The Fourth Western Novel

by H. H. Knibbs

  Cautiously he drew out the six-shooter and thrust it inside his shirt. The sheriff’s gun was on the dresser. Pete knew he could shoot Stewart and put his second shot into Yardlaw before the latter could do anything. But if he killed Buck Yardlaw he would kill a man who had given him a fair break against Stroud. Then the sound of shooting would rouse the neighborhood. Pete shrugged. Thanks to Dave, he had a gun. But what good was it to him?

  In the dim light he saw Stewart’s head sag. The cigar dropped from the deputy’s mouth and lay at his feet glowing dimly. He had fallen asleep in spite of himself.

  Pete broke out in a sweat. Now was his chance, if shooting would do him any good at all.

  Yardlaw’ was muttering in his sleep: “Darn’ if I’ll give him up.” The words broke in a snore.

  Pete bit his lip. If he made a break for liberty, he would have to kill Yardlaw and Bill Stewart—two fighters who would shoot till they dropped before they would give up a prisoner. Young Pete felt that he had never had to make a more difficult choice. A shaft of moonlight struck through the second-story window and spread across the bedroom floor. There was the faint suggestion of a sound, such as might be made by cautiously placing a ladder against the hotel wall. Presently the head and shoulders of a man appeared in the window-opening. The muzzle of a gun was thrust against Bill Stewart’s head. Pete stared. The man looked too stocky and thick-necked for Dave Hamill. Slowly Pete drew’ the gun from his shirt. Deputy Stewart’s head came up with a jerk.

  “Don’t make one little move!” said the man in the window. It was Constable Stroud’s voice.

  Pete knew that if he called out, probably Constable Stroud would kill Stewart, shoot down the sheriff, and claim that the Tonto Kid started the shooting.

  Bill Stewart struck up with his right hand. Stroud’s gun exploded. Before Stewart could spring from the chair, Pete fired. The window became suddenly empty.

  Buck Yardlaw sat up, jerking Pete with him.

  “Go easy,” said Pete, thrusting the gun in Yardlaw’s ribs. “You better wait till Bill turns up the light before you start anything.”

  “Go easy, Bill,” said Yardlaw from the bed. “The Kid’s got a gun in my ribs.”

  Bill Stewart glanced swiftly at the dresser where lay the sheriff’s belt and gun. He stared at Pete. “So it was you did the shooting? Now I thought it was Buck. Where in hell did you get that gun?

  “You’re askin’ me somethin’.”

  “Let’s have a little light, Bill,” said Yardlaw coolly.

  Stewart turned up the lamp and pulled the window shade down. From below came the sound of voices and the crash of a hastily closed door.

  Yardlaw glanced at his deputy. The tall man looked sheepish. “I went to sleep. Woke up with a gun stickin’ in my face. Somebody just outside that window took a long fall.”

  Yardlaw turned to Pete.

  “Mebby you notice nobody’s come runnin’ to find out who done the shootin,” he said the Tonto Kid. “If you want to do any askin’, you might go hold up Yancy or Stroud.”

  “Kid,” said the sheriff of Apache County, “I told Stroud if he and his bunch tried to take you, I’d give you a gun and turn you loose. You got a gun. Now just swing her round the other way till I unlock the cuffs.”

  “Meanin’ I side you in a fight with Yancy’s outfit till we get clear, then you put the cuffs on me again?”

  Yardlaw nodded. “You could throw in with Yancy’s gang. But if you do, and start a war, I’ll stop you.”

  Pete considered this swiftly. “If you don’t turn me loose, you’ll be in a hell of a mess tryin’ to leave town with me hooked onto you. That’s my ante. Here’s how I play my hand. I’ll side you to the finish in a fight with Yancy’s outfit. If you clean up on them, your next job will be a little private war with me—and either you or me’ll ride back to Arizona in a wagon.”

  “I’ll go you,” said Buck Yardlaw. He unlocked the handcuffs.

  It was nearly twelve o’clock. They heard a whistle below the window. Bill Stewart blew out the lamp and pulled the window shade aside. “The boys with the horses,” he said to the sheriff. “Not twelve yet, but they’re here. That ladder will come in handy.”

  Yardlaw descended first, Pete next, and big Bill Stewart last. They found Foster and Frank Tenny at the livery, waiting. Apparently unseen, they mounted and rode quietly out of town.

