from the Listening Hills (Ss) (2004)

by L'amour, Louis

  Another idea struck him. "Why did your uncle do that?"

  "Oh, there's no accounting for Uncle Tim! He's liable to do anything! But it isn't that this time: he's interested in this fellow, I can see it. He was watching him like a cat all the time."

  "I wonder why?" Bly remarked absently. He was thinking of how he would look in the parade with this girl beside him. Old Curly Bell's only child--not a bad idea, marrying her.

  "I don't know," Carol said, "but Uncle Tim's funny. He used to be a United States marshal, you know. Over in Nevada."

  Bly turned abruptly. "In Nevada, you say?" He caught himself. "You'd never suspect it. He seems so quiet."

  "I know, but he's that way. He's still angry, and has been for the past three years over that gold shipment robbery."

  "Oh, yes! I recall something about it, I think. The bandits held up a train and got away with two hundred thousand dollars in freshly minted gold, wasn't that it?"

  "I guess so. Uncle Tim believes that gold is still intact and has never been used, that it is cached somewhere."

  "But he's not even an officer anymore, is he?"

  "No, but that doesn't matter to Uncle Tim. In fact, I've heard him say more than once that he believed the thieves would come back, that the gold was hidden someplace not too far from here, in the mountains."

  "You think that's why he's interested in this Murphy kid? One of the bandits was supposed to be no more than a boy. He was the one who killed the messenger."

  "Oh, no!" The protest was sharp, dismayed. For some reason the idea frightened and disturbed Carol. It had not occurred to her before that such might be the reason for her uncle's interest in Deke Murphy.

  Carol Bell would not have admitted her interest in Deke Murphy even to herself. In fact, she was scarcely aware of that interest, yet she remembered what he had practically told her uncle, that Deke had not wanted to be shown up as being broke in front of her.

  She was a thoroughly aware young lady, and had seen his eyes follow her from place to place, and his interest pleased her. Moreover, hecould ride. She had seen him ride, and she was enough of a rider herself to know that he would compare favorably with many of the contest hands.

  IN THE OFFICE, after calling his wire through to the telegraph office, Tim Carson turned to Tack Hobson. "Hobby," he said, "you know that Shadow horse? How many shows has he been in and where were they?"

  "Funny you should ask that," Hobson remarked, "but he's never been ridden by anybody, an' he's shown in just four rodeos...all of them in prisons."

  "I see. Was the Highbinder in any of these shows?"

  "One of them. He was ridden once by a convict." Hobson stoked his pipe. "Reason I said it was funny you should ask is that you're the second man who asked that question. Bill Bly was in here, just a few minutes ago. He wanted to know the same thing."

  DEKE MURPHY HAD no idea just how he was to find his man, or exactly what he would do when he found him. From the moment he had been released from prison that had been his one idea. He had been framed and framed badly, and had done two years for a crime in which he had no part.

  It had been a dark night when he had ridden up from his last camp near Singing Mountain, a tough and lonely kid, eager only to escape from his home in the Robber's Roost country and to find an honest job. Riding since he could first remember, he had lived a lonely life back in the breaks with his mother and his stepfather.

  His stepfather had been a kindly man around home, and despite the fact that he was a rustler, had been a good father and a good husband, yet Deke's mother had reared him to be an honest man, and had made him promise that when he was old enough he would leave the Roost behind and start out on his own. His mother had died of pneumonia, alone and unattended except by himself, and his stepfather had been killed in a gunfight shortly after. Deke, true to his promise, had left the Roost behind.

  He rode for a ranch in Utah, then one in Nevada, and started down the country looking to get himself as far from the Roost as possible. Leaving Singing Mountain, broke and without food, he had come upon an outlaw camp on the site of Sand Springs.

  Three men had loafed by the fire. Deke knew all three, and about only one of them could he say anything good. Frank Wales had been a friend of his father's, an outlaw, but a man of some decency. Jerry Haskell and Cass Kubela he knew mostly by reputation but their reputation wasn't anything his mother would have approved of.

  "Hey," Kubela had said, sitting up, "how about the kid? When we take the next shipment he could be the fifth man."

  Wales glanced at him. "The kid's no outlaw," he said. "Leave him out of this!"

