The Fourth Western Novel

by H. H. Knibbs

  “Good mornin”!” called Pete.

  “Light down and come right in.” The old man shuffled the coffee-pot and added more coffee.

  “I can’t see any too good,” said the old man, “so mebby you’ll excuse me if I ask my burro a kind of personal question. Misery, are these boys all right?”

  The mouse-colored burro brayed like a trombone. Slim and Pete grinned.

  “And if we weren’t all right?” said Slim.

  Misery’s owner set a skillet of bacon on the fire. “Misery would ’a’ said yes, just the same.” The old man chuckled. “You see, I never ask him a question that ‘yes’ won’t fit.”

  “A man can be all right,” Slim said slowly, “but in wrong.”

  The old prospector’s eyes twinkled. “My business is mining, and looking after Misery’s health. You see, his ma died when he was no bigger than a jack rabbit, so I had to raise him on canned milk. Oh, he looks stout enough. But he’s a leetle delicate in spots.”

  “He’s got kind of a unforgivin’ eye,” commented Pete.

  “It ain’t his eye. He backed into a hot stove once. Since then he ain’t what you’d call plumb responsible behind.” They had cold biscuits, bacon, coffee. In ten minutes pot and skillet were empty.

  “Now what can we do for you?” asked Pete.

  “Just be good boys,” chuckled the old man. “I reckon you could if you was to try hard.”

  Slim rose and stretched. “There are several different ways of being good. Especially after breakfast.” He gestured toward their weary horses. “We’d take it as a favor if you’d tell us where we can find the nearest water.”

  The nearest water, Bedrock told them, was at the Pipes, a cañon about six miles due west. He himself was headed for town. His name was Hathaway, but most folks called him Bedrock. He was packing some ore to Sutton and coming back with a supply of grub. He took up the slack in the hitch, nodding toward the distant Bad Lands. “Looks like you boys were headed that way.”

  Slim nodded.

  The old man stroked his beard, blinking up at them. “Sure you can’t do any better than that?”

  The Tonto Kid shrugged. “We did pretty well to get this far.”

  Bedrock filled and lighted his pipe. “It ain’t for Misery and me to set in jedgment on nobody. Specially when we’re packing ore and can’t see good enough to shoot and get results.” He stared shrewdly at the partners. “Now you boys could ’a’ stuck me up and tooken my ore, if you’d been a mind to.”

  “Bacon preferred,” said Slim.

  Bedrock nodded. “Ever do any mining?”

  “Not me!” Slim gestured with a slender brown hand. “I’m like Misery, somewhat delicate in spots.”

  “You boys kind of hang together, I take it?”

  “We expect to, some day.”

  Bedrock took up his stick. “Misery and me’ll have to be gettin’ along.” He hesitated, seemed to be turning something over in his mind. “The Law, now,” he said finally, “it ain’t always right. And Justice, around these parts, has been hidin’ her head in the sand for quite a spell. I know you boys are all right in your hearts, even if you are both packing guns.” He punched Misery, and followed by the partners, moved on up out of the arroyo. “Yonder is Pipes Cañon. About two hours farther up the trail is my camp. Purty place, with pines all around. Right nearby is a sizable meadow and good grass. Now if you boys was to change your minds about the Bad Lands, nobody will know which way you headed.”

  “Thanks,” said Slim.

  “I could do with a little help, for a spell. One man workin’ a windlass and fillin’ a bucket—well, you can’t be at both ends of a hole at the same time.”

  “My partner”—Slim indicated the Tonto Kid—“can make a windlass sit up and talk.”

  “If I ain’t getting too personal, just what is your line?” queried Bedrock.

  “Cards.”

  “Can you play pinochle?”

  Slim bowed. “I invented the game.”

  Bedrock’s face lighted up like a sunset. “They’s no lock on my cabin. Nobody ever comes up that way. And they’s plenty grub till I get back.” And speaking to Misery, the old prospector set off across the noon desert.

  The Tonto Kid stood staring after him. “I was thinkin’, if half the folks in the world was like old Bedrock, the other half wouldn’t find it so hard to get along.”

