She lashed out at him, striking him hard across the mouth. Dave drew her close. “I had nothing to do with those two killings. You must believe me.”
Cass Simmons came to the door. “Look out,” he said in a low voice, “Mack Muir just came into the store,”
Dave stepped back. “Don’t say anything about me to him, Leslie.”
“Why not? He’s a friend. You said you were innocent.”
“I have no friends.” Dave stepped behind a projecting wall cabinet. Mack Muir came into the office and closed the door behind him. “One of the clerks said you were back here, Leslie.”
“I’m looking at some patterns.”
“I haven’t had a chance to talk with you. Why won’t you let me come and see you?”
She turned quickly. “I never stopped you.”
“That’s not what Hollis says.”
“I never told him I wouldn’t see you!”
Muir flushed. “Then it must be that damned two-gun Vidal that told him to tell me! He takes too much on himself.” He came close to Leslie. “I could have helped you more than he has.”
“I lost cattle when you were helping me. Two of your men were killed. Since Jesse has been foreman we’ve managed to keep what we have.”
Muir laughed. “You credit Vidal with that? I still think Yeamans has something to do with the rustling. There hasn’t been much of it since he disappeared.”
“He has his faults but he’s no rustler.”
“Why do you defend him? Why did you hire Vidal? I was willing to share your troubles, to protect you. Your father always wanted us to get married.”
Cass Simmons opened the door. “Monte is here, Leslie.” He glanced at the cabinet behind which Dave was standing.
Muir turned to the storekeeper. “I’ve been telling Leslie she should have worked with me instead of drifters like Yeamans and Vidal. What do you think, Cass?”
Simmons shrugged. “Yeamans was a good man.”
“Him? A murderer?”
“I only met him once, Mack. I still don’t think he’s a killer.”
“Why are you defending him?”
Simmons tilted his head to one side. “Why? Because I didn’t see him kill anyone.”
“That’s proof?”
“Listen, Mack: I wasn’t there when Slim Edwards was wounded, and I didn’t see Charlie Mitchell get it either, but when it comes to taking the word of men like Shorty Ganoe and Mick Ochoa, I’d stick with Yeamans any day.”
“Monte Hollis said Dave shot at Slim.”
Cass snorted. “Him? He’s scared to death of Vidal. He’d say anything Vidal told him to.”
Leslie walked to the door. “I’m leaving,” she said quietly. “Maybe Cass is right. I don’t know. I do know that the men I have at the Double W are protecting my property. I intend to keep them working for me!” She left the office.
Muir lit a cigar and looked at Cass. “Why are you actually backing Yeamans?” he said.
“I said I never seen him kill anyone.”
Muir blew out the match. “You’ve never liked me, have you, Cass?”
Simmons shifted his feet. “I’ve known men I liked a lot more.”
“There are times when you act damned mysterious. What are you hiding?”
Simmons pointed to the door. “Get out,” he said quietly. “Vamoose! You’ve pestered that girl a long time and now you’re starting in on me. I’ve got work to do. Vamoose!”
Muir stepped in close and gripped Cass by the front of his long apron. “Damn you! I bet you’ve helped turn her against me!”
“Let go of me! You can’t bully me, Muir!”
Muir slapped Cass hard across the face. Simmons struck out with a bony fist and hit Muir over the right eye. “Damn you!” grated the redhead. He let go of the shirt and sledged Cass backed against the cabinet behind which Dave was standing. Dave stepped out. “That’s enough, Muir,” he said. “Unless you want a little tougher fight on your hands.”
Muir jumped back, dropping the cigar from his mouth. “Yeamans! You were here all the time!”
“Get out,” said Dave.
“Maybe you’d like a taste of what I gave Cass?”
Cass wiped the blood from his chin. “Try it,” he said. He’ll rawhide you good.”
Muir went into a crouch. His right hand slid inside his coat and whipped out, cocking a short-barreled Colt. “Don’t move,” he warned. “Bart Edrick will be glad to see you, Yeamans.”
Dave leaned against the wall. “So? I didn’t think you’d do a good turn for Edrick.”
“There’s a reward out for you.”
Simmons nodded. “Yeh. But just put up that cutter, Muir. You won’t turn Dave in. You’ll get out of Deep Spring and forget you ever saw him here.”
