Carefully, he got to his feet. Gar Mullins was first to see him and he yelled. The others slid to a halt. Limping a little on a bruised leg, Johnny walked toward the horsemen.
“Man,” he said, “am I ever glad to see you fellers!”
Ramsey stared at him, sick with relief. “What got into you?” he demanded gruffly. “Trying to tackle that bunch by your lonesome?”
Johnny Lyle explained his fires and the idea he’d had. “Only trouble was,” he said ruefully, “they rushed me instead of dropping their guns, but it might’ve worked!”
Gar Mullins bit off a chew and glanced at Chuck with twinkling eyes. “Had it been me, it would’ve worked, kid.” He glanced at Bert. “Reckon we should finish it now they’re on the run?”
“We better let well enough alone,” Ramsey said. “If they think there’s a posse down canyon, they’ll hole up and make a scrap of it. We’d have to dig ’em out one by one.”
“I’d rather wait and get ’em in the open,” Monty Reagan said honestly. “That Lacey’s no bargain.” He looked with real respect at Lyle. “Johnny, I take my hat off to you. You got more nerve than me, to tackle that crowd single-handed.”
Bucky McCann came up. “He got one, too,” he said, gloating. “Pete Gabor’s over there with a shot through the head.”
“That was luck,” Johnny said. “They come right at me and I just cut loose.”
“Get any others?”
“Winged one, but it was a ricochet.”
Gar spat. “They count,” he said, chuckling a little. “We better get out of here.”
* * *
CONSIDERABLY CHASTENED, JOHNNY Lyle fell in alongside of Gar and they started back. Several miles farther along, when they were riding through Sibley Gap, Gar said:
“Old Tom was fit to be tied, kid. You shouldn’t ought to go off like that.”
“Aw,” Johnny protested, “everybody was treating me like a goose-headed tenderfoot! I got tired of it.”
The week moved along slowly. Johnny Lyle’s head stopped aching and his side began to heal. He rode out to the bog camp every day and worked hard. He was, Ramsey admitted, “a hand.” Nothing more was said about his brush with the Lacey gang except for a brief comment by Bucky McCann.
There was talk of a large band of Mexican bandits raiding over the border.
“Shucks,” Bucky said carelessly, “nothing to worry about! If they get too rambunctious we’ll sic Johnny at ’em! That’ll learn ’em!”
But Johnny Lyle was no longer merely the boss’s nephew. He was a hand, and he was treated with respect, and given rough friendship.
Nothing more was heard of Lacey. The story had gone around, losing nothing in the telling. The hands of the Slash Seven cow crowd found the story too good to keep. A kid from the Slash Seven, they said, had run Lacey all over the rocks, Lacey and all of his outfit.
Hook Lacey heard the story and flushed with anger. When he thought of the flight of his gang up the canyon from a lot of untended fires, and then their meeting with the Lyle kid, who single-handed not only had stood them off but had killed one man and wounded another, his face burned. If there was one thing he vowed to do, it was to get Johnny Lyle.
Nobody had any actual evidence on Lacey. He was a known rustler, but it had not been proved. Consequently, Lacey showed up around Victorio whenever he was in the mood. And he seemed to be in the mood a great deal after the scrap in Tierra Blanca Canyon. The payoff came suddenly and unexpectedly.
Gar Mullins had orders to ride to Victorio and check to see if a shipment of ammunition and equipment intended for the Slash Seven had arrived. Monty Reagan was to go along, but Monty didn’t return from the bog camp in time, so Lyle asked his uncle if he could go.
Reluctantly, Tom West told him to go ahead. “But don’t you go asking for trouble!” he said irritably. But in his voice was an underlying note of pride, too. After all, he admitted, the kid came of fighting stock. “If anybody braces you, that’s different!”
Victorio was basking in a warm morning sun when the two cowhands rode into the street. Tying up at the Gold Pan, Johnny left Gar to check on the supplies while he went to get a piece of apple pie. Not that he was fooling Gar, or even himself. It was that blonde behind the counter that he wanted to see.
Hook Lacey was drinking coffee when Johnny entered. Lacey looked up, then set his cup down hard, almost spilling the coffee.