  “He’s whiter than some that take a bath oftener.”

  The Tonto Kid did not relish the thought of pumping a windlass or pounding a drill. But it was evident he had taken a fancy to old Bedrock. There was a reason why. Slim himself was not averse to retiring from public life for a season. Anything they did was a gamble, so why not sit in Bedrock’s game for a spell and see how the cards ran? Slim’s only remark was that while they and their horses needed a rest, to say nothing of Yardlaw, he did not intend to make mining his life’s work. Automatically they took to the foothill trail leading to Bedrock’s camp.

  As bachelor quarters the camp was perfect, the cabin swept, shelves, table, and cooking things neat and clean. An old-fashioned Seth Thomas clock ticked leisurely on the shelf above the fireplace. Bedrock’s Winchester was oiled and loaded, a little detail which interested Pete. The yards and sheds were neat, tools nicely arranged; there was firewood ahead, and, wonder of wonders, the axe was sharp. Misery’s small corral had been recently scraped and the results distributed carefully among the geraniums along the north side of the cabin. It was more than a camp, it was a home.

  Mountain pines, widely spaced, grew round about. Cold mountain water chuckled in the stream above the camp. Pete liked it all. Even Slim admitted that the prospect was not without its good points. Following the stream they found the mountain meadow, where they staked their horses. Beyond the meadow rose a barren hillside pitted with holes. Slim gestured toward a cone-shaped dump on which stood a crude windlass. “There’s where you shine.”

  Pete grinned. “And sweat.”

  Before night came on they had pretty thoroughly explored the immediate vicinity. The Tonto Kid always liked to know just where he stood before settling down in a strange place.

  After a hearty supper they turned in. Slim had smoked his final cigarette and was half asleep when Pete rose on his elbow. “Say, this here is great! But just what in hell are we doin’ up here, anyhow?”

  “Being good boys,” murmured Slim drowsily. “Go to sleep, you tomcat.”

  They were pretty well worn out, but through habit, slept lightly. Just before daybreak Slim woke to see the dim figure of Pete standing in the doorway. Slim rose and came behind him. He could hear nothing unusual. But presently came the faint patter of hoofs on the trail below the cabin. “It can’t be old Bedrock.”

  The sound ceased for a few seconds, then became clearer. “Goes awful quick and light for a horse carrying a man.”

  As the pattering hoofs approached, Pete drew back into the cabin, closed the door, and took up his belt and gun.

  “Might as well put on my dress suit too,” said Slim. “But no warrior would come hoofing up there like that.” He turned and glanced at Pete.

  “Shucks!” The Tonto Kid stepped to the door and swung it open. In the cabin yard stood a mouse-colored burro.

  “It’s Misery!” exclaimed Pete.

  “Misery is right!”

  The little burro was in a bad way. The pack-saddle hung under his belly. The breast-strap was half torn in two, the breeching completely gone. On his rump was a long, slanting gouge, the hair below it clotted with red.

  “Misery!” said Slim, “where’s the old man?”

  Misery raised his drooping head and brayed. But his customary “yes’ didn’t tell them anything.

  “It happened mighty quick,” declared Slim.

  “What?”

  “That everlasting something that always ha
ppens when you settle down. Here’s Misery, scared to death, his rig a wreck, and somebody’s taken a shot at him. I wonder what has happened to old Bedrock?”

  Pete got a hasty breakfast while Slim caught up Misery and greased the bullet wound. They packed their saddles up to the meadow. “I wasn’t figurin’ on ridin’ back among folks,” said Pete as he saddled up.

  “Maybe we won’t have to. If the old man was anywhere near Misery when that slug seared him—” Slim waved his hand.

  Hard-headed, accustomed to frontier fatalities, the Tonto Kid nodded casually. “Mebby so. Shootin’ in the air, I’d say the ruckus happened somewhere along the trail between here and Sutton, when Bedrock was goin’ in with the ore. Nobody’d stick him up for a measly burro-load of grub. We only knowed him about a half hour. And we didn’t stay up here long enough to get a chair warm. But he was meanin’ right by us. He shoved in the ante, and it’s up to us to keep on playin!”