“Yeh?”
Cass leveled a long forefinger at Muir. “I say Dave never shot Edwards nor killed Mitchell. I ain’t the only one around here that thinks so either. People around here are getting a belly-full of the Edricks and their type. One of these days they’ll pay for what they done. You aim to stay in this country. You think people will forget what you did if you turn Dave in?”
Muir looked back and forth between the two of them. “You’re bluffing, Simmons.”
“Yeh? What about Leslie Waite? She likes Dave. Supposing you turn him in and he gets a rope or a bullet? What little chance you got with her now would be shot. Put up that gun, you fool! Get out of here and keep your mouth shut!”
Muir hesitated. Cass had set him to thinking. He lowered the stingy gun. “All right,” he said. “I ain’t one to condemn a man.” He left the office.
Cass turned to Dave. “Pull leather,” he said. “The town is full of Lazy E men. They’re gettin’ likkered up. Dan Edrick is in the Star of the West playing with a noose. They’re looking for you.”
Dave doused the light. “Someone took the message I left at the bridge.”
“For God’s sake! Who took it?”
“Damned if I know. Mort told me.”
“Lay low for awhile until I can talk to Mort. I wish he’d come in and report.”
Dave stepped out into the darkness of the alleyway. The door closed behind him. He reached the end of the next building before some subtle sense seemed to warn him. He stopped in a doorway. He could hear little above the rushing of the creek. A drunken shout carried to him on the wind. He placed his hand on his Starr and moved on. He turned. Someone had moved in the darkness behind him.
A man stepped out into a lighter area. “There he is!” he yelled. A pistol spat flame. Dave darted around a corner. A gun flashed fifty feet from him. The slug smashed into the wall inches from his head. He dropped flat and rolled over to the edge of the creek, drawing and cocking the big Starr.
“Damn him!” a familiar voice shouted from the shadows. “He can’t have gone very far!” It was Shorty Ganoe.
Dave slid below the edge of the creek bank and lay with his legs in the cold water. Boots slapped the hard earth. Two men rushed toward him. Dave fired twice over their heads. They broke for cover. Dave crawled over the rough stones of the bank ripping his knees. A gun spoke from a doorway and Dave’s slug crossed the path of the other missile, striking the wood of a building. Guns rattled farther down the bank. Dave crawled out of the cold water. A slug plucked at his hat brim. He reached a doorway and backed into it. Feet thudded against the earth. A man stopped in front of Dave, holding a pistol, warily looking up and down the street.
Dave reached out with his left arm and quickly encircled the thick neck, ramming the muzzle of his sixshooter into the man’s back. “Quiet,” he said, “or I’ll break your spine with lead.”
“For Christ’s sake,” the man choked out. “Don’t shoot, Yeamans!” It was Dan Edrick.
Dave screwed the muzzle in tight. “Call out to them,” he ordered. “Tell them I’ll kill you before they can move a foot. Quickly now! You and I are going to take a little pasear.” Dave eased his throttling hold.
“You Laz
y E men!” roared Dan. “Hold your fire! He’s got me cold-decked!”
“Break away, Boss!” yelled Shorty. “Give us a shot, Dan!”
“Goddamn you! Hold your fire! He’ll kill me!”
Dave shoved the big man out into the open. He pushed him toward the end of the building. “Drop your pistol,” he said.
Edrick dropped the sixgun. “Don’t shoot,” he husked.
“I hear you had a rope ready for me.”
“You killed two of my boys.”
“I had nothing to do with it, Edrick.”
“Sho? You aim to kill me too?”
Dave shoved him into a deep doorway. A horse was tethered ten feet away. “No,” he said. “I’m no killer and never was. But I’ve got half a mind to live up to my reputation.”
“How’d you get mixed up in this anyway?”
“I cut John Waite down, Edrick. You’re a handy man with a rope. How does it feel to have a cocked .44 in the middle of your back? One squeeze of my finger and you’ll join John Waite.”
“Before God, I had nothing to do with it! I liked John.”
“Yeh. You liked his cows and ranch better though.”
“Sure. Sure. I liked the Double W. But I never strung him up.”
“You lie!”
Boots grated down the alleyway. “Stay back, men!” called Edrick. “He’ll kill me!”
