Soper stopped in mid-stride. First, he was astonished, and then he was angry. He was astonished because he could not understand anyone being as shortsighted about his own interests as Johnny Rebb; second, he was angry because Johnny Rebb was literally his own last chance. He could not face Sparr alone. Of course, if Sparr made a run for it, there might be a chance, but there were things taking place of which Soper knew nothing.
He did not, for example, know that Sparr’s decision was already made.
“No?” he demanded. “What do you mean? This is the chance of a lifetime, Rebb! A chance for money, an assured position in the community! A chance to grow richer and richer, and right here in our hands, and we can swing it. Sparr can’t swing it. We can. You and I. And you say you don’t want to?”
“I don’t.” Rebb got to his feet. “As for you,” he said carelessly, his eyes cold on Soper’s, “I figger you’re a two-faced coyote. You’d turn rat on me the way you are on Sparr. You ain’t even the shadow of a man. You’re a double-crossin’ two-bit rat!”
Coolly he spat at Arnold Soper’s feet, then turned his back and started toward his horse.
It was too much. The final defeat of his plans, coupled with the contempt of a man he had secretly sneered at, was too much for him, and Soper, he who had abjured violence, suddenly gave way to his temper and jerked a derringer from his pocket. He had never been known to carry a gun, and the fact that he even possessed one he had kept secret.
Yet now he jerked it and cocked the hammer.
The click of the drawn-back hammer was the thing. On the taut, ever-ready gunman’s nerves it acted like an electric shock.
In stride, Johnny whirled, and as he turned he drew, and when he drew, he fired.
His wind knocked out by the slugging blow of the .44, Soper took a step back, gasping. He could not understand what had happened to him. For an instant he believed his own gun had burst in his hand, but there it was, and still cocked, and then he looked up and saw the slow trickle of smoke from Johnny Rebb’s gun. Puzzled, he stared at it, and then the gun slipped from his fingers and fell into the snow. His eyes followed it, and they saw something else. There was blood on the snow.
His blood!
Realization came to him then, and suddenly with it came a horror of death. It was horror vented in a scream that broke off halfway, but Arnold Soper did not know he had not finished his scream. He did not even know he had screamed. He knew nothing at all, and would never know anything again. Arnold Soper was dead.
Johnny Rebb mounted his horse, looked once more at the body, and then cantered slowly away toward the ranch. It looked like it might snow again.
Chapter 14
JOHNNY REBB MAKES HIS CHOICE
*
HOPALONG CASSIDY HAD taken time for a shave and a bath, so he felt better, and much rested. A well-wisher from among the friendly, honest folk of Horse Springs had loaned him a sorrel that while not the horse his own was, nevertheless was a fine animal. This was a country that liked good horses, and they had them. He rode without talking, content to keep his eyes on the country. They were restless eyes, all too aware what dangers even the most innocent country can hold.
“Mebbe we should see Thatcher,” Nelson suggested. “He’d like to get in on this, I bet.”
Mesquite looked his disgust. “You want to go after him? Me, I got a date with that Johnny Rebb. They tell me he’s mean.”
“Salty,” Nelson said. “I’d bet on it. He carries himself like it.”
“Good man gone wrong,” Hopalong assured them. “I talked to him some, but from all I hear, he’s Sparr’s ace in the hole.”
“Reckon we’ll find Soper down here?”
“Mebbe. He’ll be around somewheres. Leave it to him to make a try somewhere along the line.”
“Hoppy”—Johnny nodded off to the left—“somebody’s been drivin’ cattle recent.”
Cassidy studied the trail off to one side, swinging his sorrel over for a closer look. “Uh-huh. Maybe twenty head. Drivin’ south.”
“Looks like they’ve started their cleanup,” said Johnny.
If Sparr’s men were driving cattle, they might find few of them at the home ranch. Hopalong seemed to share this idea with them, for he spoke to his sorrel and moved into a canter. The other two kept pace.
They were abreast of Black Mountain when Hoppy’s eye caught a flash of reflected light. He looked quickly, but the light was too far away to be from a rifle. It was well up on the side of a butte out on the plain, probably three miles away. “Somebody’s watchin’ us with a glass,” he said.
