The Fourth Western Novel

by H. H. Knibbs

  “Certainly I’ll see you. That boy isn’t interested in politics. All he wants is some medicine. Let him come in.”

  “Well, make it short,” growled Whitehead.

  Young Pete shuffled in, glancing quickly at the Red Doctor. This man had once ridden fourteen hours to cut a bullet from his thigh, and had smiled when he learned that Pete had no money. He had also left a prescription to be filled in case of need. Pete again glanced at the doctor. If the Red Doctor recognized him he gave no slightest sign.

  Pete assumed the whining tone of the paisano. “One time you give me some medicine for the sore. She don’ go good. You say to get some more if she don’ work. I lose those little paper you give me.”

  “Prescription?”

  “Si! I don’ say heem so good.”

  The Red Doctor now knew who the ragged sheep-herder actually was. He wondered if the Kid was playing a part simply to take Slattery by surprise, or if he knew what they were both up against. The Red Doctor dared not risk making a sign. How could he let Young Pete know his need? “Let me see that sore,” he said.

  After he had examined the sore on Pete’s thigh, the Red Doctor reached for pencil and prescription pad. “I remember you now. You’re the boy from Alamosa. Friend knifed you, you told me. What did you do with the medicine I gave you?”

  “Dreenk heem.”

  “You drank it! No wonder you feel sick!” The doctor affected intense indignation. “Now see here! I’m going to give you another prescription for some medicine to rub on that sore—rub it on—like this. But don’t drink it or it will kill you. Understand?”

  “Si.”

  “Mr. Baird, over at the store, will give it to you.”

  Pete took the slip of paper. Slattery stopped him. “Let’s see that prescription. What’s this here at the bottom?”

  “That’s the dosage. Don’t you know Spanish? It reads, ‘Be careful! Apply externally until the cause of the trouble is removed.’”

  Slattery gave the prescription back to Pete.

  “I’ve seen that Mexican somewhere,” said Whitehead as Pete left.

  “Them sheepherders all look alike.” Slattery turned to the doctor. “We’ll side you over to the corral, Doc. If Baird says anything you can tell him you got a call to see a sick man over toward Alamosa. I’ll do the rest of the talkin’.”

  “And murder me out in the brush somewhere.”

  “Nothin’ like that, Doc. We’re just takin’ you to a man that wants to have a little talk with you.”

  “Slattery, you’re a liar! And you’re yellow, clear through.”

  Slattery went for his gun, but Whitehead stopped him. “Not here, you fool!”

  Young Pete sat in the store munching a cracker. “‘Acetate of lead. Apply externally until cause of trouble is removed,’” he quoted. “Kind of a neat little old prescription, but it ain’t so easy to fill. Slattery is yellow. But Whitehead, he’s a killer. He’s fast with a gun, too. Say, Dave, why in hell didn’t you bust your left wing instead of your right?”

  “If you’d been here I’d sure obliged you,” said Dave, grinning.

  “You boys better go slow,” cautioned Baird. “If the doctor is mixed up in that Bodie murder trial and those two strangers are Bancroft’s gunmen, most likely they been paid to snuff the doctor out. They didn’t come down here hunting work, or for their health. The idea is to stop ’em before they do any damage to the doc.” Baird reached a Winchester out of the rack. “If I was dead sure they was after the doc’s hide, I’d drill ’em the minute they stepped out of the office.”

  “Mebby you’ll get a chance.” Young Pete brushed the cracker crumbs from his shirt. “But I get first look. Gimme another bottle of beer.”

  Pete set the bottle of beer in the sun at the back of the store. A few minutes later, with the warm beer in one hand and a couple of crackers in the other, he sauntered over to the doctor’s office and set his foot on the doorstep.

  “No good,” he said through a mouthful of cracker. “He say he don’ got those medicine.”

  Slattery blocked the doorway. “Get to hell out of here!”

  “Si.” Pete fumbled with the beer bottle.

  “Get goin”!” said Slattery.

