Fight for Powder Valley!

by Brett Halliday

  The doors creaked loudly as they slid apart and let a surge of hot sunshine inside. Ezra strode into the opening with his gun half-drawn, blinking his eyes against the sudden light, while Pat drew back out of sight to await developments.

  “Yo’re mighty slow about unlockin’ this here parlor car,” Ezra announced belligerently. “Danged if I ain’t got a mind to sue the railroad fer the service.”

  A loud laugh greeted his words. Pat heard a wondering voice say, “We didn’t order a gun-toting cow-puncher from Denver with this shipment, did we?”

  And another voice answered with a chuckle, “He ain’t on the bill of lading. Must of got loaded by mistake.”

  Pat stepped to Ezra’s side swiftly, drawling, “That’s shore enough right. By golly, that likker they sell in Denver is shore enough strong stuff. Where at are we?” he ended to help the pretense along.

  A tall spectacled man laughed up at him from the ground. “There’s two of them. What’d you boys do … hunt a place to sleep it off and get locked in by mistake?”

  “That’s right.” The tall man’s companion wore a greasy jumper suit and a stiff-brimmed hat. A searching glance out the door showed Pat the car stood on an isolated siding near the outskirts of Pueblo. He leaped to the ground nimbly and forced a short laugh from his lips, “Youall don’t know how good it feels to get out of that car. This here is Pueblo, ain’t it?”

  “That’s right,” the tall man laughed. “You boys better beat it fast before the railroad cop sees you and runs you in for vagrancy.”

  “You bet we will,” Pat responded feelingly. He turned and winked at Ezra. “Hop down an’ let’s hunt a restaurant where they sell hot cawfee.”

  “There’s a little café right down the street there.” The spectacled man pointed as Ezra slid down beside Pat.

  His companion stared at them with hostility. “I don’t like this so much,” he observed. “You reckon we shouldn’t run ’em in for stealing a ride?”

  The tall man frowned and shook his head. “They’ve just been sleeping off a drunk. You can’t blame them for that.”

  Pat grinned and caught Ezra’s arm. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here.” He pulled the one-eyed man away from the tracks and toward a side street where the restaurant had been indicated.

  Ezra went with him under protest. “Whyn’t you let me handle that feller?” he growled. “I’d of …”

  Pat groaned aloud. “You’d have knocked him cold an’ then we’d have the Pueblo police on our necks too. Keep your big mouth shut till we get out of town anyhow.”

  Ezra relapsed into an injured silence and allowed himself to be drawn into a small café where he devoured scrambled eggs and a huge stack of wheat cakes while Pat contented himself with three cups of scalding black coffee.

  In answer to Pat’s question, the counterman told him it was ten o’clock in the morning, and that the stagecoach left Pueblo for Hopewell Junction and points southeast at ten-thirty.

  The coach traveled a route that took it out of town just three blocks from the café, and Pat and Ezra were waiting on the corner when it came rumbling down the street half an hour later.

  The driver pulled up his six-horse team with a flourish when Pat stepped out and waved his hat.

  He said, “Hopewell Junction? You bet,” and opened the door to let them inside the swaying contrivance.

  Pat entered first, keeping his handcuffs out of sight in his pocket, and was relieved to find only three passengers aboard; a cattle-buyer from Kansas City and two elderly ranch wives who sat together at the rear of the coach.

  It was a long, uncomfortable, and maddeningly slow ride. It seemed to Pat that the six-horse team must have a liberal portion of snail-blood in their veins to be able to go so slowly. But the swaying motion of the vehicle made him drowsy after two nights without sleep, and it wasn’t long before his head was resting on Ezra’s shoulder and he was snoring lightly.

  This time it was Ezra who awakened Pat from deep slumber when the journey was over. They were approaching the outskirts of the little railroad junction, and the long slanting shadows outside the stagecoach showed it was late afternoon.

  Pat sat up with a start and peered out, then muttered to Ezra, “We better play safe and get out before we drive up in the middle of town.”

  Ezra said, “That’s why I poked you,” and they got up and went forward where Pat yelled up at the driver, “We want off right here.”

  The driver looked surprised, but he pulled up and let them out on the flat just north of town.

  They circled warily around the business section to the livery stable where both had left their horses, and sneaked in the back entrance without being seen.

