even though he might claim she did, and she made it pretty clear to him frequently. But she often behaved as if he belonged to her. This was because Ball led and she liked to be close to power.

  Not that the outlaws were a coherently led, disciplined body. Any man who was on the run from the law and received general approval was welcome to stay. It was a good recruiting ground for any organizer who wanted willing volunteers for a job. Here he could take the pick of the best guns in the country.

  When Annie Coleman’s wild green eyes had taken in the sight of the two wounded men, she shrieked: “Jesus, Tom, who done this to you?”

  Ball thought of lying and telling some tale about being jumped by untold numbers, but he reckoned soon or late the truth would get out. So he slid from the horse and said: “Sam Spur an’ Cuzie Ben.”

  That they were both names to be reckoned with was shown by the buzz that went up from the crowd.

  “They jumped us,” he explained. “We caught the red stud an’ they was after him. I reckoned on Winter siding me an’ he ran out. Did he come back here?”

  They told him “no” Winter hadn’t shown up and he snarled that he better not because if he did he’d be killed.

  The willing hands of women were helping the two wounded men down from their horses. They were borne away to their cabins. Tom Ball and Annie Coleman walked back to the man’s place. It was a pleasant little place with a small stream running near it. The Mexican girl who did the work around the place followed them in. Ball demanded drink and the girl brought him a bottle and glass. She hovered around in case there was anything else he wanted and he shouted at her to clear out.

  Ball swallowed his drink and, feeling naked without a gun, he walked to a cupboard against the wall of the cabin and found another. He sat at the table, cleaning and oiling it and then loading it. The woman didn’t speak while this was going on. She crossed her legs like a man, fine legs in a man’s pants, and built a smoke, watching the man at the table.

  Finally, he finished his work and slipped the gun into his holster. He tried it for balance once or twice and seemed to be satisfied.

  The woman said: “What you aimin’ to do, Tom?”

  “Nothin,’ why?”

  “You’re aimin’ to do something crazy. You’re mad right through. I know you.”

  “If you know me,” he said, “you know I don’t never do any thin’ crazy. I only play when I hold winnin’ cards.”

  “Are there any winnin’ cards against men like Spur and the nigger?” she demanded.

  That hurt his pride. He glared at her out of eyes that were as wild as her own.

  “They have the stud,” he said.

  “So, it’s just a horse, ain’t it? You have the pick of the country.”

  “You know damn well it ain’t just a horse. Every mustanger in the country’s been after it. I ain’t never seen a wild one like it. Nor never will. I gotta have it, I tell you.”

  “Forget it and forget those two. There’s only grief
in it for you.”

  He stood up and knocked his chair over with the violence of his movement.

  “You think I can’t match them two polecats?”

  “Sure, you can,” she said soothingly.

  “You know that. What’re you tryin’ to prove? You’re tops in this business and everybody knows it.”

  “They won’t know it for long when it gets around them two braced me.”

  “Aw, shucks, forget it, Tom. Come to bed an’ forget it.”

  He looked at her as if he couldn’t believe his ears. He took a long drink from the bottle.

  “I’ll tell you what I’m goin’ to do,” he told her, “I’m goin’ to take every man we have here and hunt them two bastards down. I’m goin’ to kill ’em an’ I’m goin’ to ride that stud back here.”

  She stood up and looked at him pityingly.

  “Count me out,” she said. She walked out.

  He sat at the table and took another drink. He had counted on Annie siding him. She would bring a half-dozen men with her. She had her own coterie. Not a man there would see any material profit in hunting down two reputations like Spur and Cuzie Ben. Men would die and men didn’t stay in the outlaw game to die, they stayed in as often as not because they were shy of work and wanted an easy profit. But they were proud of their manhood and they prided themselves on being reckless fellows. If he could put it over to them as a wild prank, they might bite.

  There came a gentle knock on the door.

  “Come,” Ball said.

  The man who entered was tall and big with it. This was Mig Rawlins, the son of a Texan and a Mexican woman. His face and his speech was Mexican, but his bigness and the way he carried himself was all Anglo. He was a notable hand with a belt-gun and could handle a knife with a dexterity which took the breath.

  If Ball had a friend in the world, it was this man.

  “Siddown,” Ball said, “have a drink.”