Dave eyed the horse. It was a long shot but he might make a break for it.
“Surrender,” said Dan hoarsely. “I’ll see that you get a fair deal.”
“Shut up!”
“Damn you! Shoot then! Cut another notch on your sixgun! I had nothing to do with John’s death!”
Dave peered out of the doorway. Two men were in the shadows at the end of the building. Dave stepped back and swung hard with the Starr, buffaloing Dan Edrick just above his right ear. Dan crumpled to the ground. Dave eased down toward the horse, untying the reins. He slapped it hard on the rump with his hat and then dropped below the edge of the creek bank. The horse set off with drumming hoofs.
“There he goes!” yelled Shorty.
Pistols blasted orange flame.
Dave cursed as the cold water soaked his ragged trousers.
“Get the hosses!” yelled Shorty. “I’ll look for Dan.”
Dave worked back into the cold water. The stream was about four feet deep. He let the swift current work him down to a cluster of willows on the far bank. He crawled from the water shivering like a scared pup. His gimp leg ached like the very devil. He hobbled along until he found Brazos. “How the hell did Edrick know I was in town?” he bitterly asked himself. A hard thought struck him. “Leslie? No. It couldn’t be!” He spat and began to reload his sixshooter.
Brazos whinnied as Dave mounted him. Dave headed west along the south bank of the creek through the dark timber. The fat was in the fire now, and hell was to pay.
eleven
THERE WAS A SPIT OF RAIN IN THE WIND as Dave led Brazos through the shintangle brush and scrub trees to the place where he had cached his gear. Now and then a shaft of forked lightning lanced through the darkness illuminating with an eerie glow the stark cliffs above Dave. He passed a slope crested with taller trees and caught a faint movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned swiftly, slapped Brazos on the rump and jerked his Spencer free from its sheath. Dave stepped behind a chest-high boulder and rested the repeater atop it. It was utterly dark. Rain began to patter on the dry leaves banked against the boulder. Dave wet his lips and slit his eyes, trying to probe the Stygian darkness. There was a darker shadow in amongst the trees. Dave dropped to his knees and skirted the boulder, inching along until he was close to the swaying trees.
The rain was steadier now. Dave got to his feet as thunder rolled like the beating of oxhide drums and lightning exploded to the south. Dave looked up into the staring contorted face of Mort Hastings. The stock detective’s body hung from a stout branch, his feet a few inches from the ground. Then the lightning died away leaving Dave sick to his gut with the sour taste of bile flooding his throat. He leaned his Spencer against a tree and slowly drew out his sheath knife. He cut the body down, catching it as it fell. He whistled for Brazos. The claybank came up the slope. Brazos shied and blowed as he caught the odor of the dead man. Dave spoke to him quietly and then lifted Mort’s body across the saddle, lashing it swiftly. He stumbled over something and picked up Mort’s Sharps. The barrel had been smashed across a rock. Dave led Brazos away from the place of execution as the rain sluiced steadily down.
There was a cave not far from where Dave had cached his gear. He untied the body and dragged it into the cave, covering it with his tarp. Dave sat down and rolled a smoke, listening to the steady patter of the rain. Someone had found out who Hastings actually was. Dave had learned nothing from the agent. He was right back where he had started. He thought of Mort’s wife and kids back in Colorado, waiting for word from the quiet man they loved. Mort Hastings had died for law and order as surely as if he had been wearing the badge.
Dave led Brazos under an overhang of rock and picketed him. Dave wrapped himself in blankets and poncho and lay for a long time looking up into the blackness before he fell asleep, five feet from the dead man. It was nothing new to him. He had lain amongst a pile of the dead in the woods at Chickamauga listening to the razorbacks worry the human clay, unable to move because of his shattered leg, and praying for death before the hogs got at him.
In the cold gray light of dawn Dave made his fire from dry wood he found wedged in the back of the cave from some flash flood of the past. He raised his first cup to his lips. A rifle crashed in the wet brush and the cup was snatched from him by an invisible hand, splattering him with hot jamoka. He hit the ground half-blinded by the hot liquid and instinctively grabbed for his Spencer. The echo of the first shot had hardly died away when the rifle spoke again. Brazos jerked back, ripping his picket pin from the wet earth. A worm of blood ran down his flank as he galloped up the canyon. Dave cursed, rubbing a filthy sleeve over his eyes.