  The hostler was an old man who greeted them without surprise. “I bin wonderin’ when you’d be back fer them nags of your’n. You want ’em both saddled?”

  Pat said they did. He asked the old man if anyone had been in town looking for them.

  The hostler said he hadn’t heard of anyone. As he led out their horses, Ezra nudged Pat and indicated a roan gelding in the stall next to his mount. “I reckon Sam ain’t got here yet. That’s his hawse standin’ there.”

  As he saddled their horses, the old man grunted, “Lotsa comin’ an’ goin’ to Powder Valley these days. A man’d think people’d stay put ’stead of chasin’ back an’ forth all the time. ’Nuff to make a man git disgusted an’ quit his job.”

  “Anybody else been by here today?” Pat asked quickly.

  “That’s what I’m sayin’, ain’t it? Not more’n two hours ago three of the craziest galoots I ever see stopped by on their way.” He stopped to spit a thick stream of tobacco juice on the floor, then pointed a gnarled forefinger at two jaded and sweaty buggy horses munching hay in adjoining stalls. “See that team yonder?” His voice trembled with indignation. “Plumb wore to a frazzle … an’ as nice a pair of hawse-flesh as I ever laid eyes on. Know where they come from?”

  “No. Where?”

  “All the way from Pueblo, b’God. An’ at a dead run if you ask me. Three crazy fellers in a buckboard drivin’ ’em. Man’s got no bizniss drinkin’ an’ drivin’ a team.”

  “Who were they?” Pat asked idly.

  “I didn’t know none of ’em. Don’t wanna know none of ’em. They traded teams an’ went on to Powder Valley like the devil hisself was chasin’ ’em. Wild-eyed drunk an’ talkin’ crazy … all three of ’em like they’d et a book of poetry an’ was belchin’ it out.”

  Pat’s interest faded. “Couldn’t have been law-men,” he muttered.

  “I reckon not. The little nigger feller seemed like he was boss. But there was a ol’ coot with chin whiskers …”

  Pat was starting to mount his horse. He stopped with one foot in the stirrup. “Did you say a Negro?”

  “Yeh. Plenty funny lookin’. Wearin’ cowboy boots an’ tight pants and a big baggy coat. Come to think of it, he ast about you fellers, too. Friend of yores?”

  “Asked about us?” Pat frowned. “What did the others look like?”

  “One was a ol’ feller with chin whiskers like a goat, an’ t’other was tall an’ stringy-like. He was mighty drunk. Kep’ sayin’ somethin’ like: ‘Gimme a drink afore I die, an’ when I’m drunk swing me high.’” The old man dropped his voice into a monotonous sing-song as he recited the words.

  Pat’s jaw sagged. He glanced doubtfully at Ezra who was listening with a baffled frown.

  “An’ they asked about us?” Pat repeated.

  “That’s right. The colored man shore did. I remember his very words, crazy-like, they was. They keep running through my mind an’ I reckon mebby I’m goin’ crazy too. He said: “There’s one thing that I got to ast, has Pat an’ Ezra this way passed?’ Do you get it? Them were his very words. I swear they was.”

  Pat’s jaw sagged lower. “He was talkin’ po’try. Couldn’t be Sam.” He looked to Ezra for agreement.

  “Hell no,” Ezra exploded. “Couldn’t be.” But he frowned at the h
ostler. “You know Sam Sloan?”

  “Shore I know Sam. Sa-ay!” The old man staggered back a step, clapping his hand to his forehead. He mumbled, “I’m recollectin’ things now. Things that didn’t make sense when they was here. But that ain’t strange. Nothin’ made sense when them three was here.”

  “What kind of things?” Pat demanded.

  “Yessiree. I see it clear now. Dagnab it. That was Sam Sloan. Blacked up like a nigger. A-foolin’ me with that there sing-song talk.”

  Pat wasted no more time in idle conversation. He swung into the saddle and spurred out of the stable, closely followed by Ezra. If Sam was ahead of them, roaring drunk with a two-hour lead, only God could say what was happening in Powder Valley.

  They didn’t waste any breath in talking as they thundered along the road toward Powder Valley. The sun was descending into an angry red haze in the west and there were crimson streamers in the sky like long fiery fingers pointing directly to their destination.

