by H. H. Knibbs
“Well, I’m busy.”
“So am I,” drawled Pete. “Only you don’t act like you thought so.”
“Say, who are you, anyway?”
“Old man Rucker’s boy, from Claybank.”
“Well, come around in the morning.”
Never once losing his slouch or his drawl, Pete watched the marshal’s face. “I been a long time trackin’ that horse. Tracked him down the arroyo south of town, and then done lost his tracks down near the Pipes.”
The town marshal’s hand again began to tremble noticeably. “Well, that’s nothing to me.”
“Then I guess I come to the wrong post-office.” Pete slouched to the doorway. Turning, he kicked the door shut with his heel, and faced the marshal. The marshal’s eyes were centered on the muzzle of a gun that seemed to have come from nowhere. “Yes,” said Pete. “You got it. I’m the Kid.”
The marshal took a step back.
“Take just one more, then down on your knees and open that safe. Or pray. Makes no difference to me.” The marshal hesitated. Someone might come in almost any minute to tell him that the crowd had taken his prisoner. But Pete reached back and shoved the door-bolt home. “Now get busy, Delaney.”
“There’s nothing in the safe except some town records and a little change.”
“Open her up.”
Delaney knelt and fumbled with the combination. The heavy door swung open. Pete moved forward. “Town records, eh? What’s in them two dirty-lookin’ ore sacks?”
“Oh, that? Just some specimens from my claim up in the Granada hills.”
“Specimens of what?”
“Silver.”
“Let’s look at ’em.”
Watching for a chance to get the Tonto Kid off his guard, the town marshal grudgingly opened one of the sacks.
“Specimens, hell!” Pete’s face grew dark. “It’s gold, and it’s high-grade stuff. I reckon I found that horse I was trackin’.”
“Say, Kid, listen a minute!”
“Take them handcuffs off the nail and put ’em on. Don’t slip, or I’ll drill you, as sure as you tried to kill old Bedrock. Now we’re goin’ over to the jail and we’re goin’ in the back way,” Pete took a Winchester from the rack. “If you say any more than ‘howdy’ to anybody that hails you, there’ll be a big black bow on your doorknob tomorrow mornin’.”
If Slim Akers was surprised when they entered his cell, he didn’t show it. Although he saw plainly that the city marshal and not Pete wore the handcuffs, he had to have his little joke. “So they got you too?” he said, grinning at Pete. “Well, I don’t object, if you don’t snore.”
“Bedrock’s ore is in the city marshal’s safe. Draw your own conclusions, and when you draw, shoot. What I mean, I’m goin’ out again. If they bust in the door before I get back, get Delaney first. He was all set to let ’em hang you.”
“Hang me? What a pity! Did Mr. Delaney lend you that rifle?”
Pete handed the Winchester to Slim, who took a seat on a short bench along the wall. “I might suggest,” said Slim to the marshal, and there was no humor in his tone now, “that you sit on the floor, opposite me, where I can study your features.”
“Now listen!” began Delaney.
“I’ve listened too much. Sit down!”
Mr. Delaney sat down.
When the Tonto Kid came out onto the street, the atmosphere of sullen expectancy had changed to one of action. Grouped here and there, mounted men seemed to be waiting for something. A crowd was standing in front of the town marshal’s office. From quietly talking of lynching the murderer—they had no other name for Slim—men were now threatening to break down the jail door and handle the business themselves, city marshal or no city marshal. When the local blacksmith appeared with a sledge-hammer on his shoulder, the crowd yelled.
The Tonto Kid made his way to the livery barn. That almost everyone in town was out on the street was in his favor. The liveryman, so a scared stable boy told him, was in the crowd somewhere.
“Too bad!” said Pete. “But you’ll do. Just came from a talk with Mr. Delaney. He wants his horse and the horse he took from the prisoner.”
“They—they goin’ to lynch him?”
“Looks that way. But me and the city marshal are goin’ to do all we can to stop ’em.”
Pete helped the stable boy saddle up, and in less than ten minutes both horses were tied in the alley back of the jail, and Pete was on his way to the Mexican’s to get his own mount. When he got back, he could already hear the crowd clamoring in front of the jail. Fearful lest someone should think for himself a minute and come round to the back of the building, Pete kicked the rear door open and walked in. Ordering Delaney to get up and come out, he untied the marshal’s mount and told him to step up into the saddle. Surmising why, the city marshal made a final desperate appeal, but hobbling Delaney’s feet under the belly of the horse, the partners stripped off the bridle.