  Pete caught a glimpse of Whitehead sitting in a chair against the wall. The killer’s gun covered the Red Doctor. Pete knew he would have to risk a shot from Slattery in order to stop Whitehead. He uncorked the bottle of hot beer. As it spurted in Slattery’s face, Slattery threw up his arm. “I’m on my way, Doc!” cried Pete. He fired under Slattery’s arm. The shot knocked Whitehead from the chair. He sprawled on the office floor. Jumping back, Slattery pulled and fired at Pete just as the Red Doctor, swinging the chair in which he had been sitting, knocked Slattery down. Slattery rose, staggered forward. “Back up!” cried Young Pete, and he let Slattery have it just above the belt-buckle.

  Whitehead jumped up and charged out into the open. He had been hit by Pete’s first shot, but was still able to put up a fight. A Mexican woman ran out of her doorway screaming. Whitehead grabbed her, and holding her in front of him fired into the doctor’s office. Frenzied with terror, the Mexican woman struggled and fought. She broke free and dashed back into her adobe. Whitehead’s gun was knocked from his hand in the struggle.

  “Stick ’em up!” called Young Pete, stepping out.

  Whitehead put up his hands. Pete walked to within eight or ten paces of the killer, and stopped. “Pick up your gun—if you’ve got the nerve. How many notches you got in that gun, Whitey? Me, I ain’t got any notches. Pick up your gun. Are you afraid of a sheepherder?”

  A Winchester in his hand, Baird came out of the store. “Lay off him,” said Young Pete. “He claims to be fast with a gun. Show me, Whitey.” Young Pete thrust his own gun back into the holster.

  Whitehead stooped, picked up his gun and turned as though to walk away. He knew that a man brave enough to take the chance Young Pete had taken would not shoot him in the back. Dave Hamill, on the store veranda, cursed Pete for a fool. The Tonto Kid stood there idly watching Whitehead. Suddenly Dave felt his back chill. Whitehead whirled and fired. But Young Pete, who had anticipated just such a move, fired the merest fraction of a second before the killer. Whitehead staggered, flung up his arms, and pitched forward.

  Storekeeper Baird opened several bottles of beer. The Mexican population of Tascosa stood outside the store, peering in at Young Pete, Dave, and the Red Doctor.

  “I’m willin’ to work,” Pete was saying. “But darn’ if I’ll swing a shovel.”

  “I got a busted arm,” declared Dave Hamill.

  The Red Doctor glanced at Baird. “Then Baird and I’ll have to do it. The Mexicans won’t touch them.” The doctor was seated at Baird’s desk, writing. He rose and handed a slip of paper to Young Pete.

  “Another prescription?” asked Pete.

  The doctor smiled and shook his head. His red hair was like a flame in the room.

  Pete glanced at the slip of paper. It was a bill for twenty-five dollars, for services rendered. It was signed “J. V. Hapgood, M.D.,” and marked, “Paid in full.”

  CHAPTER 12

  “The longer the chase the slower the pace.” A line or two of Tonto Charley’s old song came to Young Pete as he rode into Datil.

  Behind him and below lay Arizona, mesa, butte, and lava pit. He was now in New Mexico. Wandering down to the foothills and out across more miles than he could see with the naked eye, the red road dwindled to a thread.

  Along this road several horsemen, like black ants, were crawling steadily up toward Datil.

  “Feel just like I could step on ’em from here,” Pete told his horse. “I’d sure like to.” Association of ideas brought back to Pete’s mind Slim Akers’s highly fanciful description of their midnight encounter with the city marshal of Perdition. “‘Halt! Who goes there?’”—“�
��The town marshal and a cortege of bedbugs.’” Weary as he was from so many weeks of flight (it seemed sometimes as if he had been just one jump ahead of a posse all of his life) Pete had to smile.

  He rode up to the grocery store in Datil to buy some crackers and a can of sardines. Tacked on the weathered boards was a handbill. As he ate he read.

  “It’s a right neat bunch of money for a dead man,” Pete remarked. “Two thousand cash.”

  The proprietor nodded from the doorway. “Two thousand—dead or alive.”

  Pete again glanced back at the black ants that followed so persistently. They had not yet crossed the Arizona line into New Mexico. They might turn back at the line, but chances were they would at least follow him to the river. If he won beyond the Rio Grande before they caught him, probably the posse would quit.