  The men rode easily, grim-faced in the saddle, gauging the speed and the staying-power of their mounts to cover the distance in the shortest possible time without killing the stout-hearted horses beneath them.

  The sun went below the mountains and darkness shrouded the flat land leading into the foothills where the Valley twisted downward on both sides of Powder Creek. The stars came out and the thin rim of a moon showed palely close above the horizon. Clumps of sage and of mesquite threw misshapen shadows on the ground as they raced past and the gangling arms of yucca formed themselves into weird patterns in the cold light of the stars and the moon.

  Pat began to ease his horse up as they approached the turnoff where a rutted road led upward from the main route into the valley toward Sam and Ezra’s ranch near the headwaters of the creek. He twisted sideways in the saddle and shouted to Ezra, “Do you reckon they went straight on to Dutch Springs or would Sam go to the ranch first?”

  “Gawd knows,” Ezra panted, “what Sam’ll do when he’s likkered up like the old man said. Hard enuff to figger him when he’s sober.”

  Pat pulled his slobbering horse down to a lope and then to a trot as they reached the turnoff. He leaped from the saddle and bent down to search the hard ground for some trace of wheel-tracks to determine whether the buckboard had turned off or continued on to Dutch Springs.

  Ezra stepped down beside him, grunting, “We need Sam’s Injun nose fer this job. He can smell out a set of fresh tracks.”

  “I can’t match Sam for running a trail,” Pat agreed. “But these here tracks look fresh enough. See? Two hawses, trottin’ fast. That’d be a harness team. An’ right here … the left wheel cut through the rut.”

  “Yep. Yo’re right. There’s been a buckboard drove up to the ranch this very afternoon.”

  They trotted back to their horses and swung into the saddles again. Pat began to hope they might not be too late to avert disaster. If they could catch Sam and Biloff, with their queer companion, before the trio got into Dutch Springs and the Valley ranchers learned of Biloff’s presence—they might be able to prevent the hanging that Pat wanted desperately to avoid. He knew it would ruin everything if they hanged Biloff in the valley. Inevitably, it would bring in state troopers, martial law, and the irrigation project would go on anyway.

  But if he could get hold of Biloff, there was a chance that a cool head and some hard logic would convince the man the only way he could save his own skin was to call off the project. That was the chance Pat was fighting for, the hope that made him spur his faltering mount cruelly up those final miles toward the ranch where he hoped to intercept Sam and his kidnaped prisoner.

  They were less than a mile from their destination when they heard a galloping rider coming from the direction of Dutch Springs on a course that was taking him across their road directly in front of them.

  Pat spurred his tired horse to a final burst of speed to intercept the lone rider. As they neared each other, he rose in the stirrups and shouted:

  “Halloo ahead. Who’s that?”

  A voice came back thinly: “This is Hank Bates. Who’re you?”

  “Pat Stevens … and Ezra. Hold up a minute.”

  The other rider slowed to allow Pat to reach him. Hank’s voice was frankly incredulous, “Did you say Pat Stevens?” Then, “By golly! it is Pat. How’d you get here?”

  Pat’s horse stumbled and almost went down as he pulled up in the road. “No matter how we got here,” he snapped. “What’s happenin’?”

  “You’re just in time for the fun if you ride fast,” Hank panted. “They’re blowin’ up the powderhouse at the dam site. Ain’t got much time to get there …”

  “Wait a minute.” Pat grabbed his arm. “What about Sam an’ Biloff?”

  “What about Sam? I thought he was in Denver. I thought you was all in Denver … in jail, the way I heard it.”

  Pat’s grip tightened on his arm. “The way you heard it? How?”

  “Mr. Winters read all about it in his Denver newspaper this afternoon. About you getting arrested for jumpin’ Biloff and about how the police was hot on the trail of Sam and Ezra. So when word got around that there wasn’t no use waiting any longer for you to maybe fix things, the boys got together and headed up to blow up the powderhouse. It’s built right on the edge of the crick where they’re going to dam it, and it’s full of dynamite and powder. The boys figure it’ll blow such a hole in the ground they’ll never get a dam built … and the engineers and workers are living in a bunkhouse right close by and some think the explosion will maybe blow all of them to kingdom come along with the powderhouse.”