  CHAPTER 17

  Taking with them a can of tomatoes each and some cold biscuits, they rode down the morning trail. Misery’s tracks were too plain to merit any special attention.

  They discovered nothing unusual until within a half-hour’s ride of the town. The card man called to his partner. In the hollow of a cut-bank, behind a huge boulder, lay the figure of a man. It was Bedrock.

  “Hell!” whispered Pete, as he knelt and gazed at the clotted beard, the hands still half clenched, the closed sunken eyes. “Breathing, and that’s about all.”

  Carefully they lifted Bedrock out of the shadows, dashed water into his face, spoke to him. But the old prospector for the time being was traversing a far country. A heavy rifle-bullet had gouged a furrow in the top of his head.

  “We can’t pack him back to his cabin.”

  Slim shook his head. “If we take him in to Sutton—well, it’s up to you.”

  Pete knew that his appearance there in daylight would mean trouble. And since Pete didn’t intend to let them take him, trouble would mean a shooting. It was not fear that caused him to hesitate, however. He simply wished to plan ahead as far as he could. Old Bedrock had offered them a haven when they were sorely in need of it. Chances were he wouldn’t pull through, but that made no difference so far as playing the game went. “If we lay him across the saddle, that wound in his head is like to bust open, and he’ll just naturally bleed to death.”

  Slim stripped the saddle from his own mount, and took the cinch from the latigoes. They laid Bedrock lengthwise on Slim’s horse, and roped him there. “I’ll take him in,” said Slim. “If I’m not back here before sundown, you better light a shuck for somewhere else.”

  “All right.” Pete’s tone was brisk. “Nobody’s gunnin’ for you, anyhow. Say, you might fetch me some tobacco and papers.”

  At the head of the arroyo Slim struck into the smoother going of the Sutton road. Young Pete, he reflected, was the whitest little liar this side of blue space. Could Slim see Pete heading south down the desert if he didn’t return? Not any. Pete would slip into town at night, and start something. And that, Slim confided to the unconscious Bedrock, was what partners were for.

  Pete watched Slim go. Queer. A few hours before he had been wishing for just such a chance to part company with Slim Akers. Now that the chance had come, he would not have deserted Slim for all the loot in Arizona. He set about looking over the ground for signs of what had happened. What he discovered made his neck hot and his eyes harder. Someone had shot Old Bedrock from ambush and taken his ore. After some three hours’ tracking, Young Pete learned that the old prospector’s assailant had come from and returned to the town of Sutton.

  In a grassy pocket he let his horse graze and opened the can of tomatoes. With a clear view of the distant arroyo, he sat waiting for Slim’s return. Another hour drifted by and still not a sign of his partner. Leg-roping his horse, Pete lay down and took a much-needed sleep. He knew that if Slim arrived he would wait for him.

  Just before sundown Pete awoke. Slim had not returned. Pete was worried. He knew the card man would not tarry in town any longer than necessary. Pondering all the possible things which might have happened, Pete took the foothill trail, and keeping his eye on the arroyo below or the appearance of his partner, drifted slowly toward Sutton. Just what was in the cards he did not know. But with his usual deliberation, he decided to turn a few and see.

  Entering the desert town at dusk, he learned from a Mexican that his partner was in jail. Slim had been put in the carcel for having murdered Bedrock: murdered him, and fetched his body to town, expecting that because he had done so people would believe him innocent.

  “That’s just about the way it goes,” reflected Pete, as he arranged with the Mexican to take care of his horse. “But this time I aim to make it go different.”

  Leaving chaps and saddle with the Mexican, and a dollar as a guaranty of more if he kept his own counsel, the Tonto Kid made his way farther into town.

  Even with the changes an added year had made in him, it was highly risky, but darkness would befriend him. Assuming an easy-going manner, he strolled up to a group on a street-corner. They were talking about Bedrock and the man that waylaid and shot him. One of the group mentioned Slim’s name, said he was known to be the notorious Tonto Kid’s partner. Another declared that old Bedrock was done for, that he had been shot through the head. From the conversation it was evident that the old prospector was well liked in Sutton. The fact that he was still alive, as one of the group asserted, seemed to make no difference in their attitude. Nor did the fact that there was no actual evidence against Slim Akers. Public sentiment was against the card man. The men to whom Pete was listening talked openly of lynching him.

