Marauders' Moon

by Short, Luke;

  Webb cursed himself. He was in enough of a jam without leaping to the defense of a girl he had seen only twice in his life, and who was the daughter of a man who was persecuting him. If he had expected any favors here, he might as well forget it.

  “Who was that man that took him off?”

  “Hugo Meeker, the ramrod.”

  Webb smoked moodily. Presently Lute said, “What’re you here for, son?”

  Webb told him the whole story from the time they had met in Wagon Mound. When he was finished, Lute said, “But this train stick-up? Was you in on it or was this a frame-up?”

  Webb, who had told his story idly and without much interest, suddenly came to attention, aware of the implications of Lute’s question. If he told Lute he was guilty, wasn’t there a possibility that Lute might look upon him as one of the fraternity to which he belonged? He hesitated.

  “Okay,” Lute said idly. “None of my business.”

  Webb smiled. “Hell, yes, I was guilty. Do you think I’d ’a’ let them bring me clean over here if I could’ve helped it.”

  “I was wonderin’,” Lute said, looking at him.

  At this moment, Shorty, who had taken Britt to the bunk house, returned. He sat down beside Lute and glanced over at Webb.

  “If I wasn’t bein’ paid to hold you here, I’d tell you to take a horse and hightail it,” he told Webb.

  Webb spat carelessly.

  Then Shorty’s attention was shifted. He said to Lute, “Somethin’s up around here.”

  “Like what?”

  “Ain’t a rider goin’ out this mornin’. They’re all around the bunk house, waitin’ for orders.”

  “Talk to any of ’em?”

  “Not me,” Shorty said. “I’m gettin’ paid to be a little choosy about who I talk with.”

  Lute laughed and they talked of other things. But Webb wondered. Bannister must be expecting trouble of some sort—or planning it. When there was a break in the conversation, he asked idly, “How many hands has Bannister got here?”

  “There’s about thirty over there now.” Shorty said.

  “Doin’ what?” Lute wanted to know.

  “The last I seen a good half of ’em was leadin’ their ponies over to get shod.”

  Webb scowled. He was about to suggest having a look when Lute said, “I could stand a drink.”

  “Let’s go,” Shorty said.

  They all went into the cantina together. It was a shabby adobe, its shelves lined with cheap wines and whiskies and tequilas.

  Webb had a drink with Lute and Shorty, and then they moved on up to Mooney’s store, where they sat on the broad porch and watched the activity.

  The plaza on which the store fronted had a holiday air about it. Riders conversed in several groups and waited while the anvil over in Symonds’s blacksmith shop clanged steadily. Webb noticed that the Dollar hands apparently had two duties: to take their horses over to be shod and to drop into Mooney’s for shells.

  Lute watched it all with mounting curiosity.

  “Looks like a fight,” he said once.

  “Find out,” Webb suggested.

  Lute grunted. But he was only human. After a half hour on Mooney’s porch, Lute lounged to his feet, saying to Shorty, “When you see me come out of the cantina, come around in back of this place,” and he headed across the plaza.

  In a few minutes, he came out of the cantina, and Shorty said to Webb, “Walk around in back.”

  Lute, when he joined them, had a bottle of tequila hidden in his shirt front. He grinned sheepishly at Webb. “I’m goin’ to find out what this is all about.”

  They ended up at the main horse corral, which was in charge of a Mexican wrangler. The three of them lined up on the top rail and waited for the wrangler to come over to them. He did, eventually, and Lute yarned with him about horses. Already the wrangler had an excellent opinion of these five Montana men who rode such good horses, and he listened to Lute’s sage observations with the air of a pupil listening to a master. Lute, still talking, pulled out his bottle of tequila, offered Shorty and Webb a drink, which they accepted, and then offered the bottle to the Mexican. He looked around uncomfortably and then said, “Come with me, señor. Me, I’m not s’pose to dreenk.”

  Lute laughed and went with him into the barn. They were gone a long time. When Lute finally returned without the bottle, he motioned the others off the fence and when they were safely away, said, “I got it.”

  “What is it?” Shorty asked.