  He finished eating and stood up, “…for Young Pete, alias the Tonto Kid. Two thousand dollars—Dead or Alive.” Carefully cutting the words “Dead or Alive’ from the handbill, he grinned as he dropped the bit of paper on the store porch. “Fill in the blank to suit yourself,” said Pete. Mounting, he rode away. He was heading for Magdalena, Socorro, and the distant San Andreas Range. Once in the San Andreas he would be safe from pursuit. But the black ants were still following.

  While in Tascosa, waiting to meet the foreman of the X I T and apply for a job, Pete had learned that the Red Doctor in spite of the risk had made up his mind to appear as a witness at the Bothe-Bancroft trial. Exceedingly fond of the doctor, Young Pete at once offered to go along as a bodyguard. The Red Doctor wouldn’t hear of it. But Pete insisted. The Panhandle country, he said, didn’t appeal to him. Dave Hamill, who was still unable to work because of his broken arm, laughingly stated that if Pete was traveling north, so was he. The upshot was that the Red Doctor was accompanied on his ride by Young Pete and Dave. While flattered by this attention, the doctor called them a couple of young fools, laughing at Dave Hamill’s quick “How old are you yourself, Doc?”

  That had been some three weeks past. While traveling with the Red Doctor Young Pete had learned that a reward of two thousand dollars had been posted for him, dead or alive. Owing to his disguise as a Mexican sheep-herder, as yet he had not been recognized. He held a council of war with Dave Hamill, but did not disclose his plans. That night Young Pete left his companions without stating he was going. He headed for the Datil country, leaving Dave and the Red Doctor camped near Springerville.

  Young Pete had been gone from Datil not more than half an hour when Dave Hamill, whose arm was now in such shape he could take care of himself, pulled up at the grocery. He had been some twelve hours in the saddle, trailing his friend. Dismounting, Dave pushed back his hat, made a cigarette, and stood reading the handbill. He knew the Arizona officers had been hot after Pete in their own State. But that the New Mexico authorities had posted a reward for him was news. Dave took up the trail again with a troubled spirit.

  Between Datil and Magdalena Young Pete’s horse cast a shoe. Pete rode up to the four-corners blacksmith shop just west of Magdalena about mid-afternoon. On the door was another handbill offering a reward of two thousand dollars for the Tonto Kid, dead or alive. “I’d feel right lonesome in a town that didn’t have one of those handbills,” Pete said to himself.

  “Can you tack a couple of front shoes on this cayuse?” he called.

  The blacksmith yanked a hot iron from the fire. “Got to shoe these two, all around.” He bent the hot iron over the horn, shaping a horseshoe.

  “Mebby I can tack a couple of cold shoes on him myself.”

  The blacksmith thrust the half-turned shoe into the fire. “I’m all out of cold shoes. I’ll have to turn you a couple. What’s your hurry, anyhow?”

  Young Pete’s mouth tightened. “I ain’t in no hurry.” Tying his horse to the rail, he stepped into the shop. “Lemme blow up the fire for you. I’ve fooled around a shoeing shop, some.”

  The blacksmith, a dark, powerful man, as hairy as an ape, let the arm of the bellows sag. “I kin tell you what happened to the last kid that fooled around here.”

  Pete pushed back his hat. “Say, would you mind tellin’ me what you et for breakfast?”

  “You’re real curious, ain’t you?”

  “I was born curious. But don’t you try to ride me. I’m only halter-broke, so far.”

  “You? Hell, I could break you in two.”

  “Hoss-shoe nails—that’s what you had for breakfast.”

  Yanking a sizzling hot iron from the fire the blacksmith struck it a heavy blow with the hammer. The flying sparks hit Pete’s face before he could fling up his arm.

  “That was kind of hot,” said Pete, grinning as he backed away.

  “Don’t go near him or he’ll put your eye out,” said someone behind him.

  A crippled boy of about Pete’s own age was standing in the doorway. His left hand hung from the wrist like a dead thing. He dragged his left leg as he hobbled toward Pete.

  “What’s your name?” he asked Pete.

  “Oh, I’m Bud.”

  “He put my eye out,” said Crazy Charley. “But I’ll get even with him some day.”

  The blacksmith rested his hammer on the anvil, wiped the sweat from his face, and nodded toward the cripple. “He used to monkey around the shop. I told him plenty times to keep out. One day I figured I’d learn him a lesson.” The blacksmith chuckled. “Pulled a sizzler from the fire and hit it a wallop that sure scattered sparks. Charley don’t hang round the forge so close these days.”

