“Now tell ’em the other part,” urged Loco.
“When completely sober,” shrugged Webb, “Julian’s faculties are reliable enough. It was the moonshine that caused the visions. A year ago, he was so badly scared that he came to me for treatment. Well, there was only one treatment. Absolute sobriety. No more drinking.” He bestowed an affectionate smile on the old trapper. “I’m proud of him, gentlemen. He kept his word. Not one drop of liquor in twelve months.”
“All right now.” Loco got to his feet again. “You fellers convinced I ain’t no fool?”
“Why, sure,” frowned Larry. “Your word—and the doc’s—are good enough for us.”
“Obliged to you, Doc,” Loco acknowledged.
And, in his abrupt, jerky way, he made for the door. The Texans had no option but to nod farewell to the medico and follow him. Outside, at the hitchrack, Larry gripped the old man’s shoulder, eyed him expectantly, and asked,
“Just where did you spot Harnsey and his pards—and are you sure it was them?”
“Sure as shootin’,” declared Loco. “You think I never stir outa them hills? I seen many a Wanted dodger on many a tree, and I never forget a face nor a name. It was Harnsey all right, and all his no-good crew.”
“Where?” prodded Larry.
“I’m gonna show you where,” Loco assured him. “Gonna guide you clear to the very rock-cleft where they’re camped. Way back in the Aguila Hills is where, and I know them hills like I know my own face. My home territory. C’mon. Rise and straddle and let’s skeedaddle.”
“Hold on, fellers,” protested Junior.
“Now what?” demanded Larry.
“If we’re going out after those owlhoots,” frowned the Ranger, “I’ll need a gun. Sure hate to impose on you, Larry, what with you buying me this new outfit and all, but …”
“I guess,” shrugged Stretch, “we ought to get him heeled.”
“I guess,” agreed Larry. “Pop? You know an honest hardware merchant in this here town?”
“Willy Gilpin’s honest enough,” offered Loco, “ ’cept when he’s playin’ checkers—and that don’t hardly count. C’mon, we’ll mosey around to Willy’s place.”
They rode along Shemp Road and back into Main Street, then three blocks uptown to the Gilpin Hardware Store. The proprietor greeted Loco with a sleepy nod. He was a heavy-lidded, tired-eyed, totally-bald hombre, and unbelievably fat.
“Howdy, Loco. How goes it with the coyotes nowadays? You know—the ones that eat with a knife and fork?”
“Didn’t come here for none o’ your lip, Willy,” scowled Loco. “Young feller here’s in the market for a hogleg.”
Gilpin followed Loco’s jerking thumb with his sleepy eyes, focused blearily on Junior.
“Got any special make in mind?” he enquired.
“For a Texan like me,” Junior pompously asserted, “it has to be a Colt.”
“Belt and holster too,” drawled Larry, “and a box of shells.”
“Comin’ up,” shrugged Gilpin.
Larry fished out the bankroll, peeled off several bills and laid them on the counter, while Gilpin produced a walnut-butted Colt .45, a gunbelt with a holster attached and a box of cartridges. He slid the weapon into the holster, offered it to Junior. Junior strapped the belt about his loins, rested a hand on the gunbutt.
“I guess,” he suggested to Larry, “you can hardly wait to see how slick I handle a hogleg.”
“I’ll try to be patient,” said Larry, poker-faced.
“You don’t have to wait,” grinned Junior. “Watch this. Maybe you’ll learn something.”
His right hand swept up, gun-filled. It was, to the experienced eyes of the veteran trouble-shooters, a fairly fast draw. Just fair. Either one of them could have beaten the Ranger’s speed, with time to spare for scratching an itchy spot or lifting a hat to a passing lady. But, even so, they’d seen slower draws.
What they had never seen was gun-handling to compare with Junior’s. He tossed that Colt, caught it, twirled it by the trigger guard. Very fancy. Very impressive. And dangerous, though the weapon wasn’t loaded. When it came to twirling a six-shooter, Junior had plenty to learn. The weapon spun clear of his hand. Stretch ducked. It soared over his head and onward, with nothing but Gilpin’s front window to impede its flight. Larry didn’t deign to turn his head when the window shattered. The tinkling of glass told all. He sighed and shrugged, dug out the bankroll again.
