“This here Soper looks smart.”
“Uh-huh. He looks smart, he acts smart, but he takes orders an’ does what he’s told like a good little boy, all white an’ innocent.”
“Yuh think so? Maybe. But let’s, like we said, play like he’s smart. Let’s figger he gets wise that somethin’ doesn’t smell right. Maybe the Jordans were prisoners here. Maybe Sparr is tryin’ for a big steal. Maybe this Soper ain’t honest.”
“Let’s figger he’s not.”
“All right. He can be partners with Sparr, he can work for him, or he can work for himself an’ pretend he’s workin’ for him. If he’s doin’ that last, he knows Sparr is nobody to fool with. He knows he’s double-crossin’ a tough hombre who would fill him with lead so quick it would make his head swim if he figgered there was a reason. Maybe he figgers Sparr smells somethin’ wrong, what would he do?”
“Try to get Sparr killed.”
“Right. An’ who better to do it than two wanderin’ pilgrims like us? Two gun-handy pilgrims who figger they’ve a grudge against him.”
“He’s right about one thing,” Johnny said. “We can’t help Hopalong now. That chase is too far away. If we can help him, it would be here, or maybe Horse Springs.”
“Maybe we better have a look around. Around this house, I mean. An’ maybe that Mexican woman can tell us somethin’.”
“I’ll bet she can.”
Mesquite eased back the bench on which he sat and got to his feet. He stepped quickly through the door into the empty room beyond. Johnny, after a quick glance, turned toward the kitchen. Both men worked rapidly, and both were accustomed to reading sign, to observing, that is, and drawing deductions from what they saw.
Mesquite noticed the door to the Jordans’ room and stepped through. The first thing he saw was the bar. It was not reasonable to expect a bar on the inside of a door within a house. A quick survey of the room and he was positive of one thing. Two people had lived here. Two beds, a closet full of the girl’s clothing, and one partly filled with clothing belonging to Dick Jordan. Nowhere did he find a gun or where one had been.
Why would two people owning a large ranch house with all of a dozen rooms confine themselves to one? Without doubt the Jordans had been prisoners here, and they had evidently had instructions to allow nobody into the room but Avery Sparr or some one or two of his henchmen. That was obvious from the bar on the inside.
Also, Mesquite correctly deduced what he was already certain of, that they had left swiftly and taken few things with them. He returned to the dining room and glanced out. Soper stood by the corrals, looking off toward the mountains. He stood as if listening.
Johnny emerged from the kitchen, his face bright with knowledge. “We hit it!” he said eagerly and grimly. “She talked plenty! She has no use for Sparr, less for Soper. This hombre Soper is peculiar. He looks so nice, but he whacked this Mexican cook a couple of times when she didn’t give him fast enough service.
“She says they were prisoners here, the Jordans. Only a few people were allowed to see them. She’s afraid of Sparr, but she is more afraid of Soper.”
Mesquite nodded. “We’ve done some good guessing. Now to figger this a little bit. Let’s figger Hoppy isn’t comin’ back.” At Johnny’s shocked expression Mesquite hastily said, “Not that I think he ain’t. I’d gamble my life on it. He’s tough to handle. What I mean is, let’s figger he ain’t comin’ back. This here place goes to whoever’s next of kin if Jordan’s daughter is killed. It don’t go to either Sparr or Soper, all right?”
“Uh-huh. So we scotch their snake.”
“Right.” Mesquite chuckled. “Wouldn’t Red an’ Lanky be happy to be here now? They’ll throw a fit when they find out we tied up with Hoppy after all.”
“Hey.”
Johnny was looking out the window, and Mesquite stepped to his shoulder. The air was filled with slowly drifting snowflakes. Johnny stared at Mesquite’s face, colder than death now. Both men were thinking the same thing. Hopalong Cassidy was in the mountains, high in the mountains with few passes and no winter clothing.
Both men knew how bitterly cold those mountains could be. Both knew how rapidly a man loses the warmth from his body in the biting and icy winds at high altitudes, even under the best of conditions. Hoppy alone was bad enough, but burdened with a crippled man and a girl—“If he don’t make it”—Mesquite’s voice was low and ugly—“I’ll kill every man ever connected with this mess!”