  “Sparks put my eye out.” Crazy Charley pointed to his eye, filmed like the eye of a dead fish.

  The back of Pete’s neck grew hot. The cripple shuffled out to the doorway and stood looking down the Datil road. Concealing his uneasiness Pete also stepped to the doorway and glanced toward the west. He was anxious to get on. Something like an hour behind him while crossing the divide, the posse had now gained at least half an hour.

  Pete picked up a couple of worn horseshoes. “What’ll you take for these?” he asked the blacksmith.

  “Them there ain’t no good.”

  “I’ll give you two bits for ’em.”

  The blacksmith shook his head. “I’ll make you a couple of shoes, soon’s I’m through with these broncs.”

  Pete examined the worn horseshoes. At best they would last but a day or two. The smith was turning a new pair of front shoes, had them almost ready to tack on. Pete decided he would have those two new front shoes. His horse had already shown signs of going lame. He handed the cripple boy two bits. “Run down to the store and get a couple of sacks of tobacco, one for each of us.”

  The cripple shuffled down the road. Squatting in the shop doorway Pete watched the blacksmith punch the nail holes in the horseshoes. Occasionally Pete glanced toward the west. No horsemen had as yet appeared.

  As the blacksmith stepped up to one of the broncos, it shied and snorted. Seizing a heavy oak-handled twitch from the wall, the blacksmith hit the horse over the nose. The frenzied animal fought. He struck it again and again. When at last it subsided, quivering, the blacksmith’s face was purple, the veins of his neck swollen, he stooped to take up the bronco’s forefoot. Like a flash the animal cow-kicked. Its sharp hind hoof took the smith just above the ear. He dropped. Pete jumped in and dragged him from beneath the hammering hoofs.

  “By rights I ought to let him kill you,” said Pete to the unconscious man. “But mebby I can do better than that.”

  At the rear of the shop was a shed. He dragged the blacksmith into it and covered him with a couple of dried cow-hides. Hastening to the forge, Pete picked up the two front shoes, a handful of nails, and the shoeing hammer. As he stepped out to his pony he saw, far down the Datil road, the four horsemen who had stuck to his trail so persistently. Their leader, he knew, was Buck Yardlaw. Other sheriffs might keep to their own preserves. But Yardlaw had set out to clean
up the Hemenway gang, and he was not to be stopped by personal expense, technical considerations or geographical boundaries. Now he had crossed the territorial line. He was in New Mexico.

  To change Pete’s saddle to one of the broncos would take but a few seconds, but both these horses were unshod. Besides, if he stole a mount it would stir up the local officers. With the whole country roused, his chances of escape would be mighty slim. And the Arizona posse was not more than a few minutes away.

  Pete jerked saddle and bridle from his own mount, and leading him across the open space behind the shop, tied him out of sight in the brush. Hastening back, he saddled the quieter of the two broncos, a stout bay cowpony. Into his sweating forearms, face, and neck Pete rubbed fine black dust from the surface of the anvil. He ran his fingers through his wavy black hair, thrust one of the horseshoes into the forge, and blew up the fire. Would Yardlaw, who had never actually seen him, be able to recognize him?

  Crazy Charley came scuttling into the shop. “Fellas comin’ down the Datil road!” he cried excitedly. “Whole bunch of ’em.”

  Pete poked the fire. “Mebby they’re after the blacksmith. He just made his getaway on that buckskin you saw tied out there.”

  The cripple stared round the shop. “Where’d he go?”

  “I dunno.” Pete shook his head. “But he won’t put any more eyes out.”

  “Was he scared of you?”

  Pete nodded. “Yes. I’m runnin’ the shop till he gets back.”

  Crazy Charley grinned. “Mebby he’s dead.”

  “No. He ain’t dead. Don’t you tell anybody that.”

  “I know!” cried Crazy Charley. “He’s gone on a drunk down to Socorro, like last time.”

  “You guessed it!” said Pete. “Hope he’ll stay drunk a week.”

  “Last time he was gone a week.”

  Pete nodded and smiled. “If anybody comes along and asks you, you know what to tell ’em, eh?”

  “I know!” said the cripple boy. “He never give me any tobacco. He put my eye out.”

  “If anybody asks you who I am, what will you say?”