“How much for the window?” asked Larry.
Gilpin named a figure. Larry paid him, while a red-faced Junior dashed past the grinning Stretch and out into Main Street to retrieve his new gun. Loco was squinting perplexedly. Gilpin yawned and put a serious question to Larry,
“You ain’t gonna let him tote that Colt loaded, are you?”
“That’s a good question,” Larry conceded.
Outside, they found Junior sitting the bay, jamming the Colt back into his holster. He earnestly assured them,
“That never happened before—honest!”
“What you mean,” jibed Stretch, “is no window ever got in the way of your doggone hogleg before.”
Loco clambered astride the mule and started it plodding briskly up Main with the Texans trailing after him.
~*~
Toward noon, the old trapper raised an arm in a warning gesture and turned to frown at them. They had, according to Larry s calculations, advanced many miles into the hills. All was quiet when the four animals came to a halt.
“Only a little ways to go!” hissed Loco. “If’n we make it on foot, you could maybe get the drop on ’em.”
“Sounds fine by me,” nodded Larry, as he slid to the ground and emptied his holster.
“Whichaway, Pop?”
“Straight ahead,” frowned Loco.
“All right, runt,” said Stretch. “Lead on.”
Some thirty-five yards they advanced, stepping cautiously through a corridor in a wall of lava-rock, so narrow that, at intervals, they had to move side-on. Beyond, Larry saw the large, well-sheltered cleft, its floor a full eighteen feet wide, its walls angling away to north and south. This whole area appeared deserted, but he wasn’t about to take chances.
“Come on slow,” he ordered his companions. “Soon as you’re clear of this passage, hug cover.”
They did that. Behind large boulders they crouched, guns at the ready, while Larry hustled through to the far end of the cleft, dodging, in anticipation of a bullet challenge from some staked-out rifleman. There was no challenge. It took Larry only a few minutes to assure himself that the entire area was clear.
“Nobody,” he called over his shoulder.
“Well, as I live and breathe,” protested Loco, “here’s where they was. I done brung you to the very place where I spotted ’em—all eight of ’em!”
“This crazy old buzzard,” fumed Junior, “led us on a wild goose chase—damn it all …!”
“Button your lip, kid,” chided Larry. “He ain’t crazy and he ain’t drunk. You heard what the doctor said.” He jerked a thumb. “Go back to the horses. There has to be some way of fetchin’ ’em into this cleft. Find it.”
Twelve minutes later, having located the track used by the outlaws, the Ranger again trudged into the cleft, leading the three horses and Loco’s mule. The drifters, though many years younger than the trapper, had little to learn of the art of checking sign. Scars on the trunks of trees indicated that a picket line had been rigged here. Drag marks on soft earth indicated hoofprints had been erased. Most significant of all—Stretch investigated the dead center of the cleft’s floor, examining the dirt with his bare hands and finding portion of it blackened, still warm.
“Here,” he nonchalantly announced, “is where they had their cook-fire.”
“They were here all right,” Larry assured Junior. “The old man didn’t imagine it. He called to Stretch, who was still feeling at the half-buried ash. “How long d’you figure, big feller?”
“Around sun-up, I’d
reckon,” drawled Stretch. “Maybe just before sun-up.”
“Bueno,” grunted Larry. “We keep checkin’. Somewheres yonder, they had to start leavin’ tracks.”
“If there’s tracks anywheres in these hills,” vowed Loco, “I’ll sure find ’em for you.”
“I’m bettin’ you will, old-timer,” grinned Larry. “Let’s you and me go take a look.”
With the trapper tagging him, he disappeared at the far end of the cleft. Stretch loafed about the abandoned campsite a while, locating other items of interest, items as small as discarded matches and cigarette-butts, the moist dregs emptied from a coffee pot; proof positive that Loco Leech’s claim was no exaggeration. The Ranger followed his example and, for a while, found nothing. Then,
“The earth is softer over here.” He called to Stretch from just beyond the few stunted trees. “As though somebody was digging.”
“So,” shrugged Stretch, “you dig.”
Junior dropped to his knees and began scooping the soft earth away. When he stopped digging and started cursing, Stretch ambled over to join him.
“Find anything?”