  “He didn’t know for sure. But he thinks there’s a raid bein’ planned.”

  “Hell, I could ’a’ guessed that. Where?”

  “San Patricio County so the talk goes.”

  Webb listened with expressionless face, but he was thinking of what had been told him that night in Tolleston’s house.

  Then Budrow had somehow learned that these hardcases were working for Bannister, and he had taken the news back to Tolleston. Which meant, if Tolleston’s hunch was correct, that the San Patricio ranchers had already banded together for a raid. Was this arming on the part of Bannister a defensive measure?

  That afternoon Webb was to find out, for Hugo Meeker came into the bunk house. At his entrance the lackadaisical poker game was suspended.

  Hugo, cigarette in lower lips, came to the point immediately. “Noticed all the commotion outside?”

  “Uh-huh,” Lute told him.

  “It’s here,” Hugo said. “Tonight the San Patricio outfit aims to raid Bull Foot, and then the spread here. They don’t know we know it. About the time they get deep into Winterin’, three quarters of their spreads over there will be burnin’. So will Wagon Mound.”

  Lute whistled. “Anything for us to do?” he asked.

  “No. If this thing works out, those raiders from across the line will run into a surprise in Bull Foot. They’ll be lucky if a fifth of them get out alive. But they aim to raid this spread, too. Now I don’t reckon they’ll still have that same idea when they leave Bull Foot, but just in case they do, we want to be ready for ’em.”

  He went on to explain that the bulk of the Dollar riders would be over in San Patricio, with only a skeleton crew here at the ranch and in town. The Mexicans had been armed, so that they could defend the place. Meeker wanted Lute and his men to draw ammunition from Mooney and be ready to assist in the defense if they should be needed. The triangle over at the blacksmith shop would sound the warning in case of raid. There was hardly any possibility of one, Meeker reiterated, but they wanted to make sure.

  After he was gone, the play was resumed. Webb stared at his cards, but he was not seeing them. This then, would spell the finish of San Patricio’s revolt. Its men would walk into a trap, its homes and ranches and town would be burned. The thought of it made Webb a little sick. He thought of gentle, reasonable Wardecker and what would happen to him. And to Tolleston, not gentle, not reasonable, but, Webb believed, a man who might have a kinder side. And to Martha Tolleston, who had put her trust and hope in a man who thought her a “killer’s wench,” a man who knew that by night she would be homeless and fatherless and who would help to make her so.

  “Wake up, cowboy. It’s checked to you,” Lute’s voice was saying. Webb grinned a little and resumed playing. But he was thinking, and the more he thought, the more absent-minded he became.

  Finally Lute, in exasperation, said, “Fella, if you played this way all the time, I’d make some money.”

  Webb yawned, and said carelessly, “Sure, and when you want some more, you’ll hire out to a big wind like Bannister and let him kick you around for a month when you could be makin’ money, big money.”

  Lute looked hard at him. “Leastways, I never got pulled in by a tank-town sheriff on a job yet.”

  “What good does it do you?” Webb drawled. “You stuck up a bank the other day. Three days later you’re broke.”

  “And what if I am?” Lute said softly.

  Webb shrugged. “Oh, nothin’. You’ll sit around here like a
squaw over a bucket of tea and let other riders make the money.”

  “Like who?” Lute said belligerently.

  Webb thought a moment, then suddenly grinned and reached for the cards. “Nothin’. Forget it. I’m just sore, I reckon.”

  “What about?”

  Webb jerked his thumb in the direction of the big house. “All those thirty-dollar-a-month cowpokes goin’ on that ride and not knowin’ what to do with it.”

  Shorty looked at Lute. “How you mean?” he said to Webb.

  “Why, there’s big spreads in that county. Money, horses, guns, gold.”

  Lute said, “Well, what about it?”

  Webb shrugged and started to shuffle the deck. “Nothin’. Only we sit here like a bunch of women, protectin’ the spread of a big stuffed Stetson just because we was told to.”

  “We?” Lute said dryly. “You couldn’t leave if you wanted to.”

  “That’s right,” Webb agreed idly. “It’s a damn shame, too, because I reckon I know that county.”