  Jerry Haskell was a lean, dry whip of a man with a saturnine expression in his black eyes. He had killed two men that Deke knew about. "He's in now," he said, "he knows us an' he's seen us. Whether he likes it or not, he's in."

  "I'm in nothing!" Deke had said hotly. "I'm ridin' through. Figured I might get me a bait of grub, then ride on. I ain't seen nothin', don't know nothin'!"

  At Wales' invitation, he ate, eager only to finish and get away. That the three were waiting for their leader to get back, he knew. That they had just committed a robbery and were planning the holdup of a shipment from the mines, he soon learned. He knew Wales was his only friend here, but the older man would not dare go against the two seasoned outlaws. Cass Kubela had killed more than one man. A short, tough fellow with narrow eyes and big hands, he was even more dangerous than Haskell. Of the three here, Wales was without doubt the weakest link.

  When he had eaten he rose to go, but Kubela motioned to him to sit down. "Stick around, kid," he advised, and the suggestion had been an order. Deke Murphy, his heart pounding, had sat down. The shotgun lying across Kubela's knees added emphasis to the command.

  Later, when he had dozed off, he opened his eyes enough to know the fourth man had returned. He overheard a few words. "His old man was a weak sister," someone was saying, "the kid's ma preached to him. I say we can't trust him."

  Wales' protest was overruled, but then the fourth man spoke. "Keep him for now, we can use him. Get some sleep and we'll move out early....They may still be on my trail."

  Although he waited and listened, Deke heard no more, and somewhere along the trail of his waiting, he fell asleep again. He awakened to a confusion of shots, and for one startled instant, he stared around wildly, then grabbed his boots and tugging them on, made a break for his horse.

  Another man, a big man, came charging up, and he too grabbed at Deke's horse. "That's my horse!" Deke protested.

  The man turned half around, but in the darkness Deke Murphy could not see his face. "Shut up, you fool!" he snapped, and he slashed viciously at Deke with the barrel of his gun.

  It caught the boy a glancing blow across the skull and lights exploded in his brain. As he started to go down, he grabbed out and got a hand in the edge of the big man's pocket. He jerked and the pocket ripped, and the man toppled back to the ground. He sprang up and aimed a vicious kick at the boy's head, but Deke lunged to his feet and struck out hard. The blow landed, and Deke followed it in. His unknown antagonist smashed up with his right, and then the gun bellowed, fired by their struggles. With a curse of panic the man flung him off and sprang into the saddle. There was a rattle of hoofs and he was gone!

  An instant later a half-dozen men charged down on Deke. He was surrounded, searched, and taken away. Later, tried and convicted, he was sentenced to five years in the penitentiary for a holdup that had been committed the previous day. His stepfather's record was known. He admitted his acquaintance with all the robbers but one, and his denials that he had any part in the holdup were laughed out of consideration.

  The man he sought was the leader of the band, the man who had stolen his horse and left him to be captured and sentenced to prison. His sole clue was a comment made by Kubela on that memorable night when half awake he heard them talking. Kubela had said, "The boss can ride, alright! He's a top contest hand!" And it was that boss who had left him for the law, and
while the posse was making him a prisoner, the actual outlaws escaped.

  Frank Wales, the only man who could have testified to his actual connection with the robbers, was now dead. He had escaped only to be killed near the ghost town of Hamilton two years before, resisting arrest.

  TIM CARSON SAUNTERED down to the chutes and stopped near chute three where Deke Murphy was working. "You should be riding in this show, kid. There's some good prizes!"

  "You know I'm broke," Deke said sullenly. "How could I enter?"

  "Suppose I paid your entry fees?" Carson persisted. "Would you ride?"

  "You're darn tootin' I would!" Deke said. His eyes followed the leaders of the Grand Parade, looking enviously at Bill Bly riding beside Carol Bell. The girl's eyes happened to turn his way, and she smiled. Deke felt his heart leap. "You loan me that money, mister! I'll pay you back out of my winnin's!"

  Carson watched the parade thoughtfully, and for a minute or two he did not speak. Then he said, "You're entered, Murphy. I already paid your fees. You're entered in every event, take what you want of them!"

  Deke stared, his eyes incredulous. "You mean, you--" He hesitated, uncertain what to say.

  "I like to see a kid get his chance," Carson said, "an' that in particular when he's had bad breaks. You get on out there, let's see you bust 'em wide open!"