Town Marshal Delaney began to show his true color. “Boys,” he said, his voice shaking, “don’t do this! Half of those darn’ fools out in the street are crazy drunk. They—”
“They won’t lynch you, don’t you worry,” said Slim quietly. “It’ll be quicker than that.”
This was just what the officer feared; that before he could get a chance to identify himself, somebody would shoot him. The townsfolk were in an ugly mood. “Kid, those two sacks of ore up in the office are yours if—”
Pete swung the bridle and lashed the horse across its flanks. The startled animal tore down the side street and out onto the main road. “There he goes!” cried someone in the crowd. “Jim Delaney has done turned him loose!”
His manacled hands on the saddle-horn, Delaney lay close to the horse and rode for his life. A slug whistled past his head. Blood-hungry to kill the man who had shot Bedrock, a score of riders took after the flying horseman. On toward the desert sped the town marshal’s horse, the pursuers working quirt and spur to overtake him.
“We’re leavin’, too.” Pete turned to Slim. “But not so fast.”
Riding quietly up the alley the partners stopped back of the marshal’s office. Slim held Pete’s horse while the Tonto Kid walked round and entered. When they rode on again, each had tied back of the cantle a small ore sack.
They followed the foothill trail Pete had discovered that morning. It was nearly daylight when they arrived at Bedrock’s cabin; the last place, declared Pete, in which anyone would think of looking for them. Staking their horses in the meadow, the partners took turns in sleeping.
After breakfast the following day, Slim seemed exceptionally thoughtful. “Did I hear you say once that you would like to settle down?”
Pete gestured sarcastically. “There’s a place for fellas that got that idea. You pay for your own headstone, if any. Right now I’m goin’ to stay here. Anyhow, till old Bedrock gets back. I got somethin’ to say to him.”
“Think he’ll ever get back?”
“Sure! A fella in Sutton told me the old man come to and was askin’ to get up and go home the same night they tried to stretch you.”
The following day the partners were surprised to see Bedrock show up, riding a borrowed horse. His head was bandaged and he was still a bit shaky, but the twinkle had come back to his eye.
“Knowed you was good boys,” he said, as Pete and Slim helped him down and took care of his mount. “Where’s Misery?”
“Up yonder in the meadow. Doing fine. Wound is almost healed.” Slim bowed. “Grease, and the proper diet.” Dwelling lightly on his own arrest and imprisonment, Slim described Pete’s campaign, the taking of Mr. Delaney, and that gentleman’s final flight from Sutton. “Even as you, it is not for me,” said Slim, “to sit in judgment on my fellow man. However, I am obliged to confess that I strongly suspect Mr. Delaney of conspiracy and attempt to commit murder. A lot of little
things point that way. I am one of them.”
For a long time the old man sat looking out of the cabin doorway. “I kind of suspicioned it was Jim Delaney,” he said, “after a friend of mine told me how they run him up into the foothills, and come pretty nigh stringin’ him up by mistake. He—”
“Pardon me,” interrupted Slim. “It wouldn’t have been a mistake.”
Slim handed Bedrock a clay-scratched slug of lead. “Pete dug this out of the bank of the arroyo just above the spot where we found you.”
“A forty-five-seventy, eh? And you boys are packing pistols.”
“Your ore, which Pete took from Mr. Delaney’s safe—”
“My ore? What did you say?”
“From Mr. Delaney’s safe, the night Pete interviewed that gentleman. It’s in here under your bed.”
“You mean that boy found my ore in Jim Delaney’s safe?”
“And took it. Wanted to put it where it would be safer.”
“Justice,” said Bedrock, “has been hiding her head in the sand for a long time, around these parts. But some day… Some day…” His voice trailed off into unintelligible mutterings. He ran his fingers through his long white hair. “Reckon I’ll go look at Misery.”
“Sit still,” said Pete. “I’ll fetch him down.”
Not until Pete appeared with Misery did the old man seem to realize where he was. He got up, examined the crusted wound across the burro’s rump, patted Misery, and told him to run along back to the meadow. “‘Course you boys will stay here.”