“Yeah,” Johnny said soberly. “I’m in on that too.”
“I feel like goin’ out there, an’—” Mesquite’s lips thinned with fury and his fingers strayed to a gun butt.
“No good,” Johnny said quietly. “We’ll wait. Maybe somethin’ will break that will show us our way. One thing we know. Come hell or high water, we clean out this rat’s nest or they bury us both on the Gila!”
*
ARNOLD SOPER STARED toward the house. The two gunfighters had not come out yet. Well, let them take it easy. There would be time enough. In the meantime—he glanced at his gold watch—it would be better if the boys in Turkey Spring Canyon were down here. Maybe he could slip away and ride up there, but it was long, almost twenty miles. The snow was falling faster and faster now, and the ground was white with it.
Johnny Nelson came out and took both horses and led them to the stable. Mesquite lounged just inside the door. Arnold Soper still stood before the corrals, watching the snow and occasionally glancing toward the higher mountains.
Mesquite heard the Mexican cook raking the ashes from her stove and preparing to begin a new fire for the evening meal. Yet it was still early and much could happen. Restlessly, irritably, he got to his feet. If he could only get to Hoppy! At least he could be doing something instead of waiting!
He walked back to the window, and he was standing there watching Soper when suddenly the man started forward and stared toward the mountains. He started to run, ran a few steps, then stopped as two riders raced pell-mell into the yard.
Mesquite stiffened and leaned forward, staring. Neither rider was Hopalong, and from the descriptions neither was Avery Sparr. Yet he could see at a glance that both these men had been hurt and their horses had been run half to death. He went to the door and stepped out on the porch, but could hear nothing of what was said, although both men were talking. Finally a man came from the bunkhouse and took their horses, and Soper went into the bunkhouse with the new arrivals.
Snow fell softly but thickly in an ever-deepening blanket. Johnny walked from the stable and stood staring down at the snow where the two men had stood, and then he walked on to the house. “Bleedin’,” he said, “both of ’em hurt. One of ’em opened a wound on the ride.
“Looks like they caught up with Hoppy,” he said grimly, “an’ Sparr wasn’t one of them. That means that Hopalong is still movin’ west.”
“Or cornered.”
“Let’s go find out!”
They started for the door and crowded through it. In swift strides they crossed the snow-covered yard toward the bunkhouse. As they reached the door, it opened, and framed in the doorway was Arnold Soper. He glanced quickly from one to the other. “Don’t go in there!” he said sharply. “There’s no need!”
“We want to talk to those hombres that just came in.”
“You don’t have to. I’ll tell you what you need to know.” He stepped outside and closed the door behind him.
“Those men were wounded.” Mesquite’s voice was flat. He was beginning to dislike Soper, and he had never cared for him. Only before he had been indifferent to the man. Now he was beginning to resent him.
“That’s right.” Soper spoke easily. For an instant he had been in a panic. If these two should happen to repeat some of what he had said, it might spoil everything. “Cassidy tricked Sparr. He led some Apaches into Sparr, then slipped away while they were fighting. These men were wounded in that fight. One man was killed.”
“Cassidy got away?”
“Yes. And when these men left they still had not found his trail. Of course by now they probably have. They have a Piute tracker with them.”
The important thing was that Hopalong was still alive; he was still moving. Mesquite chuckled as he thought of Hopalong leading the Apaches into Sparr’s outfit, who were, if anything, worse than the Apaches. That was like Hoppy. He was a man who knew how to fight, and when you started anything with him, he went all the way.
“I think,” Johnny Nelson said, “we’ll go in and talk to them anyway!”
Chapter 11
GUN GHOST OF THE GOLD COUNTRY
*
ARNOLD SOPER HESITATED. For an instant his anger had been about to get the better of him, but he realized the futility of that. Nor could he think of any diplomatic way in which the two Double Y hands could be kept out of the bunkhouse. “Let them alone!” he protested. “Both men are wounded. They need rest.”
“They’ll get rest.” Mesquite’s eyes turned to Soper’s, and for an instant the two measured each other. Soper’s eyes shifted first and he was furious. “You see,” Mesquite added, “Johnny an’ me aim to keep up with the news around here. Don’t we, Johnny?”