  Drifting down the street, the Tonto Kid fell into conversation with a young cowpuncher who had but recently arrived. After a word or two of greeting, Pete asked the cowboy into the nearest saloon to have a drink. At considerable risk of being recognized, Pete tarried in the saloon, plying the cowboy with questions natural to a stranger who had just heard of the shooting. The cowboy, who knew Bedrock, was strong for the lynching idea himself. He told Pete that the man who shot the old prospector was known to be the partner of the Tonto Kid. The Kid, he added, was a black-hearted killer.

  In front of the saloon they parted, agreeing to meet again if the lynchers got busy. Pete walked past the jail. There was no chance to get in communication with Slim, because of the curious crowd moving up and down the street. As Pete passed one group a man stared hard at him. The Tonto Kid walked slowly on. This wouldn’t do. If he were recognized, all chances of helping Slim would be in the fire. Pete turned the corner, walked round the block, and hunted up his cowboy friend. “Just found out somethin’ mighty queer,” he told the other, who had taken several more drinks. “It’s about that card-sharp’s horse. I reckon the city marshal must have overlooked it. Anyhow, it’s a dead give-away.”

  “What about the horse?”.

  Pete hesitated. “If you won’t let on to nobody—but I’ll tell you what. Come on and see for yourself.”

  In the alley back of the feed barn Pete stepped to the rear doorway and peered in. He beckoned to the cowboy. The other came stealthily, much impressed by Pete’s manner.

  “That first stall, there. If that ain’t a give-away—”

  As the cowboy passed him, Pete swung up his gun and hit him on the head. Dragging him into the empty stall, he stripped off his rowdy, overalls, boots, and hat, and put them on. Once again, in the darkness of the alley, he took a roundabout way to the Mexican’s. Calling the Mexican to the door he gave him another dollar and told him to fetch a lantern and a pair of shears.

  In a lean-to in the rear of the house the Mexican clipped Pete’s long black hair tight to his skull. “Barber shop closed,” explained Pete. “Goin’ back up into the mountains tomorrow. No tellin’ when I’ll be able to get another haircut.”

  In the cowboy’s clothes—blue
rowdy and overalls and black cotton shirt—Pete looked like a Hassayampa hay-tosser disguised as a cowboy.

  Sutton’s two saloons were doing a rush business by the time he again came out onto the street. Groups of townspeople argued on the street corners. Nine men out of ten were for lynching Slim Akers. Pete knew he had to do something and do it quick. Any minute the cowboy in the livery barn might come to. And any minute the crowd might find a leader, break in the jail door, and get Slim. A deputy was making a bluff of guarding the jail. The town marshal was not in sight. If he was straight, reflected Pete, the marshal would be guarding the prisoner himself. Pete and his partner had done what they could to save old Bedrock’s life, and this was how a grateful community was repaying them. Pete couldn’t make war on the community, but he could interview the man that ought to be at the head of the community talking them out of their idea of lynching.

  Assuming a slouch quite different from his usual straight-backed gait, Pete sauntered to the city marshal’s office. Marshal Delaney was not at his desk swearing in extra deputies to help keep the peace. His back to the doorway, he was toying with the combination of a medium-sized safe. There was no one else in the room.

  “Is this the town marshal?” drawled Pete.

  Mr. Delaney became immediately upright. He sized up the seedy-looking cowhand. “What do you want?”

  “Nothin’.”

  “Then what did you come in here for?”

  “Nothin’.”

  “Then get out.”

  Pete had had time to survey the surroundings and the marshal at close quarters—a tall, heavy-set man, with a whiskey eye and a straight-lipped mouth. “Your hand is tremblin’,” said Pete. No man likes to be told his hand trembles, much less a peace officer. Mr. Delaney exploded. Pete’s face assumed a startled expression. “I’m a taxpayer,” he said apologetically.

  “What the hell of it?”

  “I want to find a horse I been lookin’ for.”