Slim and Pete glanced at one another. “A day or two longer,” said Pete, “till you get to feelin’ stout again.”
“You figure someone might trail you up here?”
“Somebody might.”
“Then I’ll have to set that straight.” For the remainder of the day Bedrock sat resting and staring at the forest.
The next day, and the next, the old man seemed to be wandering about in a dream. He ate heartily, and did a little work. But he said scarcely anything. The third day he was pretty much himself. Pete and Slim decided to leave.
“I’m leavin’, too,” said Bedrock.
“Howcome?”
“Grub is getting low. And I got some other business in town.”
That morning, Bedrock and his burro took the trail down the mountain, Slim and Pete accompanying him. At the Pipes they bade him farewell. Bedrock gave them each a tiny slug of gold, enough to see them in provisions for a week at least. He was almost himself again, but he still seemed a bit too silent to be natural.
Pete and his partner were far down the southern desert when the old prospector crossed the arroyo where he had first met them. Halting, he stood blinking in the sun. “Misery, folks in town are like to keep on suspicioning it was them boys and not Jim Delaney. That ain’t right. Now I take it you would do something about it if you was me.”
The little burro lifted its head and brayed.
Bedrock nodded, and stepping to the burro took his old brown Winchester from beneath the lash-rope and laid it across the hollow of his arm. Burro and prospector moved on toward Sutton.
A few minutes past six that evening, Bedrock entered the desert town. Tying Misery to a hitch-rail, he walked to the marshal’s office. The town marshal was not there. Bedrock finally located him in the Peak Saloon. Standing in the middle of the street the old man called to Delaney to come out. Passers-by stopped and stood watching. The swing doors of the Peak spread apart. The few persons who saw the affair said the marshal had a gun in his hand when he appeared.
“I don’t want trouble with you,” said Bedrock, blinking toward the figure in the doorway. “But I’m asking you to say, right here so all the folks can hear it, that those boys—I’m meanin’ Young Pete and his pardner—didn’t hold me up and rob me, nohow.”
“You better go on home,” said Delaney.
“No. I ain’t going home, or I ain’t going anywhere, till you say them boys are good boys.”
Delaney laughed. “Good boys, hell!”
“Be just a leetle careful, Mr. Delaney. I can’t see any too good, and I might make a mistake.”
Delaney’s face grew purple. People near him and across the street were grinning. Quiet, inoffensive old Bedrock had the town marshal buffaloed. Something twitched in the town marshal’s brain. His hand came up. His gun flashed and roared. The Winchester still in the hollow of his arm, Bedrock stood like a statue. The pedestrians opposite Delaney ran for cover. Again he fired.
“I turned the other cheek,” said Bedrock. Swinging the Winchester round he fired without raising it to his shoulder.
There was no official inquest. The town marshal had shot twice at Bedrock before the latter had even moved a finger. Some townsfolk said that the old man had gone queer. Others declared that he was considerably more sane than the late town marshal. The following day Bedrock and Misery left for the hills.
A week later, Slim Akers and the Tonto Kid learned of the shooting.
“I ain’t a whole lot surprised,” said Pete.
“Nor I.” Slim was toying with a couple of faro cases. “It was that scar on Misery’s rump that touched the old man off.” But if he had only known it, it was not the injury to the burro that sent Bedrock into Sutton with a rifle in his hands. Justice had been hiding her head a long time in that section. Justice had finally emerged.
CHAPTER 18
A September haze hung over the dome of the Capitol building. Slants of morning sunlight lay across the tree-bordered acequias. Citizens of the territorial capital were startled by a fusillade of shots in the vicinity of the plaza. Following the sound of shooting came the dismal bray of a burro, then the rush and clatter of horses at top speed. From neighbor to neighbor spread the rumor that the bank had been robbed. Bank robberies in New Mexico were infrequent, possibly because there were few banks worth the risk of robbing. Upon the heels of the first excitement came a lull, and the asking of questions by folk who had been making wild guesses. Creeping warily from behind counter and door, emerging from recessed hallways, the merchants round the plaza appeared, singly and in little groups. The bank window was riddled with bullets. The smell of burnt powder still hung in the air. A bay saddle-horse staggered across the street and lay with head outstretched. Someone telephoned the Governor’s mansion that the Randall gang had again raided the town. The information was gratuitous. The Randalls had fired into the Governor’s mansion as they raced past, after an unsuccessful attempt to rob the First National Bank. On the sidewalk fronting the bank, Emerson the druggist, a puncher from the Pecos, and the cashier of the First National lay dead. One of the Randalls, it was reported, was badly wounded but still in the saddle.