Mary smiled quickly at Johnny, then threw a frightened look at Lacey.
“Hello, Johnny,” she said, her voice almost failing her. “I—I didn’t expect you.”
Johnny was wary. He had recognized Lacey at once, but his uncle had said he wasn’t to look for trouble.
“Got any apple pie?” he asked.
She placed a thick piece before him, then filled a cup with coffee. Johnny grinned at her and began to eat. “Mmm!” he said, liking the pie. “You make this?”
“No, my mother did.”
“She sure makes good pie!” Johnny was enthusiastic. “I’ve got to get over here more often!”
“Surprised they let you get away from home,” Lacey said, “but I see you brought a nursemaid with you.”
* * *
NOW, TOM WEST had advised Johnny to keep out of trouble, and Johnny, an engaging and easygoing fellow, intended to do just that, up to a point. This was the point.
“I didn’t need a nursemaid over on the Tierra Blanca,” he said cheerfully. “From the way you high-tailed over them rocks, I figured it was you needed one!”
Lacey’s face flamed. He came off the bench, his face dark with anger. “Why, you—”
Johnny looked around at him. “Better not start anything,” he said. “You ain’t got a gang with you.”
Lacey was in a quandary. Obviously the girl was more friendly to Johnny than to him. That meant that he could expect no help from her should she be called on to give testimony following a killing. If he drew first he was a gone gosling, for he knew enough about old Tom West to know the Slash Seven outfit would never stop hunting if this kid was killed in anything but a fair fight. And the kid wasn’t even on his feet.
“Listen!” he said harshly. “You get out of town! If you’re in this town one hour from now, I’ll kill you!”
Slamming down a coin on the counter, he strode from the restaurant.
“Oh, Johnny!” Mary’s face was white and frightened. “Don’t stay here! Go now! I’ll tell Gar where you are. Please go!”
“Go?” Johnny was feeling a fluttering in his stomach, but it angered him that Mary should feel he had to leave. “I will not go! I’ll run him out of town!”
Despite her pleading, he turned to the door and walked outside. Gar Mullins was nowhere in sight. Neither was Lacey. But a tall, stooped man with his arm in a sling stood across the street, and Johnny Lyle guessed at once that he was a lookout, that here was the man he had winged in the canyon fight. And winged though the man was, it was his left arm, and his gun hung under his right hand.
Johnny Lyle hesitated. Cool common sense told him that it would be better to leave. Actually, Uncle Tom and the boys all knew he had nerve enough, and it was no cowardice to dodge a shoot-out with a killer like Hook Lacey. The boys had agreed they wouldn’t want to tangle with him.
Just the same, Johnny doubted that any one of them would dodge a scrap if it came to that. And all his Texas blood and training rebelled against the idea of being run out of town. Besides, there was Mary. It would look like he was a pure D coward to run out now.
Yet what was the alternative? Within an hour, Hook Lacey would come hunting him. Hook would choose the ground, place, and time of meeting. And Hook was no fool. He knew all the tricks.
What, then, to do?
The only thing, Johnny Lyle decided, was to meet Lacey first. To hunt the outlaw down and force him into a fight before he was ready. There was nothing wrong with using strategy, with using a trick. Many gunfighters had done it. Billy the Kid had done it against the would be killer, Joe Grant
. Wes Hardin had used many a device.
Yet what to do? And where? Johnny Lyle turned toward the corral with a sudden idea in mind. Suppose he could appear to have left town? Wouldn’t that lookout go to Hook with the news? Then he could come back, ease up to Lacey suddenly, and call him, then draw.
Gar Mullins saw Johnny walking toward the corral, then he spotted the lookout. Mullins intercepted Johnny just as he stepped into the saddle.
“What’s up, kid? You in trouble?”
Briefly Johnny explained. Gar listened and, much to Johnny’s relief, registered no protest. “All right, kid. You got it to do if you stay in this country, and your idea’s a good one. You ever been in a shoot-out before?”
“No, I sure haven’t.”
“Now, look. You draw natural, see? Don’t pay no mind to being faster’n he is. Chances are you ain’t any-wheres close to that. You figure on getting that first shot right where it matters, you hear? Shoot him in the body, right in the middle. No matter what happens, hit him with the first shot, you hear me?”
