The Fourth Western Novel

by H. H. Knibbs

  Pete had his own special reason. Neither Malvey nor the Mexican was wearing spurs. The cowboy was, and his clothing was dusted with alkali. If the horse with the crooked foot belonged to him… Pete nodded. “I’ll take another whiskey.”

  Lute, the cowboy, suggested that they sit at a table back in the patio, by themselves. He wanted to sound out this young stranger. He thought he had seen the boy pass the Spider’s place earlier that afternoon on a team he knew well—Old Man Jepson’s grays. A little more whiskey and the boy might talk. “My name is Lute, Jake Lute,” said the cowboy.

  “I’m mostly Bud,” said Pete. “Best darn’ cowboy ever was born.” Pete talked but he didn’t say anything. His caution was far beyond his scanty years. Now he first got Lute so tangled and confused that the glass-eyed cowboy was no longer certain that this was the boy who had ridden the grays.

  It didn’t take long to find out a good deal about Lute. Old Man Jepson had been on his way to town to pay off his herders. That meant he had had money. When Pete found him, however, there wasn’t a dollar in the old man’s wallet. But the blue-eyed cowboy was free-handed with money. And the brown horse with the crooked front foot belonged to him.

  Pete listened with an expressionless face as Jake Lute, still vaguely uneasy through a rising haze of whiskey, clumsily made a proposition to Pete to hold up the Spider and rob his safe. Pete countered with a proposition of his own. The Tonto Kid, he told Lute solemnly, was known to be somewhere in the vicinity. He could actually help the cowboy to put a finger on him.

  “You mean the Tonto Kid is hidin’ out somewhere in town?”

  “That’s why I’m here.”

  Lute rose. “I’ll just take a look around.”

  The cowboy walked toward the front of the saloon. He stopped, took up the ragged newspaper Bull Malvey had been reading, and studied it.

  “That glass-eyed killer robbed and murdered Old Man Jepson, and tried to get me,” Pete said to himself. “I reckon I got his ideas tangled up some. But he didn’t tangle me up any about us robbin’ the Spider. He ain’t goin’ to monkey with the Spider any. All he was doin’ was to plant me where I’d git killed awful quick.”

  Lute and Bull Malvey left the saloon together. Sitting at a side table, the one-eared Mexican was toying with a deck of cards. Pete stepped up to the bar and laid two bits on it, but said nothing.

  The Spider got down from the high stool. “What’ll it be?”

  Pete picked up the coin and marked a tiny double cross on the bar. The Spider’s beady black eyes expressed no curiosity, no apparent interest.

  “You looking for the Tonto Kid?” he said in his thin, whispering voice.

  “Not any. But Jake Lute is.”

  The Spider nodded. “I’ve got a picture of the Kid in my room.”

  “I’d sure like to see it.”

  One-eared Ramon glanced up as the Spider unlocked the door back of the bar. Young Pete found himself in the Spider’s room, looking into the tall mirror of an old-fashioned dresser. “That’s the Tonto Kid all right,” he said, grinning.

  The Spider closed the door, and seated himself in a swivel chair at a low desk against the wall. Next to the desk was a small safe.

  Taking in the room at a glance, Pete sat on the edge of a narrow bed covered with a bright Navajo blanket. “About your friend, Lute,” said Pete. “Mebby he’s a friend of yours and mebby he ain’t. But here’s where I unload.” With cold impersonality Pete told about the killing of his horse, about the wagon and the gray team, the murdered man, and the tracks of the pony with the crooked foot. The Spider showed no surprise, made no comment, but sat with his beady eyes boring into Pete’s.

  “The hosses,” said Pete, “are in that corral back of the first house east of town. I’m here. Jake Lute is out lookin’ for me.”

  “About that double cross?” prompted the Spider.

  Briefly Pete outlined Lute’s plan to get possession of the Spider’s money.

  “You’re figuring I believe that?”

  “Hell, no! I ain’t figurin’ nothin’. Lute, he’s doin’ the figurin’ for both of us.”

  “Those were Jepson’s sheep that crossed east of town,” said the Spider. “Jepson was on his way in, to pay his herders and stock up with grub.”

  “Speakin’ of grub,” said Pete, rising.

  “I eat in here. Like this room?”