“Let ’em watch.” Nelson shrugged his shoulders and began to roll a smoke. “They know we’re comin’ anyway.”
A few minutes later Hopalong caught the flash of a fast-ridden horse. “That’s funny! He’s headin’ this way, comin’ right to us.”
They continued to ride, and they did not talk while they waited. When the rider drew nearer, they saw it was a boy, a slim youngster of fourteen. Then Hopalong recognized him. “Howdy, Bill!” he said, drawing up. “Where you goin’ so fast?”
“Been watchin’ for you!” the boy exclaimed excitedly. “That Sparr feller, he’s got an ambush laid for you! He’s got six or eight men, all tough hombres, an’ they are all set up an’ ready.
“There won’t be nobody in sight but Sparr when you show up, but there’s to be men in the the bunkhouse, the blacksmith shop, the storeroom, and the house itself, an’ all with rifles an’ shotguns. The minute Sparr gives the word, they cut down on you. They are all laid out there now, hidden an’ waitin’. My dad says you better beat it, an’ if you want Sparr, ketch him somewheres else!”
“Thanks, Billy.” Hopalong looked thoughtfully at the horizon, then back at the boy. “How many in the house?”
“Two. That there Proctor will be there with one o’ the Gleasons. The Piute an’ another o’ the Gleason boys will be in the blacksmith shop, Anse Mowry in the storeroom, an’ Ed Framson in the corral. That Lydon, he’s to be in the bunkhouse.”
“What about Johnny Rebb?” Hopalong asked.
“Never heard. He wasn’t there when they planned it.”
Hopalong started his horse again and walked it slowly forward, but as he rode he was recalling the exact setup of the buildings at the Circle J. As in most of this Apache country, they formed a small fort in themselves, although not as compactly arranged as those at the T Bar.
The large, rambling old house faced the bunkhouse. Alongside the bunkhouse was the blacksmith shop, and directly across from the shop, and attached to the house itself, was the storeroom where extra food and supplies were kept. Across the end was the barn, a large, shambling structure with a huge loft for hay, and beside it the corrals.
At the opposite end the rectangle was open with a nest of rocks and brush overlooking the whole yard and offering excellent firing positions for anyone defending the area, but an equally good if not better position for anyone wanting to fire upon the ranch buildings.
Into this space Hopalong Cassidy was expected to ride, as he had ridden before, only this time the instant he passed into the rectangle of buildings, even from the brush and trees as he had come before, he would be under the muzzles of a circle of rifles in the hands of men sworn to kill him.
The thought of turning back did not occur to him. Notoriously stubborn, he refused to admit that he could not do what he started out to do, and now his mind was seeking out a way. “You better high-tail it Billy,” Hopalong suggested. “No use lettin’ them see you with us. From now on it’s our problem.”
When the boy was gone, Hopalong said nothing for a few minutes, and then he commented, “Looks like a good chance to round up the whole outfit.”
“What I was figgerin,” Mesquite replied. “An’ havin’ ’em scattered out thataway may be just the best thing ever.”
“How d’you figger that?” Johnny demanded. “We can’t fire in every direction, can we?”
“Why should we?” Hopalong
said. “So far as we know, he doesn’t know the two of you are along, so you are to be my aces in the hole. Whatever is done, I’ve got to ride out into that plaza between the buildin’s an’ let ’em all see me, but it is the two of you that have the big job to do. You got to get rid of that bunch in those buildin’s, or some o’ them.”
“That hombre in the rocks,” Mesquite said, “should be easy for Johnny.”
“Why me?” Johnny demanded fiercely. “Why me? Why should I be stuck up there away from the scrap?”
“You are the best rifle shot,” Mesquite replied innocently. “Take out that feller—then you can open fire on the windows they’d shoot from.”
“What about you?” Nelson demanded suspiciously. “Where will you be?”
“Why, I’ll take the house first! You can open up on those houses across from me.”
“All right, Mesquite,” Hopalong agreed. “I’ll take Sparr an’ then the storeroom. Mesquite, if you finish in the house, go for Framson in the corral.”