  Pat groaned aloud as he understood what was happening. Though Biloff’s life was in no immediate danger, this was a far worse threatened disaster. If the Valley men succeeded in their plot and caused the wholesale slaughter of the dam workers, nothing could save the Valley.

  He slid from his saddle, dragging Hank down to the ground with him. “My hawse is winded … an’ unbuckle yore gun-belt. All I got is a peashooter I stole from a policeman. Give it to me,” he ground out. “I got no time to explain. I got to stop them from blowing up the powderhouse.”

  He grabbed the gun-belt from Hank’s numbed fingers and swung it about his waist. “You an’ Ezra come along as fast as our hawses will bring you. Ezra will explain everything.”

  He threw himself into Hank Bates’ saddle and drove his spurs into the ribs of the comparatively fresh horse, leaned forward and drove him upward at headlong speed toward the construction camp and its flimsy powderhouse stacked high with barrels and cases of dangerous explosives.

  17

  The sage and mesquite of the valley gave way to low clumps of juniper and pine as the trail climbed swiftly upward. Pat spurred the horse on recklessly, trusting the animal to carry him to his destination.

  He didn’t know exactly where the construction camp was located, knew only its general position from talk he had heard in Dutch Springs. Hank Bates hadn’t mentioned how many men were in the raiding party, nor how big a start they had on him.

  Pat knew only that he had to get there in time and somehow break up the attack on the powderhouse. Nothing could possibly save the Valley if the hot-headed and irresponsible riders were allowed to carry out their reckless plan for the destruction of the dam site and the murder of innocent workmen in their sleep.

  Pat caught himself praying for more speed as the horse’s stride faltered beneath him. He roweled the animal without mercy, lying forward along his neck and straining his eyes through the night for some sign that he was approaching the camp.

  His mount snorted and swerved aside suddenly. A nicker came from the darkness ahead. Then a match flared a hundred yards to Pat’s left just as he made out the squat outline of buildings in that direction.

  The tiny flare of the match leaped magically into a large yellow flame that flickered against the wooden sides of a low building. It was a gasoline-soaked torch being thrust upward toward a tiny barred window in the wall of the wooden powder m
agazine.

  Pat dragged Hank’s gun from his hip and flipped a bullet at the torch while he drove his horse toward the low building. The torch fell to the ground and Pat caught an instant’s glimpse of a surprised face behind it in the night.

  Guns barked from his right, and flame lashed at him from a dozen points. A bullet ricocheted from the steel saddle horn and another zinged off the handcuff dangling from his right wrist.

  He saw dark forms slinking toward the door of the powderhouse, and he plunged his horse forward between them and their objective, swinging his leg off and crouching low in the left stirrup to put the animal’s body between himself and the gunfire of the valley men.

  The horse shuddered and stumbled forward as bullets crashed into his unprotected side.

  Pat flung himself forward and hit the ground rolling. He reeled to his feet in front of the door that stood ajar, and threw two bullets over the heads of the advancing men.

  He shouted hoarsely, “Hold it! It’s Pat Stevens. Don’t you hear me? This is Pat.”

  He couldn’t tell whether they heard him or not. A bullet thudded into the door behind him and another one tugged at the sleeve of his jacket.

  He jerked the heavy door open and slid inside, stumbling over an open keg of powder. Hoarse shouts and a withering hail of bullets followed him through the door.

  He knew it was impossible to make his voice heard above the din. He was trapped inside the powder magazine with two score angry men advancing from all directions to put fire to the building.

  He slammed the door shut but made no attempt to bar it, poked Hank’s gun through the crack and fired two more shots, again aiming them high so they would not hit one of his erstwhile friends.

  At least, he thought grimly, the construction workers would be aroused to the danger. They would have a chance to escape from their beds before the entire countryside went up in a horrible explosion.

  Light seared his eyeballs. He whirled to see a gasoline-soaked torch come hurtling in through the small window with its inadequate wooden crossbars.

  The interior of the structure was lighted luridly for that one awful instant as Pat leaped forward and made a desperate grab that caught the flaming torch in mid-air. The scene was burned into his mind with such clarity that ever afterward he could close his eyes and see the open powder kegs, the carelessly piled cases of dynamite that littered the floor.