  “Suits me fine. Never et so clost to a safe full of money in my life.”

  The Spicier nodded. “Just keep an eye on it while I’m out. I’m locking the door so Lute won’t come in and take it away from you.”

  “I’d sure admire for you to do that. But I hope Lute don’t come back till I get some beans under my belt. I’d hate to git killed on an empty stomach.”

  Pete was quick to adjust himself to these new conditions. The Spider knew that he was the Tonto Kid. Lute didn’t know it, apparently, nor Bull Malvey nor one-eared Ramon. It was not the Spider’s practice to turn outlaws over to the authorities, but rather to protect them—so long as they were willing to recognize him as the boss of Showdown. While Pete didn’t like to take orders from anyone, he felt that it was policy to sit tight and say nothing. In fact there wasn’t anything else to do. He was virtually a prisoner, locked in the Spider’s room. There was but one door. The two small windows were high and iron-barred. On the safe were a couple of Winchesters. A sawed-off shotgun stood in one corner. A belt filled with cartridges hung on the back of a chair. On a heavy peg in the wall hung a silver-mounted saddle and bridle and a pair of light chaps. There was a bracket-lamp over the desk and another over the wash-stand at the other end of the room.

  Would the Spider keep him there till he found out just what the cowboy Lute was up to? Pete grinned. To be locked in the room where the Spider kept his cash, and told to guard it—and he a stranger to the gambler—there was something funny about that. Then again, it might not be funny. Perhaps Lute was one of the Spider’s men, and Lute’s scheme a tryout to see where Pete stood. Or perhaps the Spider’s apparent hospitality was a tryout. Pete frowned. Did the Spider think he had murdered Old Man Jepson and had told a yarn about having trailed a horse with a crooked foot to cast suspicion on Lute? Young Pete’s safety had often hung on his ability to judge people, but the Spider he couldn’t figure at all.

  The Spider’s mozo entered with a tray, placed coffee and beans and bread on the wall table. It was the same Mexican Pete had seen on the saloon veranda, pretending to clean a rifle. The Mexican went out, relocking the door. A few minutes later the Spider came in. He nodded toward the table. Pete silently drew up a chair.

  “Lute just came back,” said the Spider in that significant, nerve-trying whisper.

  Pete flushed, shut his lips tight. “Mebby you think I’m askin’ questions, but I ain’t. I ain’t askin’ no favors, either. I don’t say Lute murdered the old man, but if he didn’t, the old man must of murdered himself.”

  The Spider looked up. “Why didn’t you fetch the old man’s body here, instead of burying him?”

  “I wanted to get here quick. And I didn’t know how far I had to go.”

  “You didn’t say anything about finding a murdered man when you first came in.”

  “Sure I didn’t. I figured to locate the fella that done it, first.”

  “Think you located him?”

  “I located the hoss he rode.”

  “Have some more frijoles,” said the Spider.

  CHAPTER 15

  The Mexican had cleared away the supper dishes. The Spider was out in the saloon looking after his customers. Pete sat in the Spider’s room watching a moth whirl round the lighted bracket-lamp. Through the closed door came the sound of voices and the shuffling of feet. Showdown was beginning to wake up.

  The longer Pete thought about it all, the less he liked his present situation. He knew that the wizened little
gambler had the reputation of letting his enemies kill one another off while keeping out of the quarrel himself. If he had it in for the cowboy, Lute, it would be easy enough to arrange a meeting between Lute and the Tonto Kid; that would mean the killing of one or both. “Lute, he ain’t worth buryin’,” muttered Pete. “Me, I’m worth two thousand dollars to anybody that gets me. Now say Lute and me tangled and both of us get bumped off. All the Spider has got to do is collect that reward money.” Pete glanced up at the narrow, barred windows. “Or mebby I get Lute. Then one of Lute’s friends will just naturally plug me. Nope! They’ll be too many of ’em shootin’ at two thousand dollars on the hoof.”

  There was a knock on the door. Pete turned the lamp down a little. “What do you want?”

  No one replied. Pete heard the sound of someone leaving the doorway. Almost immediately followed the sound of a scuffle, then a voice, high-pitched, boyish, “You gimme back my gun, Spider!”