They rode more swiftly now, and at Hopalong’s word they split. Hopalong could see that the herd Sparr’s men had gathered had reached several hundred head, and it had been driven to the eastern end of the ranch. Evidently they planned on striking east and then south along the North Star road and heading south for Mexico.
The sun was high and the morning ended when Hopalong sighted the house through the trees and slowed down. His mouth felt dry inside and his stomach was hollow, for he knew that when he rode into the rectangle of buildings, he would be encircled by death.
Suppose Johnny failed? Or Mesquite? Suppose something went wrong? There would be nothing for him to do then but to fight his way out of the circle. Any way he looked at it, he was facing the biggest gamble of his life, but he knew he wanted Sparr, and wanted him the worst way. He let the sorrel go forward at a walk, and then lifted his voice in song. That was to be the signal for Johnny to move in on the Gleason who held the rocks.
On the spur of the moment he changed his plans. It was the horse that caused it, for he disliked to think of a fine horse taking a chance on being killed by flying lead. He dismounted alongside the house and then stepped to the corner.
Before him the hard-packed earth was pinkish white, and he could see that despite the comparative coolness the windows were lifted in the bunkhouse. Snow was gone from the small plaza except close to the buildings. The sun glared brightly on the walls and was reflected from the windows. Hopalong Cassidy stepped out from the corner of the building to the edge of the long porch than ran before the house.
“Sparr!” His voice rang loudly in the empty plaza. “Come on out!”
As if on signal, Avery Sparr stepped from the barn.
“You want me, Cassidy?”
Hopalong could see the big gunman scowling to pick him out against the dull wall of the house where it was shaded by the porch. It was going to be tougher for him now, and those men inside the house would not find it easy to shoot at him if Mesquite failed. But Hopalong knew he would not fail. He had never failed.
“Why, sure! Heard you were huntin’ me, Avery. Reckoned I’d make it easier for you, seein’ as we have a little score to settle.”
“You crabbed my game, Cassidy.” Sparr walked forward two steps into the open. “Come on out where I can see you!”
Hopalong Cassidy’s quick eyes had been gauging the situation. He found he could step out into the open and still not leave himself a target for the men in the house, and that unless Ed Framson shifted fast, he would be blocked off by Sparr’s own body. Moving with easy steps, Hopalong walked into the open, and the two men faced each other seventy yards apart. As if eager to draw Hopalong still farther into the open, Avery Sparr started toward him.
Meanwhile, Johnny Nelson had skirted the timber and raced his horse through the snow to the foot of the hill atop which one of the Gleason boys would be waiting. The thick snow, partially shaded by trees, muffled the hoofbeats, and Johnny swung down and started up through the rocks. He was moving swiftly and surely, fierce with eagerness and desperate with the necessity of closing in on this man in time to back Hopalong up, for well he knew the dangerous position into which his friend had stepped. He went up the rocks swiftly, and atop the hill saw a husky man in a sheep-lined coat crouching behind some rocks.
He took two quick steps before his boot crunched on snow and Gleason saw him. His face wolfish, the man dropped his rifle and drew a knife. He lunged at Johnny, eager for the kill. And Johnny Nelson knew that a shot from him would explode the whole yard into a blazing pit of gunfire, where Hoppy would be the focal point. He took one step back, and as the long arm thrust wickedly with the low-held knife, Johnny grabbed the man’s wrist and he spilled him over on his head into the piled-up snow and leaves.
The fellow hit hard and lost hold on his knife, but he was tough, and came up with a lunge. No more than Johnny did he wish to spoil the ambush down below, and he was a bearlike man who loved to fight. He closed in swiftly and took a ramlike fist in the mouth that lost him some teeth, and then a right on the jaw that made his skull ring. He ducked his head to get in close and caught a fist and then an elbow. He lunged again, slipped, and his chin encountered a lifting knee.
He went down hard, and Johnny Nelson dived for the rocks and the rifle.
*
AT THE VERY same time as Johnny mounted the rocks, Mesquite reached the house. There were no doors on the back, so he tried a window. It was shut, and either locked or frozen. Hastening, he tried a second and a third. All were tightly closed. Desperate, he was about to round the house and come into the open when the Mexican woman cook saw him. She came quickly to the window and tried to lift it. No luck.