  The seed had been planted. Webb watched it work. The game soon broke up, and they drifted out to the plaza again to watch preparations. Lute was restless, as was Shorty. The other three Montana men—Wes, Manny, and a vicious-looking one named Perry Warren—usually slept all day, drinking a little, but today they seemed to catch a little of the unrest. They, too, lounged around the plaza.

  Lute started drinking in the early afternoon, and by dark he was drunk. It was the dangerous kind of drunk, Webb knew; the man got quieter, his eyes got sharper, his brain more active, and his speech was quick and hard and cruel.

  Dark had just come when the Dollar riders scattered to get their mounts. Afterward, the whole cavalcade rode through the plaza and out north, Hugo Meeker, Britt Bannister, and Wake Bannister, whom Webb had never seen until now, heading them.

  The Mexicans and a few odd ranch hands lined the plaza to watch their exit. Lute watched with hard, jeering eyes, Webb noticed. The Montana men went back to the bunk house, but Lute stopped in at the cantina to get a couple of bottles. Back in the bunk house, he did not join the perpetual poker game, but drank quietly, moodily. Webb was playing with a patience that was close to the breaking point.

  But he was not surprised when Lute said suddenly, “How good do you know San Patricio, Red?”

  “Fair. I know how to get to two or three ranches.”

  “Big ones?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Which ones?”

  “Tolleston’s. The Chain Link.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Lute grunted and lapsed into silence. But Shorty was watching him now, and the poker game seemed to lack interest for everybody concerned. Presently, Shorty said morosely, “I don’t hear no raid alarm.”

  Lute shifted restlessly. Everyone in the room, including Webb, was looking to Lute for leadership.

  Suddenly Shorty said, “Why don’t we go, Lute?”

  “And have one of these Mexes tell Meeker? Huh-uh.”

  “How they gonna know?” Shorty persisted.

  “They can come over here and look.”

  Shorty was silent a moment, his forehead creased, his pig eyes greedy.

  “How about just a couple of us goin’?”

  Lute did not answer immediately. The other three hardcases seconded Shorty.

  “All right,” Lute said, rising. “Two of us’ll go, and three stay here. But I’m goin’, see?” He looked at them belligerently. “Anybody want to argue that?” Nobody did, and then he explained why. “Cousins has got to go because he knows the way. I got to guard him—unless I want to get a shot in the back. You boys can cut cards to see who gets to side us.”

  Shorty, with his accustomed luck at cards, cut a king high, and the other three, after some mild cursing, resigned themselves to staying. Lute wasted no time. He picked up a rope from the bunk, flipped up his gun, and said to Webb:

  “You’re goin’ to ride, son. Bring the saddles, Shorty.” Shorty gave Webb his, took the others, and they went out into the night.

  Lute left Webb behind Mooney’s with Shorty guarding him and went to confer with the wrangler. In a few moments he returned leading three of the big Northern horses.

  Lute made a thorough job of tying Webb’s feet under his horse’s belly and tying his hands, then they mounted and rode quietly past the corrals south, circled the spread and once clear of the ranch buildings, headed north.

  Webb figured that the Dollar riders had an hour’s start on them, but to offset this advantage they were certain to travel slowly and carefully. They would probably head first for Wagon Mound, and then, after it was burned, split up into raiding parties. If Webb traveled hard and straight, he might be able to reach Tolleston’s before Bannister’s riders did. He would try.

  Lute asked questions only once, and that was to find out where they were going.

  “Tolleston’s Broken Arrow,” Webb told him.

  “Is that big?”

  “Big enough.”

  “Any loot?”

  “Plenty,” Webb told him. “Do you think I’d be riding for it like this if there wasn’t?”

  Webb set a stiff pace and held it and it seemed to satisfy his guards. Riding through those long hours, he turned over in his mind the chances he had of escaping. If he could only get to the Broken Arrow before Bannister’s riders, he could do something. He didn’t know how he could escape, but escape he would, and it would have to be in time to save Tolleston’s house and buildings. By the time they reached there, Lute would be drunk. Even if he were more dangerous than usual, he would be less careful. From Shorty, Webb had nothing to fear.