  The moonlight sprayed silver through strange shadows on the road. Pete took a deep breath. He was in the open again, astride his own horse. He had both hands free. While he had made no promise other than that he would fight with the sheriff and not against him in case they were attacked, he felt in honor bound to hold with the posse until they reached the Arizona line. But cross the line with them? Not alive.

  They were well put of town when Pete asked young Ed Foster how they had happened to come back to the blacksmith shop.

  “You overlooked one bet,” said Young Ed. “The blacksmith shop is downhill from the store. From the store we spotted your buckskin tied back in the brush. You mighty near fooled us at that.”

  “I’ll do better next time,” laughed Pete. “What I want to know is, am I a prisoner or just a guard to keep you fellas from getting shot up?”

  “You’re a deputy guarding yourself.” Yardlaw smiled grimly. “I wouldn’t spur my horse any, if I was you.”

  “How about a couple dozen shells?”

  “Do you think Yancy could wrangle up that many gunmen?”

  Pete gazed down the moonlit road. “No. But a fella can do a whole lot of missin’ in this kind of a light. Anyhow, I’m goin’ to need some shells.”

  Yardlaw gave Pete the belt full of shells he had taken from him.

  The moon waned and sank behind the western ridges. The cavalcade moved on toward the Arizona line in the thin light of the stars. Buck Yardlaw began to think the Yancy outfit had given up the idea of seizing the Tonto Kid. Young Pete himself was wondering about Dave Hamill. He could not believe that Dave would not attempt a rescue. But how would he make it? Dave was a good shot, but none too fast with a gun. “I’d rather punch cows than fight,” Dave used to say, “till I get tired of punchin’ cows.”

  West of Magdalena the road crosses a dry lake—a salt clay floor, smooth, vast, and weedless. On either side of the road the brush thins out and disappears. On the point of riding into the open, Tenny’s horse threw up its head and snorted. Dawn quivered across the flats.

  “He don’t like alkali,” said the deputy, laughing.

  Pete became suddenly tense, however. Sometimes ponies snorted when stepping out onto alkali-covered ground, but usually after they had lowered their heads. The deputy’s horse had snorted with head up and ears pricked forward.

  A few hundred yards farther on the brush ceased as the dry lake broke back into a huge bay. Opposite this point of brush Tenny’s horse again snorted and pricked its ears.

  “It ain’t the alkali,” said Young Pete to himself peering through the early light.

  Sheriff Yardlaw, riding beside him in the lead, pulled up. A group of horsemen, fifteen or more, burst out from the brush and swept forward, between Buck Yardlaw’s posse and the nearest cover. Within twenty yards of Buck they pulled up, and Dave Hamill rode out. “We’ll save you the trouble of taking the Kid any further,” he said.

  Yardlaw turned to Young Pete. “Want me to turn you over to these highbinders?”

  Pete surmised that the group with Dave Hamill were Black Benavides cowboys from the Magdalena country. The hotel keeper Yancy did not seem to be among them. Evidently, following the shooting of Stroud, Yancy had backed out.

  Pete shook his head. “I’m right obliged to you, Dave, but you wrangled the wrong outfit. I’d last about two minutes with that bunch.”

  “Not two minutes!” cried a Mexican vaquero, taking down his reata.

  “You see how it is,�
� said Pete coolly, turning to Yardlaw. “They’re burnin’ up with that old grudge. To beef me and snare that reward money would please ’em most to death.”

  Dave Hamill swung his horse round. “There’s enough of us to settle this without a fight. The sheriff is willing to turn the Kid over to us.”

  “Like hell he is!” shouted an American cowboy in the group. “You can’t double-cross us, Hamill! All Yardlaw has got to do is curl his tail for Arizona. This here is New Mexico. We’ll take care of the Kid.”

  “Yes, and if Hamill don’t like it, we’ll take care of him, too,” cried another cowboy. There was a forward movement.

  “They’re full of whiskey,” said Pete in a low voice. “Sheriff, you let on you’re turnin’ me over to Dave Hamill. I’ll ride up to Dave and make a show of handin’ him my gun. I don’t. Me and Dave will go through that bunch like a wildcat through hell. That’ll give you a chance to take to the brush. Out here on this flat, they’ll clean you up in no time. They’re fifteen to five of you and most of ’em are drunk.”

  Yardlaw spoke to his men. Then: “All right. Kid. They won’t wait for a tall tree to string you up.”