  Pete stood tense and still, listening. The sound of scuffling grew louder, approached the door of the room. The lock clicked. The door swung open swiftly. Holding a struggling boy by the arm, the Spider entered. The door clicked shut.

  “Now, Jimmy,” said the Spider, “you can take a look at the man Lute’s got you excited about. Just cool down.”

  What was it all about? Pete gazed at the boy, a hardy lad, about thirteen or fourteen, in cotton shirt and blue jeans, hatless, his stubby red hair contrasting strongly with his face, white and tear-marked from terror and excitement. He glared at Pete.

  “This is Jimmy Jepson. Somebody killed his grandfather on the Basin Trail today. Jimmy was told you did the job.”

  “Why, say,” said Pete, “you got me wrong, Kid. Who told you I killed the old man?”

  “Lute, he told me.” The boy’s mouth trembled. “I ain’t scared of you, even if you are the Tonto Kid. You’re a dirty, sneakin’ skunk. I—” he tried to jerk away from the Spider. “You killed my granddad—and you tooken our horses!” he cried. “God darn’ you, Spider, you let me loose!”

  “Ever see this young fella before?” said the Spider.

  Jimmy’s face grew sullen. “No. I never seen him. But—”

  “How do you know he killed your grandfather?”

  “Lute said—”

  “I know. But how did Lute know?”

  “Lute said so—said he done shot granddad in the back.” The Spider and Pete exchanged glances.

  “Listen, Jimmy,” said the Spider. “How did Lute know your granddad was shot in the back?”

  The white-faced young lad stared at the Spider with round, questioning eyes. Ordinarily bright and quick, grief and terror had so stunned him that he could not think clearly.

  Again his face grew sullen. “Lute said he knowed the Tonto Kid killed grandfather and tooken his money and his team and come to Showdown.”

  “Where did you find your grandfather?”

  The boy trembled. “He was buried by the wagon. Somebody covered him up with stones. Our hosses was gone. And there was blood on the tarp.” Plainly the lad was again suffering the terror and shock of that ghastly discovery.

  Pete bit his lips. “I buried your granddad. And I took the team. I was afoot. Somebody shot my horse. If you’d looked round, you’d ’a’ seen a bay pony about a mile, mebby, east of the wagon, layin’ in the middle of the trail.”

  The boy’s sullen eyes brightened. “That proves it! Lute said you was ridin’ a bay horse with a blaze face and one white foot.”

  Pete turned to the Spider. “How did Lute know I was ridin’ a bay pony, way back there on the trail? I come into town on a gray. Lute was settin’ in the saloon then.”

  The Spider nodded. “Did you look for tracks when you came back to the wagon?” he asked the lad.

  Jimmy shook his head. “I was scared.” The boy harked back to their start early that morning and their journey from the sheep camp. “Granddad said I could go hunt rabbits over north of the ridge. He said I could take my pony and go. He said to circle so’s I’d ketch the wagon again, “cause he would be travelin’ slow. So I tooken Jingle-Bob and my twenty-two and went.”

  “Would I shoot my own hoss and bust my canteen out there in that dry spot?” Pete asked. “And just supposin’ I done what Lute said. Would I fetched them two gray bosses to town so folks would know I stole ’em, and them belongin’ to your grandfather?”

  Jimmy Jepson would not answer. He had grown quieter. The Spider let go of his arm. With a leap like a panther the boy flung himself upon Pete.

  Pete staggered back, flung up his arm to shield himself from the fury of the half-mad boy.

  Swiftly the Spider pinioned the boy’s arms from behind. “Had enough of that, Jimmy. You’re going over to Alejandro’s. I’m going to lock you in his back room before you get hurt.”

  “Yes,” said Pete, wiping the blood from his mouth, “and listen, Jimmy. The fella that killed your grandfather is goin’ to get his. But he won’t get shot in the back.”

  Sick and weary, the boy began to cry.

  The Spider paused as he unlocked the door. “Lute’s crowd is here.”

  Pete nodded. Just what would happen, he did not know. But long after the Spider had left, taking the boy with him, Pete walked up and down the Spider’s room, his dark young face tense, his eyes hard. It was not the first time somebody had tried to run a whizzer on him. But for a grown man to load a kid up, like Lute loaded Jimmy Jepson!