“Yeah.”
* * *
JOHNNY FELT SICK at his stomach and his mouth was dry, his heart pounding.
“I’ll handle that lookout, so don’t pay him no mind.” Gar looked up. “You a good shot, Johnny?”
“On a target I can put five shots in a playing card.”
“That’s all right, but this card’ll be shooting back. But don’t you worry. You choose your own spot for it.”
“Wait!” Johnny had an idea. “Listen, you have somebody get word to him that Butch Jensen wants to see him. I’ll be across the street at the wagon yard. When he comes up, I’ll step out.”
He rode swiftly out of town. Glancing back, he saw the lookout watching. Gar Mullins put a pack behind his own saddle and apparently readied his horse for the trail. Then he walked back down the street.
He was just opposite the wagon yard when he saw the lookout stop on a street corner, looking at him. At the same instant, Hook Lacey stepped from behind a wagon. Across the street was Webb Foster, another of the Lacey crowd. There was no mistaking their purpose, and they had him boxed!
Gar Mullins was thirty-eight, accounted an old man on the frontier, and he had seen and taken part in some wicked gun battles. Yet now he saw his position clearly. This was it, and he wasn’t going to get out of this one. If Johnny had been with him—but Johnny wouldn’t be in position for another ten minutes.
Hook Lacey was smiling. “You were in the canyon the other day, Gar,” he said triumphantly. “Now you’ll see what it’s like. We’re going to kill you, Gar. Then we’ll follow that kid and get him. You ain’t got a chance, Gar.”
Mullins knew it, yet with a little time, even a minute, he might have.
“Plannin’ on wiping out the Slash Seven, Hook?” he drawled. “That’s what you’ll have to do if you kill that kid. He’s the old man’s nephew.”
“Ain’t you worried about yourself, Gar?” Lacey sneered. “Or are you just wet-nursing that kid?”
Gar’s seamed and hard face was set. His eyes flickered to the lookout, whose hand hovered only an inch above his gun. And to Webb, with his thumb hooked in his belt. There was no use waiting. It would be minutes before the kid would be set.
And then the kid’s voice sounded, sharp and clear.
“I’ll take Lacey, Gar! Get that lookout!”
Hook Lacey whipped around, drawing as he turned. Johnny Lyle, who had left his horse and hurried right back, grabbed for his gun. He saw the big, hard-faced man before him, saw him clear and sharp. Saw his hand flashing down, saw the broken button on his shirtfront, saw the Bull Durham tag from his pocket, saw the big gun come up. But his own gun was rising, too.
The sudden voice, the turn, all conspired to throw Lacey off, yet he had drawn fast and it was with shock that he saw the kid’s gun was only a breath slower. It was that which got him, for he saw that gun rising and he shot too quick. The bullet tugged at Johnny’s shirt collar, and then Johnny, with that broken button before his eyes, fired.
Two shots, with a tiny but definite space between them, and then Johnny looked past Lacey at the gun exploding in Webb Foster’s hands. He fired just as Gar Mullins swung his gun to Webb. Foster’s shot glanced off the iron rim of a wagon wheel just as Gar’s bullet crossed Johnny’s in Webb Foster’s body.
The outlaw crumpled slowly, grabbed at the porch awning, then fell off into the street.
* * *
JOHNNY STOOD VERY still. His eyes went to the lookout, who was on his hands and knees on the ground, blood dripping in great splashes from his body. Then they went to Hook Lacey. The broken button was gone, and there was an edge cut from the tobacco tag. Hook Lacey was through, his chips all cashed. He had stolen his last horse.
Gar Mullins looked at Johnny Lyle and grinned weakly. “Kid,” he said softly, walking toward him, hand outstretched, “we make a team. Here on out, it’s saddle partners, hey?”
“Sure, Gar.” Johnny did not look again at Lacey. He looked into the once bleak blue eyes of Mullins. “I ride better with a partner. You got that stuff for the ranch?”
“Yeah.”