  “I’m sure obliged,” said Pete, grinning. “So long, you duck-hunters.”

  Impatient, the Benavides cowboys crowded forward. They reined in as Young Pete rode up to Dave. “I surrender to you, and to nobody else,” said Pete, offering his gun. Then swiftly and in a whisper, “Pull and spur through ’em, you darn’ fool. Do you think I’m crazy?” The gun flashed over in Pete’s hand and came up, poised. He jumped his horse with the spur. Dave Hamill’s horse reared and leapt forward beside him. They tore through the Benavides group like a tornado. A horse turned over, rolling his rider down. The Benavides men whirled their mounts this way and that. A Magdalena gun boomed. Young Pete and Dave swept apart on the run, and turning replied to the spatter of shots that dappled the dry lake around them. Another Benavides horse went down, further disorganizing the cowboys.

  Followed by the crash and ripple of shots, Buck Yardlaw, with Tenny, Young Ed Foster, and Bill Stewart, split and spurred for the brush. Young Ed’s mount stumbled and rolled over. Bill Stewart swept round in a short circle, reached down, and caught Young Ed’s hand. Swinging up behind Stewart, the young deputy turned and threw shot after shot into the Benavides men as Stewart spurred for cover.

  Pounding up the slope edging the dry lake, Dave and Young Pete made for the ridge, their horses pretty well winded.

  On the ridge they swung round. Pete reloaded his gun. “Glad to meet you,” he bowed to Dave. “I hope you will enjoy yourself while in our city.”

  “For God’s sake!” cried Dave hoarsely. “Ain’t you got any feelin’s at all?”

  “Plenty. But I’m keepin’ the cork in, right now. Feelin’s spoil a fella’s shootin’. Mebby you noticed them Benavides boys was excited.”

  “Fighting drunk, you mean.” Dave mopped his face with his bandanna. “Well, Kid, now’s your chance. I reckon you better drift.”

  Pete shook his head. “Excuse me for takin’ up your time, but I don’t drift till I see which way the stampede is headin’.” He gazed down at the dim surface of the dry lake. Two of the Benavides men were done for, and a horse was badly wounded. The Arizona posse was pushing along the Datil road at a slow pace on account of the rough going and because Bill Stewart’s horse was earning double. As anxious as Dave to push on, Pete hesitated. What he saw decided him.

  Electing a new leader, the Benavides vaqueros took up the trail of the Arizona officers. They soon had Yardlaw and his men fighting a running battle and at length forced them to take cover.

  “That settles it,” murmured Young Pete.

  “Settles what?”

  “Buck Yardlaw is one white man, even if he is a darn’ peace officer. I’m sidin’ him in this ruckus.”

  Dave Hamill drew a deep breath. “All right. If you’re set to get killed, I might as well come along and watch ’em do it.”

  Firing from brush and boulder the Benavides cowboys crept in on Yardlaw and his men, who were crowded behind a little outcrop of rock on a low hill.

  Pete now saw that the cowboys, tired of potting at the rocks, had decided to rush the posse. “Come on!” he called to Dave.

  Grumbling, Dave Hamill followed Pete along the brush-covered ridge. Pete swung down the slope, coming upon Yardlaw and his men from the rear. “Get behind a rock and let the cow-chasers have it when they swing into the open,” he told Dave. “You got a carbine. Hand ’em plenty!”

  Dismounting, Young Pete ran for the breastwork and leapt it. He dropped to his knees as a shot whistled over his head. Behind the outcrop Frank Tenny was reloading his pistol. Young Ed Foster sat gravely staring at the stump of his forefinger. Deputy Bill Stewart was sopping the blood from a scalp wound. Buck Yardlaw lay on his face. Pete thought he was dead.

  “Arizona!” cried Pete. “Gimme that gun!” He yanked the gun from Young Ed’s holster and thrust it in the waistband of his jeans. The ground shook as the Benavides men charged.

  Dave’s thirty-thirty snarled. Pete whirled round to Bill Stewart. “Have this dance with me, Bill?”

  Stewart picked up his six-shooter and knelt behind the barrier. “I ain’t dancin’ this evenin’, but I’ll accompany you on the piano.”