  An hour later, hurrying up to Tim Carson's place by the chute, Carol caught his arm. "Uncle Tim! Did you enter that boy in the rodeo? Did you?"

  Carson smiled gravely. "I sure did, honey, an' if you want to gamble I'll bet you he puts Bly in the shade!"

  Carol said nothing, her eyes following the young rider who was saddling the roping horse Carson had provided for him. "Uncle Tim, do you think he is one of those men who robbed that two hundred thousand dollars?"

  Carson took the pipe from his mouth. "Now where'd you get that idea? An' whoever told you it was two hundred thousand?"

  "Bill did, but I got the idea from you. You've never let that old crime rest. I know it still bothers you."

  "It does at that." Carson returned his pipe to his teeth. "Carol, I hate crooks. I also hate like poison anyone who'll let an innocent man do his time. You asked me if I thought Deke was one of them, an' I'll tell you: Iknow he wasn't. But he's been in prison for it, an' I've a hunch he's huntin' the man who led that holdup--a man we know as Jud Kynell, one of the old bunch that hung out at the Roost."

  "He was in prison?" Carol watched the young rider, her eyes serious. "Do you suppose--I mean, do you think he's honest now? I--I know some men become thieves or worse while in jail."

  "Honey, I think the boy's honest. He wouldn't take money from me without working for it."

  Deke walked toward them, leading his horse. He grinned shyly at the girl. On impulse, Carol removed her handkerchief and handed it to him, then took it back and knotted it about his neck herself.

  "You need something that shows you're riding for us now," she said. "Good luck." For a breathtaking instant they were very close, and as she pulled the knot into place, she looked up at him. His face was pale and he looked almost frightened.

  "Ma'am," he said sincerely, "you watch me! I'll kick the frost out of anything they've got--for you!"

  BEFORE THE CONTEST was more than a few minutes old the entire arena had awakened to the fact that out there on the tanbark a fierce duel was beginning, a duel between tall, powerful Bill Bly, and the unknown newcomer.

  "Ladies and gents! Billy Bly, star of rodeo and stock corral, makes his tie in eleven and six-tenths seconds!" Hobson, the announcer, drew a breath and then continued to bellow into the small end of his speaking trumpet. "That's the fastest time so far today, and ties the record for this here arena!"

  He turned and waved a hand. "Now out of the chutes--Deke Murph!"

  Carson's horse was a sorrel streak, and Deke's rope shot out like a thrown lance, the loop opening just as the calf dodged, and dropped over its head! Murphy stepped down as his horse put on the brakes, dropped to one knee alongside the calf, and made his tie. As he sprang back, dust rising from the bound calf, a gasp went over the arena.

  Hobson's voice boomed out. "Well, folks! Now there's arecord ! Deke Murphy at eleven and four-tenths seconds, to win the first go-around!"

  Amid cheers, Murphy swung into the saddle and cantered across to where Carol stood waiting with her uncle Tim and Bly. Bly looked up, the same cold expression in his eyes, his lips forcing a smile. "Nice going," he commented, but his voice was flat.

  "Oh, Deke! You werewonderful !" Carol exclaimed.

  BLY WON THE steer wrestling, with Deke a close second, and Red Roller, a big cowhand from Cheyenne, a tight third. In the Brahma riding, Deke came out on No. 66, an ugly mass of bull meat weighing all of two thousand pounds and a fighter as well as a rodeo veteran.

  He knew what he was out there for and he went at it with a will, buck-jumping and twisting his tail. Deke was hanging on for dear life and the bull was out to ditch him or die. Somehow, Deke stayed up until the whistle blew.

  He threw a leg over the bull's back, hit the ground, and the bull swapped ends and came for him. The clowns rushed in with flapping cloaks and slapping hats to draw the animal's attention. It sprang this way and that, trying desperately to get at its enemies, not so much in torment as in sheer enjoyment of battle and lust for conquest.

  Deke limped back to the chute, grinning at Carol, his face dusty and a trickle of blood coming from his nose. "Rough!" he said, shaking his head.

  "You made a good ride," Carson admitted. "Bly's drawn Highbinder for the bronc riding."

  "Who did I get?" Deke demanded, looking up quickly. Then he grinned wryly. "As if I didn't know!"