“Uh-huh.”
Johnny Nelson teetered on his boot heels, his eyes hard but smiling as he looked at Soper.
“We sure do. Figgers to get mighty interestin’ aroun’ here. An’ we sort of figger to stick around,” he added, “until Hoppy gets back. If he don’t get back, we’ll sort of finish what he started—all the way.”
The last three words were uttered with his eyes on Soper, and the smooth-talking front man for Avery Sparr felt a strange queasy feeling inside him. There was something about these men—and Hopalong Cassidy inspired the same feeling—that frightened him. No men he had ever seen seemed more ready for trouble.
Inside the bunkhouse he could hear low voices as the two men talked. Maybe he was worrying needlessly, and nothing would be asked or mentioned that would reveal his own story to be lies. There were always ways out, anyway, for a clever man.
“Talk to them if you like,” he said carelessly, “but they are merely hands. They don’t know anything, but what they suspect is probably plenty. The short one,” he added, “is Tony Cuyas, a half-breed badman from Sonora. The other is Hank Lydon. It was his brother who was killed in that Apache fight.”
“Thanks.” Mesquite turned to the door. “We’ll be seein’ you.” He opened the door and stepped through, then to the left. Johnny followed. The two men inside the room looked up, and the calm left their faces as they saw the two strangers.
“Who are you?” Lydon demanded. He was a burly bearded man with cruel eyes.
“Couple of passin’ strangers with some questions.”
Mesquite sized up the two at a glance. Followers, not leaders they were, but still as dangerous to cross as a hungry puma with a cub.
“We’re interested in Injun fightin’. All kinds o’ fightin’, in fact. We’d like to hear the story of this fight.”
“We ain’t talkin’.” Lydon was surly. He did not like the looks of either of these men, and their ease put him on edge. It worried him, and Hank Lydon did not like to worry, for he did not like to think. He preferred to act, and usually the circumstances made his actions a matter that called for no thinking or planning.
“Why not be sociable?” Johnny said easily. He dropped to a bunk and began to roll a cigarette. “We want to hear what happened back up there in the mountains. Must be a good yarn. Who shot you?”
Cuyas looked at them from his yellow eyes and looked away. His own temper was short, for his wound had bothered him. Neither man was seriously hurt, yet both had lost blood and they had made a killing ride to get back in time. Yet it was Lydon who answered with a question. “Who are you? What do you want here, anyway?”
“Just a couple of hands. We got a friend out there.” Johnny jerked his head toward the mountains. “Feller named Cassidy. Heard of him?”
Both men lifted their heads, and Cuyas stopped bathing his wound. They stared at the two. “No,” Lydon said, “never heard of him.”
Mesquite laughed, and the sound was unpleasant to Cuyas. He looked suddenly and warily at Mesquite.
“Don’t know heem.”
Cuyas spoke in a low voice, his eyes never leaving Mesquite.
“Reckoned you might say that,” Mesquite said, “but we figgered we might convince you that talkin’ was a good idea. You know you are through here? I mean Sparr an’ all their outfit.”
“Through?” Lydon’s laugh was ugly. “Don’t be a fool! Sparr won’t have no trouble holdin’ this place. If he does”—Lydon chuckled again—“Soper will smooth it down for him.”
“They work together, huh?” Johnny suggested.
“What else?” Lydon’s smile faded. “You better slope. I don’t want no trouble right now.”
“No,” Mesquite said softly, “it’s you two who’ll ride out of here. You’ll ride out if you’re lucky—if you talk. Otherwise, they can bury you when the coyotes are finished.”
“You talk mighty big,” Lydon sneered. “Can you back it up?”
“Why, sure!”
Mesquite came to his feet as gracefully as an uncoiling snake. He stood there, looking down at them, and suddenly all of Hank Lydon’s humor was gone and with it much of his truculence. Not a shrewd man, he yet knew danger when he saw it, and now he saw it all too plainly.
“What you want to know?” he asked. “No use fightin’ over nothin’.”
“Where’s Cassidy?”