Grabbing a kettle from the fire, she poured it over the middle sash and the bottom. Mesquite shoved and the window came loose. In an instant he was through the window and into the house. Stepping around her, he pushed past into the huge living room.
Leven Proctor lounged against the fireplace, a rifle in his hands. Crouched by a window was the second Gleason, a small man with a wizened rat face. “Drop ’em, boys,” Mesquite said softly, “or gamble!”
At that instant the yard broke into a thunder of gunfire and Gleason gambled—and lost. His gun, already drawn, swung around, and Mesquite opened fire with both guns. Leaping from his holsters like a magician’s gesture, they vomited flame. Mesquite saw Proctor’s face over the darting flame of his guns and saw the tall man swing the rifle and fire. He felt himself stagger and saw Leven Proctor go down to his knees, coughing blood. Gleason was dead over the windowsill, and Mesquite darted for the door.
It was like him that he wasted not a look at Hopalong. He had been given his chores, and he knew what he should do was what he had been told to do. He started on a run for the corral. Framson, about to get into a new firing position at last, saw him coming. His eyes swung one way, then the other, but Mesquite was too close a danger, and he snapped a quick shot at him, felt a bullet smash his shoulder. He dropped his gun, scooped it up, and dodged across the corral. Mesquite circled it, firing between the planks.
Framson went down coughing, got up, and leaped for the corral fence, grabbing the top pole with his hands. He swung himself over and Mesquite stood, wide-legged with lifted guns, and for an instant they looked at each other. And in, the cold eyes of Mesquite Jenkins, Ed Framson saw death. He grinned suddenly, feeling the red heat of the bullets he had taken in his body.
“Why, you lucky blister!” he said. “You lucky blister! I’ll kill you!”
He dropped, landing miraculously on his feet, his grin wide.
“You got me, but I want company!”
His gun swung up, and Mesquite’s Colts hammered death into him, knocking him back step by step, until he fell.
Even as Mesquite was crawling through the window and Johnny fighting among the rocks, Hopalong Cassidy was walking out into the open against Sparr. And Avery Sparr, who had never known fear of another man, suddenly felt a strange certainty welling
up within him. The battered gray hat, the fringe of silver hair, the frosty blue eyes, the sloping shoulders, and the curious, short-stepping cowman’s walk—that was Hopalong Cassidy, and it was death.
In that clear, sun-bathed luminous instant Avery Sparr knew his time had come. It came to him with a flash of realization, such a certainty as he had never know before. He knew he was going to die, and somehow then he knew that it had been in his mind ever since he had first seen this man. All his plans had gone wrong. His big gamble, which until then had been so safe, so sure, all had failed.
Yet in that clear instant of realization, his cold and haggard face revealing nothing, Avery Sparr knew that a man has but one time to die. All other things he can do many times, but he can die but once, and if a man cannot live proudly, he can at least die proudly.
Tall, gray, and bleak, he stopped, facing Hopalong across the thirty yards of distance that separated them. In that instant—such is the way of fighting men—he felt almost an affection for the gunfighter facing him. At least he wouldn’t be like Hickok, shot in the back without a chance by a tinhorn, or shot from the dark like Billy the Kid. He could end it out here in the sunshine and take Cassidy with him.
“How d’you like it, Cassidy?” His voice was harsh. “Let’s see how good you really are!”
They stared at each other, each knowing well how the other felt, for both were fighting men. No matter how far apart the ways of life, the divisions of color, creed, or living, there is between fighting men an understanding, and such these felt now. Sparr spoke once more before the guns began to talk.
“You know, boy, it’s a nice way to go, out in the sunshine, with the sound of the first snow meltin’!”
His hands dived for his guns, and as if on order, guns began to crash about them.
To men in great moments of suspense, moments of great emotion and action, comes a suspension of time, so that the action of seconds seems to drag to long, long minutes.
Avery Sparr’s big hands dropped in that old familiar gesture of death, dropped for the butts of the big guns he loved so well, and like darting lightning, the guns cleared their holsters and leaped to position, yet in a breathless instant before him, flame shot from the guns of Hopalong Cassidy.
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