  "Shadow," Carson confessed, "you'll be up on Shadow!"

  "Highbinder's the worst horse," Bly said casually. "Whoever heard of Shadow?"

  "I did." Murphy clipped the words. "I've seen him buck. Highbinder won't touch him."

  "As if you knew," sneered Bly, his eyes cold.

  "I do." Deke snapped the words. "I rode him!"

  "What?" Bill Bly put an open hand to Deke's chest and pushed, backing him up. "Why, you little liar! You--"

  Deke's balled fist smashed him in the mouth and the big man staggered. Then Bly straightened, his eyes utterly vicious. "Now you've done the wrong thing!" he said. "I'll beat your head in!"

  Bly rushed, swinging. His right was a long arc that encountered nothing but air. Deke Murphy rose inside of Bly's arms and landed a series ofshort, wicked punches to the stomach and ribs. Bly clinched and hurled Deke back into the corral fence with sheer strength, then charged.

  Again Deke, working coolly, went under the blow, and again he smashed away at Bly's ribs with those strength-sapping short punches. This time he ducked away before Bly could clinch, and when Bly swung a left, Deke caught it on his right forearm, and chopped down with a wicked punch to the big man's chin.

  Bly blinked, he was bleeding from his split lips, and stared confusedly through the sweat and his hanging hair at the much shorter man.

  "You want some more?" Deke asked calmly. "Or have you had enough?"

  Deke looked him over coolly, then turned and walked away. As he drew near to Carol he paused. "Sorry," he said, "I didn't want trouble!"

  Bly shook his head to clear it and stared after him. "Jailbird!" he sneered. "Highbinder was never rode but once! In prison!"

  Deke's face was white and still. He turned, and his voice was low but clear. "That's right," he said, "that was where I rode him!"

  AS HE HEADED for the stable, staring grimly ahead, Deke passed close by two men whom he did not see. Jerry Haskell and Cass Kubela watched him go. "It's him, all right," Cass said. "The Boss was right. It's the kid!"

  "He knows us," Haskell said.

  Kubela's eyes were cold. He took the cigarette from his lips and dropped it into the dust. "Not for long!"

  CARSON STOOD BY, watching Deke bathe his face and hands, smoking quietly. When Deke had dried himself he looked at Carson.


  "Now you know, I was in prison."

  "Knew it all the time. I even knew your stepfather."

  "You what?"

  "Sure. Knew your ma, too. He wasn't a bad man...just didn't stop rustling when it went out of style."

  Tim Carson smoked thoughtfully. "Son, at the trial you said you knew the men who robbed that train, but you wasn't with them. You named Cass Kubela an' Jerry Haskell."

  "Right." Deke waited, curiously.

  "Now I've never seen those hombres. Until that job they always worked east of the mountains. Would you know them again?"

  "I reckon I would."

  "How about their boss? You said at the trial you didn't know him but that he was Jud Kynell. Folks thought you were coverin' up. Were you?"

  "No. Robber's Roost covered miles, an' outlaws used to work back an' forth from the Hole in the Wall to the Roost an' clean down over the old horse-thief trail to the border. We heard about a lot of men we never saw. Jud Kynell was around when I was a kid. He's some ten years older than me, as I figure it."

  "Know anything about him?"

  "That's about all, except that he did this; rodeoin' I mean. That and he wears my brand." Deke explained about what he had overheard, and his belief that the outlaw wore a deep scar on his chest. "There was an awful lot of blood for a scratch," he finished. "I figure it ripped pretty deep."

  "That's an item." Carson was thoughtful. "Son, I got a tip that Kubela was headed this way, ridin' with another man."

  "Haskell, most likely." Deke looked at Carson. "You better watch it. Those two are killers."

  "I know." Carson got up. "Kid, can you sling that gun you're wearin'?"

  Deke smiled. "Some...what have you got in mind?"

  "I'm goin' to swear you in as a deputy. Everybody figures I'm no longer an officer...you see this?"

  The older man held forth a wallet containing a badge and some papers. "Deputy U. S. Marshal. It's my theory those two were comin' here, an' comin' to meet their boss, get that gold an' hightail it out of the country. I trailed those boys to the vicinity of Forlorn Hope Spring in the foothills of the Opal Mountains, an' I'd bet that gold ain't cached more than a few miles from there."