“Look!” scowled Junior. He exhibited the articles one by one, shaking dirt from them. “My wallet—empty. My best Sunday shirt. My new pants. My vest. My kerchief …”
“Boy,” grinned Stretch, “you didn’t expect to find that wallet full, did you?”
Grim-faced, Junior dusted the articles off. Stretch walked with him back to the horses, watched him stow his recovered gear into his saddlebag.
“They still have my badge,” he fretted. “My guns. All my papers. My new Stetson. And Big Shadow. Yeah. One of those lousy owlhoots is riding a fine black horse.”
“You’re luckier than you know,” opined Stretch.
“I sure as hell don’t feel lucky,” complained Junior.
“You will,” Stretch confidently predicted, “when we catch up with Harnsey and his pards.”
He dropped his hands to his gun butts, threw an alert and expectant glance toward the far end of the cleft. Then, recognizing Larry and the trapper, he relaxed.
“Mount up,” Larry ordered.
“You found their tracks?” demanded Junior.
“Told you we would,” grunted Loco. He trudged across to stand beside his mule. “Well, I reckon you gents’ll be movin’ on now, and I’m sure sorry I can’t ride along with you. If’n I was twenty years younger, and didn’t have traps set all over these hills …”
“You helped plenty, Pop,” acknowledged Larry, “and we’re beholden.”
“Pleasure,” declared Loco. “Least I could do, Seein’ as how you treated me sociable, didn’t laugh at me, like them damn-blasted towners.”
The Texans swung astride. Stretch adjusted his Stetson, yawned, and asked,
“Whichaway?”
“They’re movin’ north,” said Larry. “Clear tracks of eight riders.”
“Well,” shrugged Stretch. “Let’s travel.”
“Lotsa luck,” called Loco Leech.
“Gracias.” Larry raised a hand in friendly farewell. “Same to you, Pop.”
~*~
Mid-afternoon of that day, the sound of shooting had drawn Ruthy Shumack to an outlying sector of Circle T range, the land owned by her father. Circle T was one of
the oldest of the Garrison County cattle outfits and located many miles to the north of the county line. Far to the south lay Winfield County.
Within the concealment of a mesquite clump, she brought her panting mount to a halt. She was, at nineteen, a pretty redhead with observant hazel eyes and a slightly turned-up nose, a healthy, fine-figured girl with, perhaps, more courage than was good for her. Right now, however, she forced herself to keep her temper in check, to do nothing impulsive. And this was a tribute to her self-control, because the man sprawled beside the quivering pinto colt, unconscious and obviously suffering from a gunshot wound, was her father, Orden Shumack, the Circle T boss,
Mentally, she chided herself for being unarmed. That fact alone discouraged her from revealing her presence, challenging her father’s assailants. There were two of them, one an uncouth-looking roughneck whose face was badly scarred, the other a handsome, broad-grinning jasper who sported a new white Stetson and a pair of pearl-butted .45s. She had, of course, no way of knowing their names—which were Mitch Haines and Harp Newcombe.
A Circle T steer lay dead. She assumed that her father had been alerted by the gunshot, when one of the invaders had shot the stray. Also dead was a bay horse from which the man in the white Stetson was detaching the saddle. The scar-faced man had partially skinned the dead steer and was cutting meat, stowing it into a sack. Her blood boiled, when she saw the pinto unsaddled, then resaddled with the gear taken from the dead bay. As well as butchering a Circle T steer and shooting her father, these marauders were about to steal the colt, her favorite mount, an animal she had nursed from the day of its birth. She blinked against the involuntary tears of frustration, as the marauders rode away.
As soon as they were out of sight, she hustled her mount from the brush and rode to where her father lay. Her heart leapt. He had opened his eyes and was propping himself up on his elbows. Blood had congealed in his ash-grey hair and about his left shoulder. He was a big man, ageing but still tough. Weakly, he grinned up into her face.
“Creased twice—it feels like—Ruthy. Head and shoulder.”
“Just you lie quiet,” she ordered.
“Woke up a couple of minutes ago,” he mumbled. “Played possum. Figured—if I moved—they’d finish me off.” He blinked at the butchered steer and the dead bay, while she used his bandanna and her own to bind his gashed shoulder. “Heard a shot …”
“So did I,” she murmured. “I heard that first shot— and then the others. But I was far along the east quarter huntin’ strays—just like you told me.”
