The Charles Alden Seltzer Megapack

by Charles Alden Seltzer

  The rider again halted the black horse. The presentiment of evil had grown upon him, and he twisted around in the saddle, sweeping the desolate vast level with cold, alert, puzzled eyes.

  There was no object near him behind which an enemy might lie concealed; the gray floor of the desert within many hundred miles of him was smooth and flat and obstructionless. Far away, half a mile, perhaps, he saw a thrusting knob of rock, with some cactus fringing it. From where he sat in the saddle it seemed that the rock might be the peak of a mountain reaching upward out of the sea of sand and desert waste—but it was barren on sides and top, and would afford no concealment for an enemy, except at its base. And even the base was not large enough to conceal more than a few men.

  The rider gazed long at the rock, but could detect no sign of movement near it. He had turned from it, to look again into the western distance, when Purgatory whinnied lowly.

  Flashing around in the saddle, the rider again faced the rock. And he saw movement there now. The distance was great, but the clarity of the atmosphere brought a moving object distinctly into his vision. The object was a man, and, like a huge fly, he was crawling rapidly up the sloping side of the rock, toward its peak, which flattened abruptly at the summit.

  The man bore a rifle. The rider could see it dragging from the man’s hand; and in a flash the rider was out of the saddle, throwing himself flat behind a low ridge of sand, his own rifle coming to a rest on a small boulder as he trained its muzzle upon the man, who by this time had reached the summit of the rocks in the distance. The rider waited, nursing the stock of the rifle, his eyes blazing, while Purgatory, seemingly aware of an impending tragedy, moved slowly away as though understanding that he must not expose himself.

  The rider waited, anticipating the bullet that would presently whine toward him. And then he heard the report of the man’s rifle, saw that the smoke streak had been directed downward, as though the man on the summit of the rock were shooting at something below him.

  The rider had been pressing the trigger of his own weapon when he saw the smoke streak. He withheld his fire when he divined that the man was not shooting at him; and when he saw the man on the rock shoot again—downward once more—the rider frowned with embarrassment.

  “Don’t even know I’m here!” he mused. “An’ me gettin’ ready to salivate him!”

  He got to his knees and watched, curiosity gleaming in his eyes. He saw the man on the rock fire again—downward—and he noted a smoke spurt answer the shot, coming upward from the base of the rock. The rider got to his feet and peered intently at the rock. And now he saw another man crouching near its base. This man, however, was not the one the man on the summit of the rock was shooting at, for smoke streaks were issuing from a weapon in that man’s hand also, but they were horizontal streaks.

  Therefore the rider divined that the two men must be shooting at another who was on the far side of the rock; and he ran to Purgatory, speaking no word until he had vaulted into the saddle. Then he spoke shortly.

  “They’re white men, Purgatory, an’ they’re havin’ a private rukus, looks like. But we’re doin’ some investigatin’ just to see if the game’s on the level.”

  CHAPTER II

  A MAN’S REPUTATION

  Purgatory moved fast, but warily. The black horse seemed to have caught something of his rider’s caution. For part of the distance toward the rock the animal traveled straight, loping rapidly, but as he neared the little stretch of broken country that surrounded the rock he began to sheer off, advancing with mincing steps, his ears erect, his eyes wide and alert, snorting suspiciously.

  Knowing his horse, the rider made no attempt to guide him; he knew Purgatory was alert to any hostile movement on the part of the men who were shooting, and that at the first sign of danger to himself or to his rider he would do what was required of him.

  The man on the summit of the rock was still shooting, though intermittently. It seemed to the rider that the man’s target must be elusive or concealed, for the shooter’s actions showed that he was irritated. The other man, too, was still shooting. The rider noted that he, too, seemed to be meeting with failure, for as the rider drew nearer he heard the man curse.

  Neither of the two men who were visible to the rider had seen him—neither of them had heard the big black horse gliding over the deep sand of the desert. The rider grinned with grim mirthlessness, edging Purgatory around so that the two men, their backs toward him, were not more than twenty or thirty feet away and entirely exposed to his view.

  So intent were they upon their work that they did not even hear the rider’s low laugh as he brought the big black horse to a halt and sat quietly in the saddle, a heavy pistol in each hand, watching them.