  “That kid is game,” muttered Pete. “He’d ’a’ plugged me, for I couldn’t shoot down a boy like that. Lute’s breakfast is sure gettin’ warmed up in hell.”

  Young Pete wished himself a thousand miles from Showdown, a thousand miles in any direction, he told himself. “Might ’a’ knowed I’d get in a jam, comin’ to this town.” A grim smile twisted his mouth. “The Spider is settin’ pretty in his web, and them as steps up to have a look at him always get tangled.”

  The Spider had been gone but a few minutes when someone knocked on the door. “Open up!” The voice was a clever imitation of the Spider’s, but Pete was not deceived. “It’s the Spider,” someone added.

  “Like hell it is!” said Pete. “Keep off that door or I’ll open you up.”

  After a brief silence someone else spoke. “Told you he was in there. You stick here and I’ll go talk to the boys.”

  “That,” Pete smiled to himself, “was Mr. Lute.”.

  Stepping up on the bed he examined the high, narrow windows. The bars were a hand’s breadth apart and firmly fixed in the adobe, top and bottom. The Spider’s intentions might be all right, but Pete decided to take a hand in his own future. There was but one door to the room and that was locked. There were two small, heavily barred windows.

  Bracing a chair under the doorknob, Pete took the pitcher from the washstand, and pouring slowly so as not to waste a drop of water, began to soften the adobe round the lower end of the bars. He could make a fight of it. There were rifles and ammunition in the room. But Pete was sick of warfare.

  Things were tuning up in the saloon. The sound of occasional laughter, the rattle and clink of glasses, and the fainter echo of someone singing in the patio.

  The adobe round the bottom of the window bars grew darker. Pete doubted that there was enough water to loosen the bars. Already the pitcher was half empty, he rested his arm, gazing out into the starlit night. The noise in the saloon grew louder. The crowd was making itself heard.

  Pete poured again; poured the last drop. He tried to pull one of the bars loose. It gave a little, but he could not get it clear out. If he could get a leverage on it… One of the Winchesters had a heavy octagon barrel. Good crowbar. Pete pried the first bar loose. The second came easier, the third easier still.

  The noise in the saloon ceased suddenly. “No use tryin’ to hold out on us,” someone was saying. “You got the Tonto Kid in there. He murdered Old Ma
n Jepson. We want him.”

  “Got a warrant?” came the Spider’s thin, reedy voice. The Spider, Pete surmised, was standing close to the door or he couldn’t have heard him.

  “Warrant, hell!” laughed somebody. “We got proof. That’s good enough for us.”

  “What proof?”

  “Lute, here.”

  Young Pete heard Lute tell the crowd how he had found the old Sheepman murdered, his team gone, his wallet empty; and how he had trailed the murderer to Showdown. The team of grays was in town. The Tonto Kid had ridden one of them. The other was packed with provisions looted from the old man’s wagon.

  “I don’t want trouble with you boys.” Again came the Spider’s voice. “If Jake Lute wants to talk to the Tonto Kid, he can do his talking in that room there. Maybe the Kid’ll do a little talking himself. But the first man that tries to follow Lute into the room is going to get his.”

  Pete couldn’t picture the Spider risking a gunfight just to protect a stranger. He stepped to the bed, heaved himself up, and crawled painfully through the narrow window. He had to drop to the ground head-first, saving himself from a bad fall by twisting so that he struck on his shoulder.

  He was free. There were a half-dozen or more ponies at the hitch-rail. No one knew, so far, that he had escaped.

  “If Lute wants to talk to the Kid…” What had the Spider meant by that? Was it a bluff? Was he playing for time, standing off the crowd to protect Pete—or himself? Or both? Or had the Spider actually intended to let Lute into the room and let the accuser and the accused have it out?

  Pete slipped round the corner of the building. There was no one on the saloon veranda. An irregular line of ponies stood nodding at the hitch-rail. The street was dark, save for the dim light of the stars.

  A gunfight, even in self-defense, usually meant a killing. And a killing inevitably meant more gunfighting, further trouble with the law. Through this very circumstance he was even now a fugitive, with a reward out for his capture dead or alive. The only thing left for him was to clear out of Showdown and head for the border while he still had a chance.