“Then if you’ll pick up my horse in the willows, yonder, I’ll say good-bye to Mary. We’d best be getting back. Uncle Tom’ll be worried.”
Gar Mullins chuckled, walking across the street, arm in arm with Johnny.
“Well, he needn’t be,” Gar said. “He needn’t be.”
IN VICTORIO’S COUNTRY
* * *
THE FOUR RIDERS, hard-bitten men bred to the desert and the gun, pushed steadily southward. “Red” Clanahan, a monstrous big man with a wide-jawed bulldog face and a thick neck descending into massive shoulders, held the lead. Behind him, usually in single file but occasionally bunching, trailed the others.
It was hot and still. The desert of southern Arizona’s Apache country was rarely pleasant in the summer, and this day was no exception. “Bronco” Smith, who trailed just behind Red, mopped his lean face with a handkerchief and cursed fluently, if monotonously.
He had his nickname from the original meaning of the term wild and unruly and the Smith was a mere convenience, in respect to the custom that insists a man have two names. The “Dutchman” defied the rule by having none at all, or if he had once owned a name, it was probably recorded only upon some forgotten reward poster lining the bottom of some remote sheriff’s desk drawer. To the southwestern desert country he was simply and sufficiently, the Dutchman.
As for “Yaqui Joe,” he was called just that, or was referred to as the “breed” and everyone knew without question who was indicated. He was a wide-faced man with a square jaw, stolid and silent, a man of varied frontier skills, but destined to follow always where another led. A man who had known much hardship and no kindness, but whose commanding virtue was loyalty.
Smith was a lean whip of a man with slightly graying hair, stooped shoulders, and spidery legs. Dried and parched by desert winds, he was as tough as cowhide and iron. It was said that he had shot his way out of more places than most men had ever walked into, and he would have followed no man’s leadership but that of Big Red Clanahan.
The Dutchman was a distinct contrast to the lean frame of Smith, for he was fat, and not in the stomach alone, but all over his square, thick-boned body. Yet the blue eyes that stared from his round cheeks were sleepy, wise, and wary.
There were those who said that Yaqui Joe’s father had been an Irishman, but his name was taken from his mother in the mountains of Sonora. He had been an outlaw by nature and choice from the time he could crawl, and he was minus a finger on his left hand, and had a notch in the top of his ear. The bullet that had so narrowly missed his skull had been fired by a man who never missed again. He was buried in a hasty grave somewhere in the Mogollons.
* * *
OF THEM ALL, Joe was the only one who might have been considered a true outlaw. All had grown up in a land and time when the line was hard to draw.
Big Red h
ad never examined his place in society. He did not look upon himself as a thief or as a criminal, and would have been indignant to the point of shooting had anybody suggested he was either of these. However, the fact was that Big Red had long since strayed over the border that divides the merely careless from the actually criminal. Like many another westerner he had branded unbranded cattle on the range, as in the years following the War Between the States the cattle were there for the first comer who possessed a rope and a hot iron.
It was a business that kept him reasonably well supplied with poker and whiskey money, but when all available cattle wore brands, it seemed to him the difference in branded and unbranded cattle was largely a matter of time. All the cattle had been mavericks after the war, and if a herd wore a brand it simply meant the cattleman had reached them before he did. Big Red accepted this as a mere detail, and a situation that could be speedily rectified with a cinch ring, and in this he was not alone.
If the cattleman who preceded him objected with lead, Clanahan accepted this as an occupational hazard.
However, from rustling cattle to taking the money itself was a short step, and halved the time consumed in branding and selling the cattle. Somewhere along this trail Big Red crossed, all unwittingly at the time, the shadow line that divides the merely careless from the actually dishonest, and at about the time he crossed this line, Big Red separated from the man who had ridden beside him for five long, hard frontier years.
The young hardcase who had punched cows and ridden the trail herds to Kansas at his side was equally big and equally Irish, and his name was Bill Gleason.
When Clanahan took to the outlaw trail, Gleason turned to the law. Neither took the direction he followed with any intent. It was simply that Clanahan failed to draw a line that Gleason drew, and that Gleason, being a skillful man on a trail, and a fast hand with a gun, became the sheriff of the country that held his home town of Cholla.
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