  Four men, counting Dave Hamill over to the left behind a rock, against a dozen. Fighting mad and too drunk to care what risk they ran, the Benavides riders charged up the slope. Young Pete leapt up on the rocky barrier and began throwing shot after shot into the blur of men and horses. When his own gun was empty, he drew Young Ed’s pistol, firing swiftly. Six riders reached the barrier. Bill Stewart dropped one of them who leaned forward to shoot the defenseless Yardlaw. Young Pete split the charge with a shot that turned the leading pony over. Pete leapt down, knelt, and reloaded.

  “They’re on the run!” cried Hamill, and his carbine snarled from the brush.

  “Which way?” called Pete.

  Dave’s carbine snarled again. “Straight down,” he cried as a Benavides man plunged from his mount and rolled down the hillside.

  Several of the Benavides men had been hit, and were out of it. Several horses were down or running loose. The rest of the New Mexico punchers, leaderless, were pretty-well disorganized. They drew out of range, unaware that Yardlaw and his men were about out of ammunition.

  Young Pete called to Dave Hamill, telling him that if he could catch up a couple of horses it wouldn’t do any harm. Yardlaw was down, perhaps dead. Young Ed Foster had had the first finger of his gun hand shot off. Bill Stewart was able to navigate, although he also had been hit. Only Pete and Frank Tenny had escaped without a wound.

  “I guess that’s about all,” reflected Pete.

  Bilk Stewart had used every shell in his belt. Tenny was in the same fix. So was Young Ed Foster. Stepping over to Yardlaw, Pete took off the sheriff’s belt and gun. He now had the only ammunition left. Pete had his enemy at his mercy. As if to stop whatever might happen, Frank Tenny took a step toward him. But Pete did not shoot.

  “Hold on!” called Dave Hamill. His carbine nosed over the top of the barricade.

  “Hell!” laughed Pete, “he wouldn’t ’a’ got to me.”

  “No, I reckon he wouldn’t,” said big Bill Stewart. “Just what is the bill for damages, Kid?”

  “Meanin’ Dave and me got you fellas up a high tree? Well, we sure have. Mebby I’m a fool to turn you loose. Mebby you figure you gave me an even break when you took off those cuffs. Not any. You weren’t protectin’ me from the Benavides outfit. You was fightin’ to save your own hides. I was doin’ the same to save mine. I got no grudge against you fellas, personal. My grudge is against the law. And you ain’t a hell of a lot of law, right now. Especially Buck, there.” Tenny was pouring water from a canteen over the sheriff’s face and chest. The sheriff gasped, tried to rise on his elbo
w. Tenny knelt and supported him. Yardlaw’s heavy eye’s fixed themselves on the Kid. His lips moved as though trying to speak. The Tonto Kid nodded.

  “About that little private war, Buck,” said Young Pete. “It looks like it’ll be quite a spell before you can sit a horse again. I can’t wait that long right now. But any time I meet up with you after you’re on your feet, I’m goin’ to kill you—if it sets me afoot in hell.”

  Again Yardlaw’s lips moved. Although not mortally hit, the shock of the wound in his chest had all but paralyzed him. Feebly he reached inside his shirt and drew out a wallet. From it he fumbled a narrow strip of paper, and motioned that he wanted the Tonto Kid to take it.

  Young Pete stooped and took the tiny strip of paper from the sheriff’s fingers, the strip cut from the handbill tacked on the store in Datil. It read, “Dead or Alive.”

  Pete smiled, nodded farewell to Yardlaw, and backed from the group.

  Riding west at a steady pace Dave and Young Pete said nothing for a long while. Both were thinking of the fight, and wondering if Yardlaw’s men would manage to get him out of New Mexico alive. Dave Hamill was first to speak. “Which way do we go from here?”

  “Don’t seem to matter much,” said Pete. “Straight ahead, I reckon. For a time, anyhow. Got any ideas?”

  “All I’m thinkin’ of is lightin’ down somewhere where we won’t have to saddle up and curl our tails for somewhere else. What was you thinkin’ of?”

  “Yardlaw.” Pete hesitated, shrugged as if what he was about to say was casual, although it was not. “I’d sure liked to had him for a friend.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Young Pete stood gazing down at his horse. The horse was dead. Somehow or other, one by one, life seemed to be taking things from a fellow. First his own folks, then Tonto Charley, then his reputation, his job, his chance of playing a square game, and now his horse. What next? A slow shadow floated across the desert sand. Pete looked up at the buzzards slowly circling in the hot, naked sky. “Those birds,” he muttered, “are always on time. Me, I’m like to be plenty late.”