  The rock, the rider noted, was a huge granite block, rotted from long exposure to the elements, seamed and scarred and cracked. The action of the eternally moving sand had worn an irregular-shaped concave into its southern wall, so that the summit overhung the side. The man on the summit was lying flat on his stomach, leaning far over, still shooting downward. The other man, who was standing at the base, was flattened against it, facing the concave side, shooting occasionally, and cursing volubly.

  The rider was curious. Glancing sidelong, southward, he saw two horses not more than a hundred yards away. They were in a depression, behind a sand ridge, which accounted for the fact that the rider had not seen them before.

  Sight of the horses brought a widening grin to the rider’s face. He had thought, at first, that the two men were shooting at another man, concealed behind the rock; but the fact that there were only two horses indicated that he had been in error. No man would be foolhardy enough to attempt to cross the desert on foot, and unless a man were a friend he would not be carried upon another man’s horse. Therefore, it seemed to be evident that the target at which the men were shooting was not another man.

  And now, convinced that the men had cornered an animal of some kind, and that they feared it too greatly to face it openly, the rider laughed loudly and called to the men, his voice freighted with sarcasm.

  “Scared?” he said. “Oh, don’t be. If you’ll back off a little an’ give him room, he’ll just naturally slope, an’ give you a chance to get to your cayuses.”

  Both men wheeled almost at the same instant. The man at the base of the rock snarled—after the first gasp of astonishment, baring his teeth in hideous mirth and embarrassment; the other man, startled and caught off balance at the sound of the rider’s voice, slipped, tried to catch himself, failed, and tumbled awkwardly down, scrambling and cursing, to the sand within a few feet of the rider.

  Sitting in the sand at the base of the rock, the man who had fallen also snarled as he sat, looking at the rider.

  Neither of the two men moved after the involuntary muscular action that had resulted from their astonishment. The man at the base of the rock stood in the position in which he had found himself when he had wheeled.

  The pistol in his right hand was held close to his side, the muzzle directed at the rider.

  But a change was coming over the man’s face. The color was slowly going out of it, the lips were loosening as his jaws dropped, his body began to sag, and his eyes began to widen with fear, stark and naked. At length, the rider now watching him with a gaze in which there began to glow recognition and contempt, the man dropped his hands to his sides and leaned against the rock.

  “‘Drag’ Harlan!” he muttered hoarsely.

  The rider watched, his eyes glittering coldly, his lips twisting in a crooked sneer. Amusement was his dominating emotion, but there was hate in his gaze, mingling with a malignant joy and triumph. The pistols in his hands became steady as his wrist muscles stiffened; and he watched the two men warily, apparently looking straight at the standing man, but seeing the sitting man also.

  And now a silence fell—a strained, premonitory silence that had in it a hint of imminent tragedy. The sitting man stiffened, divining the promise of violence; the standing man shran
k back a little and looked downward at the pistol in his right hand.

  The rider saw the glance and laughed lowly.

  “Keep her right where she is, Dolver,” he warned. “You lift her one little wee lift, an’ I bore you plumb in the brain-box. Sort of flabbergasted, eh? Didn’t expect to run into me again so soon?”

  He laughed as the other cringed, his face dead white, his eyes fixed on the rider with a sort of dread fascination.

  “Dolver, didn’t you know when you got my little partner, Davey Langan, that I’d be comin’ for you?” said the rider in a slow, drawling whisper. “In the back you got him, not givin’ him a chance. You’re gettin’ yours now. I’m givin’ you a chance to take it like a man—standin’, with your face to me. Lift her now—damn you!”

  There was no change in his expression as he watched the man he had called Dolver. There came no change in the cold, steady gleam of his eyes as he saw the man stiffen and swing the muzzle of his pistol upward with a quick, jerky motion. But he sneered as with the movement he sent a bullet into the man’s chest; his lips curving with slight irony when Dolver’s gun went off, the bullet throwing up sand at Purgatory’s forehoofs.

  His eyes grew hard as he saw Dolver stagger, drop his pistol, and clutch at his chest; and he watched with seeming indifference as the man slowly sank to his knees and stretched out, face down, in the dust at the base of the rock.