  It lacked a full four hours of daylight when Webb pulled up on the lip of ridge behind the house and said, “She lies down yonder.”

  “No one been here yet,” Lute observed with satisfaction.

  He pulled the bottle from his hip pocket, had a drink with Shorty, and they dismounted.

  “What’s the lay down here?” Lute asked Webb.

  “Untie me and I’ll show you.”

  “You likely would,” Lute observed dryly. “All the same, you stay here, fella. And I’ll hobble your horse to make sure you do.”

  Webb chuckled. “Bueno, but how about leavin’ me a drink for company, anyway?”

  “Sure,” Lute said agreeably, for the bottle was empty. Shorty hobbled Webb’s horse, and before they left, Lute handed up the empty whisky bottle and laughed. Webb thanked him politely and listened to their footsteps on the rocky slope die into the silence of the night.

  This was easier than he had hoped for. Waiting until he was sure they were out of hearing distance, he took the bottle in both hands and brought it down sharply on the saddle horn. It shattered, but in several large shards, two of which were in his hands. Rising up in the saddle, Webb took the half which was the top and placed the neck under him, then sat on it, wedging it between him and the swell. The razor-sharp edge stuck up and by maneuvering a little, he found that he could get his bound wrists in a position where he could drag the ropes over the glass edge. After cutting himself twice, he succeeded in sawing one strand, and then pulling, straining, manipulating it with his teeth and tugging until his wrists bled, his hands were soon free of the rope. It was the work of only a few moments to cut the rope which held his feet together and in their stirrups, and he was free.

  He went quickly to the other two horses to see if either Lute or Shorty had carried a carbine in the saddle boot, but he found them both empty. Turning, he started down the slope. He was unarmed, but it would take more than the lack of a gun to stop him this night.

  In the shelter of the wagon shed behind the house, he paused to get his breath and listen. Even as he was watching, he saw a light go on in the house. That would be the answer to Lute’s hammering on the door. Webb broke into a run, hoping wildly that Martha Tolleston would have sense enough to answer the door with a gun. And as soon as he wished it, he thought of what Lute would do. Shoot her, probably.

  At the
corner of the house he slowed down and looked around it cautiously. There was Shorty standing in the light streaming from the door with a drawn gun pointing at the inside of the house. Lute, then, was already inside. The light was receding now, as if somebody had been holding a lamp and was backing into the room. Shorty stayed where he was.

  Webb dropped to his knees and began to crawl forward. Shorty took a step so that he stood directly in the doorway. Webb edged closer. He could hear voices now raised in anger, and one of them was Martha Tolleston’s. And then, as Webb crept forward, his hand closed over a rock. Automatically he picked it up and continued. Now he was close to the porch, and Shorty was still in the door.

  Quietly, softly, he straightened up, swung a leg over the rail, had one foot directly behind Shorty, and then swung the other over.

  But he didn’t swing his leg high enough. His spur caught and jangled, and Shorty whipped around, swinging his Colt up.

  Before Shorty had time to focus his eyes, Webb smashed the rock down on his head. Shorty sagged into Webb’s arms and Webb grabbed the gun, dumped Shorty over the rail, and leaped into the doorway.

  Before him, Martha Tolleston was facing Lute. Beside her stood Mrs. Partridge, the lamp in her hand.

  Lute was saying, “He’s got a safe, sister. Did you ever hear of a cattleman that—”

  “Lute!” Webb whipped out.

  Lute turned. He had holstered his gun, thinking Shorty all the protection he needed. Now he regarded Webb, and a thin smile broke over his face.

  “Well, well, compadre. Give us a hand,” he said, mildly.

  “The only hand you’ll get is a filled one, fella. Make your play.”

  Webb wanted to look at Martha, to see her face. He heard Mrs. Partridge’s low moan, but he did not look at her either. It was Lute, hard-eyed, smiling narrowly, arrogantly, whom he was watching.

  Lute said, “So this was a—” and he stopped, listening. The sound of someone running close to the house came to them.

  Lute grinned. “All over, is it, Shorty?” he asked, looking beyond Webb.