The volley fired into the Governor’s mansion was an echo of the gang’s frequently repeated challenge: if the chief executive wanted them, let him come and get them.
* * * *
For years Horse Thief Hollow had been the rendezvous of outlaws. Charley Lee, Pecos Jim, and a half-dozen other men wanted by the law had made the cañon their headquarters. About a year after Lee and his gang were shot down in Las Vegas a Texan named Ed Randall located in the Hollow. With him came his younger brother Bart. Within a year Randall had gathered about him such warriors as Black Joe Harper; Lindquist, a cattle rustler from the Pecos; Stevens, a Tonto Valley gunman; Bill Page, a deputy sheriff who had turned outlaw; White Eye Johnson from the Panhandle; and Sarg, a former railroad man who had thrown in with the wild bunch.
Several attempts to dislodge the outlaws had failed. The cañon itself was all but inaccessible. The mountain trails west led into the Bad Lands, affording an easy retreat in case of a prolonged attack. The timberlands and high meadows south of the Hollow were controlled by the Hamills of Thunder Mountain, two brothers who were themselves notoriously unfriendly toward peace officers.
The Governor of the territory had suffered much
criticism for his failure to rid the country of the Randall gang. Finally he sent for Buck Yardlaw, then sheriff of Apache County, Arizona, and made him such a generous offer in the way of salary that Yardlaw accepted. Twice Yardlaw and his men had tried to smoke the Randalls out, and had failed. The looting of the bank right under the Governor’s nose was the last straw. The Governor was determined to clean out Horse Thief Hollow, no matter what it cost the Territory.
The Randall gang had barely left town when another rumor arose. The Tonto Kid was in the raid. Folk seemed to take a vicious pleasure in connecting Young Pete’s name with any depredation. Yet in this instance rumor hit pretty close to the mark. The Tonto Kid was in the Territory, and not a mile from the capital. But he had had no hand in the raid; in fact knew less about it than any of the townsfolk. He was in hiding, his whereabouts at the time known only to his friend Slim Akers.
A good many things had happened to Young Pete since they had parted with Bedrock. Pete had thought about the old prospector a good deal. He had shot it out with Jim Delaney to clear the names of the Tonto Kid and his partner. A mighty white thing to do. A mighty white man.
Whether Slim Akers had ever guessed how close Pete had come to taking the high trail, Pete never knew.
The day following the Randall raid a slim, rather carefully dressed man of about thirty called on the Governor. The caller’s name, the Governor learned, was Alexander Akers. After a little highly skilled thrust and parry that touched on politics, philosophy, and certain lesser known highlights in the Honorable Frank B. Rowland’s past, the elegantly dressed caller exploded a polite bombshell under Governor Rowland’s nose. No, he had not come to ask for a political appointment. He had come to ask for a pardon for Young Pete, better known as the Tonto Kid.
Governor Rowland was surprised, more than surprised, and he showed it. Mr. Akers’ nerve hadn’t failed since their first meeting in the gambler’s establishment in Albuquerque some years before. “But Akers—!” he ejaculated.
“Your constituents, and so forth. Of course! I expected that. Barring a select few, your constituents know as little about the real history of the Tonto Kid as you do. He’s a bad man, a gunman, a killer. That’s wholesale opinion, never sifted. What started him riding the high trails? When did he ever bump off a man without giving that man every chance in the world to either back down or pull his gun? How many times has he let a peace officer go when he could have blown his head off? When did the Kid ever go back on a friend”—Mr. Akers looked the Governor hard in the eye—“or play a favorite? I’ve traveled with the Tonto Kid. I know him both ways from the jack. There isn’t a straighter man in the State, nor a man with more sand. But your newspapers, and your loose mouthed gentlemen who read them, all have it that the Kid is a rattler that will strike anything that comes within reach. To the contrary, if the peace officers of this unenlightened community had spent as much time leaving him alone as he has trying to keep out of trouble, he’d have hung up his gun and given the law a chance to get a little much-needed sleep, long ago. Give him a pardon and see if I am not correct.”