  His lips were stiff with bitter rage, however, as he faced the other man, who had not moved.

  “Get up on your hind legs, you yellow coyote!” he commanded.

  For an instant it seemed that the other man was to share the fate of the first. The man seemed to think so, too, for he got up trembling, his hands outstretched along the rock, the fingers outspread and twitching from the paralysis of fear that had seized him.

  “Shoot your gab off quick!” commanded the rider. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Laskar,” the man muttered.

  “Where you from?”

  “Lamo.”

  The rider’s eyes quickened. “Where did you meet up with that scum?” He indicated Dolver.

  “In town.”

  “Lamo?”

  The man nodded.

  “How long ago?” asked the rider.

  “’Bout a week.”

  The man’s voice was hoarse; he seemed reluctant to talk more, and he cast furtive, dreading glances toward the base of the rock where Dolver had stood before the rider had surprised the men.

  Watching the man narrowly, the rider noted his nervous glance, and his shrinking, dreading manner. Harlan’s eyes gleamed with suspicion, and in a flash he was off the black and standing before Laskar, forbidding and menacing.

  “Take off your gun-belt an’ chuck it under my horse!” he directed sharply. “There’s somethin’ goin’ on here that ain’t been mentioned. I’m findin’ out what it is.”

  He watched while the man unbuckled his cartridge belt and threw it—the pistol still in the holster—into the sand at Purgatory’s hoofs. Then he stepped to the man, sheathed one of his pistols, and ran the free hand over the other’s clothing in search of other weapons. Finding none, he stooped and took up Dolver’s pistol and rifle that had fallen from the man’s hands when he had tumbled off the rock, throwing them near where the cartridge belt had fallen.

  “You freeze there while I take a look around this rock!” he commanded, with a cold look at the man.

  Half a dozen steps took him around the base of the rock. He went boldly, though his muscles were tensed and his eyes alert for surprises. But he had not taken a dozen steps in all when he halted and stiffened, his lips setting into straight, hard lines.

  For, stretched out on his left side in the sand close to the base of the rock—under the flattened summit which had afforded him protection from the bullets the man with the rifle had been sending at him—was a man.

  The man was apparently about fifty, with a seamed, pain-lined face. His beard was stained with dust, his hair was gray with it; his clothing looked as though he had been dragged through it. He was hatless, and one of his boots was off. The foot had been bandaged with a handkerchief, and through the handkerchief the dark stains of a wound appeared.

  The man’s shirt was open in front; and the rider saw that another wound gaped in his chest, near the heart. The man had evidently made some attempt to care for that wound, too, for a piece of cloth from his shirt had been cut away, to permit him to get at the wound easily.

  The man’s left side seemed to be helpless, for the arm was twisted queerly, the palm of the hand turned limply upward; but when the rider came upon him the man was trying to tuck a folded paper into one of the cylinders of a pistol.

  He had laid the weapon in the sand, and with his right hand was working with the cylinder and the paper. When he saw the rider he sneered and ceased working with the pistol, looking up into the rider’s face, his eyes glowing with defiance.

  “No chance for that even, eh?” he said, glancing at the paper and the pistol. “Things is goin’ plumb wrong!”

  He sagged back, resting his weight on the right elbow, and looked steadily at the rider—the look of a wounded animal defying his pursuers.

  “Get goin’!” he jeered. “Do your damnedest! I heard that sneak, Dolver, yappin’ to you. You’re ‘Drag’ Harlan—gun-fighter, outlaw, killer! I’ve heard of you,” he went on as he saw Harlan scowl and stiffen. “Your reputation has got all over. I reckon you’re in the game to salivate me.”

  Harlan sheathed his gun.

  “You’re talkin’ extravagant, mister man.” And now he permitted a cold smile to wreathe his lips. “If it’ll do you any good to know,” he added, “I’ve just put Dolver out of business.”

  “I heard that, too,” declared the man, laughing bitterly. “I heard you tellin’ Dolver. He killed your partner—or somethin’. That’s personal, an’ I ain’t interested. Get goin’—the sooner the better. If you’d hand it to me right now, I’d be much obliged to you; for I’m goin’ fast. This hole in my chest—which I got last night while I was sleepin’—will do the business without any help from you.”