Lydon chuckled again. “Ask me somethin’ I know an answer to. He just dropped out o’ the world. He left about as much trail most of the time as a snake on a flat rock, an’ then, when we did find one, we ran smack into a big hole in the mountain an’ had to go down a path that was mostly imagination.
“At the bottom we found a fire, but when we closed in on it the Apaches was doin’ likewise. There was some scrap, but we come out on top ’cept for Jake. He got one first crack out o’ the box. While we was fightin’, Hopalong dragged it. When we started back, they still hadn’t found the new trail.”
Suddenly Johnny lifted his head. He seemed to hear the sound of horses moving, but when he glanced out the window he saw nothing. It was still and quiet, with the snow falling steadily. His thoughts went to Cassidy. Their friend was high in the mountains, and the snow up there would be heavier than here, and the air much colder.
Tonight it would be piercing cold, and if the snow kept up, by dawn the trails would all be impassable. For the first time since he had known Cassidy, Johnny Nelson was worried, really and honestly worried, for this time it was not men with whom Hoppy must cope, but the bitter cold of winter in the icy peaks.
“When you get fixed up,” Mesquite said, rising slowly, “pack your duds an’ get out. You won’t be needed here.”
“You tell me?” Lydon sneered. His courage was returning now, and Cuyas, he noted, had finished bandaging his hand and was standing near the head of his bunk. Hank Lydon knew that under that pillow was a spare gun that Tony always kept for emergencies. This was the first one.
The room was still as the fall of snow outside the window. The fire in the box stove crackled slightly. Lydon shifted on the stool where he sat and the wood creaked. The bunks were rumpled, and several old, shabby-looking boots lay around on the floor. In the corner by the potbellied stove there was a stack of stovewood. A few slivers were scattered around and some spilled ashes where the stove had been hastily cleaned out by someone who had not brushed up afterward.
On the wall there was an old Sharps buffalo gun, and both men wore pistols. Hank Lydon stared up at Mesquite, his big head deep sunken between his massive shoulders, the muscles of his thighs stretching tight the heavy material of his jeans. Cuyas, stocky and alert, stood at the head of the bunk, his body curiously poised.
It was that poised alertness which warned Mesquite. He did not shift his eyes but kept the two of them in his view. “What’s
Soper aroun’ here?” he asked casually. “Is he boss or is Sparr?”
“Sparr.” Lydon dropped the word flatly. “Soper figgers he’s purty big hisself, but he ain’t so big as Sparr. Although,” he added, with penetration beyond his usual scope, “if I was Sparr I’d keep an eye on him. That Soper,” he added, “ain’t a healthy hombre. Sparr, he’d shoot a man down as soon as look at him. Soper, he’d pull the legs off a fly in private—or mebbe a man, for that matter. He’s cold-blooded.”
“Well, we’ll drift.” Mesquite let his eyes shift from one to the other of the two. “Remember what we told you. Get out! Don’t try nothin’ fancy, because it will only get you hurt. Get out while the gettin’ is good, because the cleanup has started. This deal is finished. You got an hour,” he said, “so get movin’!”
There was, he remembered, a shaving mirror alongside the door. It was right where he could see Cuyas reflected in it as he turned. So with a jerk of his head to Johnny, Mesquite spun on his heel. Instantly Cuyas grabbed the gun under the pillow.
Mesquite had been facing the door when he saw the flash of movement in the mirror. He drew as he turned his body at the hips and fired with the gun flat against his waist. Cuyas took the bullet in the chest with his gun almost level and, sagging at the knees, slowly spilled over on his face. Hank Lydon, his face gray, was frozen in position with his hand on his gun butt, covered by two guns that had sprung seemingly from nowhere.
“Want to finish that draw?” Johnny asked pleasantly. “If you do, I’ll holster my gun an’ we can start from scratch.”
“I had trouble enough.” Lydon touched his lips with his tongue. “I’m gettin’ out of here. All I want’s a chance.”
“You’ve got it.”
Lydon got to his feet, glancing at Cuyas. Hollow-eyed, he looked back at Mesquite. “That’s shootin’, mister. That boy, he always did set store by sneak guns. Proctor used t’ tell him one would get him killed someday, an’ it shore did.”
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