“I thank the Almighty you weren’t any closer,” Orden Shumack fervently declared. “These were rough hombres, child. Killers. I don’t believe they’d have held back from shootin’ a sprig like you.”
“You mean a woman,” countered Ruthy.
“I mean a sprig,” insisted Shumack. “You ain’t a woman till you’re of age—and you’re only nineteen.” He eyed her soberly, and added, “They might’ve mistaken you for a man anyway. At a distance, I mean.”
And there was some justification for this assertion. Ruthy’s fire-red hair was piled atop her shapely head and anchored under a battered Stetson. She wore a man’s cotton shirt tucked into tightly-belted blue jeans, and the jeans were tucked into regular riding boots. Since her early childhood, she had insisted on handling a share of the ranch chores. She hunted strays, helped herd Circle T stock down from the high graze, even became involved in the hustle and bustle of branding.
“They started shootin’,” he told her, “soon as they spotted me. I got off just one shot from my old Henry. Looks like I downed one of their horses. And that’s about all I remember. I felt it, when one of ’em creased my shoulder. The other crease …” He raised a hand to his head. “Man! That was like a mule’s kick—and I didn’t feel a thing from then on.”
“They got away with Sammy Boy—I guess you know that,” she breathed.
“Yeah,” he grunted. “Tough.”
“If you can rise up,” she frowned, “I reckon I can help you onto the sorrel. Got to get you home, and fast.”
They managed it. Shumack still had strength enough to haul himself astride her horse. She swung up in front of him.
“Hang on, Pa. We’ll fetch your saddle later.”
By dusk, the rancher was safe in the big double bed in the largest bedroom of the Circle T ranch-house, submitting to the ministrations of his stolid spouse, a veteran ranch-wife too case-hardened to become hysterical. Shumack had lost consciousness for a while. Now, he was wide awake and alert, ready to give orders.
“I’d guess those raiders are wanted outlaws,” he told his wife. “And the Ackersford sheriff better know about
em.”
Six – Hunters North
Thanks to the irony of fate, two members of the Harnsey gang had invaded Circle T range at a time when the spread was virtually undefended. The foreman and the three hired hands had departed several days ago to run seven hundred head of stock to Ackersford, the big town to the west where the cattle buyers visited regularly. Only the rancher and his small family remained—Clara, his stolid, unemotional spouse, Jimmy, their eleven-year-old son, and Ruthy, their salty, headstrong daughter.
“The boy’s too young to send,” Clara calmly informed her husband, “so Ruthy’s on her way.”
“Ruthy already left for Ackersford?” he frowned.
“Right after she brought you home,” nodded Clara. “She guessed you’d want her to report it to the sheriff—the shootin’, the stealin’ of the pinto.”
“Well …” He grimaced uneasily. “I just hope she’ll be safe.”
“It didn’t pleasure me, seein’ her ride off by herself,” shrugged Clara. “Still and all, she’s got plenty savvy, knows how to look out for her own self.”
“She totin’ water and provisions?” he demanded.
“Plenty,” Clara assured him. “Took your long gun along too. The Henry repeater.”
Shumack did some calculating and decided that, by now, his men would have arrived in Ackersford.
“She’ll likely run into Clem and the boys,” he mused, “and travel home with ’em.”
“Bound to,” agreed Clara. “Now rest up and quit your frettin’.”
Ruthy’s father lay back on his pillows and tried to relax, but a new fear had begun plaguing him, one he would never confide to Clara. Might Ruthy encounter those same marauders somewhere along the trail to Ackersford?
Had he but realized it, there was more than an even chance Ruthy would run into them. She was, in fact, following the tracks left by his assailants at this very moment, moving eastward from the scene of the attack, instead of westward along the Ackersford trail. Time enough later for reporting the outrage to old Sheriff Wilkin. Right now, Ruthy’s only concern was for her cherished pinto colt, the animal stolen by the gunhawks. She was realistic enough to acknowledge that she had little chance of defeating two hardened desperadoes in an open fight—but just proddy enough to hope that she might run them to ground and, while they slept, steal back her beloved colt.
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