  After a pause for breath, the man began to speak again, railing at his would-be murderers. He was talking ramblingly when there came a sound from the opposite side of the rock—a grunt, a curse, and, almost instantly, a shriek.

  The wounded man raised himself and threw a glance of startled inquiry at Harlan: “What’s that?”

  Harlan watched the man steadily.

  “I reckon that’ll be that man Laskar,” he said slowly. “I lifted his gun an’ his rifle, an’ Dolver’s gun, an’ throwed them under Purgatory—my horse. Laskar has tried to get them, an’ Purgatory’s raised some objection.”

  He stepped back and peered around the rock. Laskar was lying in the sand near the base of the rock, doubled up and groaning loudly, while Purgatory, his nostrils distended, his eyes ablaze, was standing over the weapons that lay in the sand, watching the groaning man malignantly.

  Harlan returned to the wounded man, to find that he had collapsed and was breathing heavily.

  For some minutes Harlan stood, looking down at him; then he knelt in the sand beside him and lifted his head. The man’s eyes were closed, and Harlan laid his head down again and examined the wound in his chest.

  He shook his head as he got up, went to Purgatory, and got some water, which he used to wipe away the dust and blood which had become matted over the wound. He shook his head again after bathing the wound. The wound meant death for the man within a short time. Yet Harlan forced some water into the half-open mouth and bathed the man’s face with it.

  For a long time after Harlan ceased to work with him the man lay in a stupor-like silence, limp and motionless, though his eyes opened occasionally, and by the light in them Harlan knew the man was aware of what he had been doing.

  The sun was going now; it had become a golden, blazing ball which was sinking over the peaks of some distant mountains, its fiery rays stabbing
the pale azure of the sky with brilliantly glowing shafts that threw off ever-changing seas of color that blended together in perfect harmony.

  Harlan alternately watched the wounded man and Laskar.

  Laskar was still groaning, and finally Harlan walked to him and pushed him with a contemptuous foot.

  “Get up, you sneak!” he ordered. And Laskar, groaning, holding his chest—where Purgatory’s hoofs had struck him—staggered to his feet and looked with piteously pleading eyes at the big man who stood near him, unmoved by the spectacle of suffering he presented.

  And when he found that Harlan gave him no sympathy, he cursed horribly. This drew a cold threat from Harlan.

  “Shut your rank mouth or I’ll turn Purgatory loose on you—again. Lookin’ for sympathy, eh? How much sympathy did you give that hombre who’s cashin’ in behind the rocks? None—damn you!”

  It was the first flash of feeling Harlan had exhibited, and Laskar shrank from him in terror.

  But Harlan followed him, grasping him by a shoulder and gripping it with iron fingers, so that Laskar screamed with pain.

  “Who is that man?” Harlan motioned toward the rock.

  “Lane Morgan. He owns the Rancho Seco—about forty miles south of Lamo,” returned Laskar after a long look into Harlan’s eyes.

  “Who set you guys onto him—what you wantin’ him for?”

  “I don’t know,” whined Laskar. “Day before yesterday Dolver an’ me meets up in Lamo, an’ Dolver asks me to help him give Morgan his pass-out checks on the ride over to Pardo—which Morgan’s intendin’ to make. I ain’t got any love for Morgan, an’ so I took Dolver up.”

  “You’re a liar!”

  Harlan’s fingers were sinking into Laskar’s shoulder again, and once more the man screamed with pain and impotent fury.

  “I swear—” began Laskar.

  Harlan’s grin was bitterly contemptuous. He placed the other hand on Laskar’s shoulder and forced the man to look into his eyes.

  “You’re a liar, but I’m lettin’ you off. You’re a sneak with Greaser blood in you. I don’t ever want to see you again. I’m goin’ to Lamo—soon as this man Morgan cashes in. I’ll be there some time tomorrow. Lamo wouldn’t please me none if I was to find you there when I ride in. You slope, now—an’ keep on hittin’ the breeze until there ain’t no more of it. I’d blow you apart if this man Morgan was anything to me. But it ain’t my game unless I see you again.”