He raised the repeater and flattened himself again as a slug caromed off the low ledge of rock in front of the cave. He rolled over to the side of the cave where a wall of rock thrust itself out man-high. He eyed the canyon. There was no sign of life in the wet brush. A thin layer of gun smoke drifted on the wind. There was a furtive movement farther up the wooded slope opposite the cave. Dave snapped a shot into the brush and was rewarded with a muffled curse.
Minutes drifted by. The sun struggled up over the rim of the canyon. Mist rose from the wet brush and damp earth. A rifle barked up the slope and the slug richochetted inches from Dave’s face, lancing it with rock chips. Dave absentmindedly wiped the blood away without removing his gaze from the slope. As yet he had seen no once. Brazos stood on a knoll down the canyon, looking back toward the cave and whinnying plaintively. A horse with a Lazy E brand trotted out of the brush and headed toward Brazos to keep him company. Dave recognized it as Shorty Ganoe’s mount.
There were at least two riflemen besieging the cave. Dave snapped a return shot as a puff of smoke blossomed amongst some ocotillo. He caught a glimpse of a hat bobbing about and sighted on it, squeezing off easily. The firing pin did not click. Dave levered in a fresh round and fired again. There was no report.
Dave shook the repeater. “Goddamned main spring is broken!” he said. “Of all the bastardly luck!”
Steady rifle fire peppered the rocks about the cave. One slug whipped into the body of Mort Hastings with the sound of a stick being smashed into mud. “Can’t hurt him any more,” said Dave dryly. He glanced at the battered Sharps which he had brought into the cave. It would have saved the day.
The sun rose higher, filling the canyon with steamy air. The last two shots fired at Dave came from a range of about one hundred and fifty yards. He rested his Starr on the rock and fired twice.
“Ain’t usin’ his long gun, Mick!” yelled Shorty. “Bet he’s outa ca’tridges!”
Bullets poured do
wn the slope battering the rocks, keening off into space, or slapping into the back of the cave. “Move in, Mick!” yelled Shorty. “We got him treed!”
Dave looked at the useless Spencer. They could play holy smoking hell with him now, safely out of range. It would only be a matter of time before a mutilated slug would keyhole through him with terrible effect. Suddenly Dave looked at the Sharps. “I’ll be dipped in sheep manure,” he said. He crawled to the Sharps and carried it behind the rock, hooking his morral from where it lay beside his blankets. He took his buckskin bag of gun tools and replacement parts, dumping it on the floor of the cave. Now and then a slug sang into the cave.
Dave worked swiftly, stripping down the Spencer. The main spring fell out in two pieces. He worked swiftly at the Sharps, dropping the breechblock, stripping off the lock plate with fingers greased with the sweat of fear. He removed the Sharps main spring by using his Spencer main spring vise. Sweat ran down his face and he dashed it aside impatiently. A rifle boomed close to the cave and whipped through the slack of his shirt. He set the clamped main spring into the Spencer against the pins and then released the spring vise.
“You think we got him?” called Shorty close to the cave.
“He ain’t shooting!” the flat voice of Mick Ochoa called back.
“He’s tricky as a mossyhorn!”
Dave felt his breath harsh in his throat. Thank God Spencer, in developing the sturdy repeater which bore his name, had used the Sharps main spring in its construction. He put the Spencer together with practiced hands and fed cartridges into the butt-gate.
A slug smashed against the rocks and a shard went through the lobe of Dave’s left ear. He levered a round into the Spencer and reloaded his Starr, placing it close at hand. Shorty Ganoe was standing waist-high in the brush with rifle at shoulder. Dave fired too quickly. Shorty leaped aside, lowering his rifle. Dave’s next slug caught him fair in the gut, toppling him over like a half-filled sack of wheat. A slug skinned past Dave’s head. The creasing shot sent him reeling to the back of the cave. Blood flowed down the right half of his head. He dropped the Spencer and went down on his knees, holding his throbbing skull. Gravel rattled outside of the cave. A shadow fell across the floor. Dave looked up into the thin, evil face of the breed, Mick Ochoa.
Range Rebel (Prologue Western) Page 9