“All right,” he said. “I’m sorry I misjedged you, Breckinridge. Just to show you I trusts you, I’ll show you whar I hid it.”
He led me through the trees till he come to a big rock jutting out from the side of a cliff, and pointed at a smaller stone wedged beneath it.
“I pulled out that rock,” he said, “and dug a hole and stuck the poke in. Look!”
He heaved the rock out and bent down. And then he went straight up in the air with a yell that made me jump and pull my gun with cold sweat busting out all over me.
“What’s the matter with you?” I demanded. “Are you snake-bit?”
“Yeah, by human snakes!” he hollered. “It’s gone! I been robbed!”
I looked and seen the impressions the wrinkles in the buckskin poke had made in the soft earth. But there wasn’t nothing there now.
Uncle Jeppard was doing a scalp dance with a gun in one hand and a bowie knife in the other’n. “I’ll fringe my leggins with their mangy sculps!” he raved. “I’ll pickle their hearts in a barr’l of brine! I’ll feed their livers to my houn’ dawgs!”
“Whose livers?” I inquired.
“Whose, you idjit?” he howled. “Joel Gordon and Erath Elkins, dern it! They didn’t run off. They snuck back and seen me move the gold! I’ve kilt better men than them for half as much!”
“Aw,” I said, “t’ain’t possible they stole yore gold—”
“Then where is it?” he demanded bitterly. “Who else knowed about it?”
“Look here!” I said, pointing to a belt of soft loam near the rocks. “A horse’s tracks.”
“What of it?” he demanded. “Maybe they had horses tied in the bresh.”
“Aw, no,” I said. “Look how the Calkins is set. They ain’t no horses on Bear Creek shod like that. These is the tracks of a stranger — I bet the feller I seen ride past my cabin just about daybreak. A black-whiskered man with one ear missin’. That hard ground by the big rock don’t show where he got off and stomped around, but the man which rode this horse stole yore gold, I’ll bet my guns.”
“I ain’t convinced,” said Uncle Jeppard. “I’m goin’ home and ile my rifle- gun, and then I’m goin’ to go over and kill Joel and Erath.”
“Now you lissen,” I said forcibly. “I know what a stubborn old jassack you are, Uncle Jeppard, but this time you got to lissen to reason or I’ll forget myself and kick the seat outa yore britches. I’m goin’ to follow this feller and take yore gold away from him, because I know it was him stole it. And don’t you dare to kill nobody till I git back.”
“I’ll give you till tomorrer mornin’,” he compromised. “I won’t pull a trigger till then. But,” said Uncle Jeppard waxing poetical, “if my gold ain’t in my hands by the time the mornin’ sun h’ists itself over the shinin’ peaks of the Jackass Mountains, the buzzards will rassle their hash on the carcasses of Joel Gordon and Erath Elkins.”
I went away from there, mounted Cap’n Kidd and headed west on the trail of the stranger. It was still tolerably early in the morning, and one of them long summer days ahead of me. They wasn’t a horse in the Humbolts to equal Cap’n Kidd for endurance. I’ve rode a hundred miles on him between sun-down and sun-up. But that horse the stranger was riding must have been some chunk of horse-meat hisself. The day wore on, and still I hadn’t come up with my man. I was getting into country I wasn’t familiar with, but I didn’t have much trouble in following the trail, and finally, late in the evening, I come out on a narrow dusty path where the calk-marks of his hoofs was very plain.
The sun sunk lower and my hopes dwindled. Cap’n Kidd was beginning to tire, and even if I got the thief and got the gold, it’d be a awful push to get back to Bear Creek in time to prevent mayhem. But I urged on Cap’n Kidd, and presently we come out onto a road, and the tracks I was following merged with a lot of others. I went on, expecting to come to some settlement, and wondering just where I was. I’d never been that far in that direction before then.
Just at sun-down I rounded a bend in the road and seen something hanging to a tree, and it was a man. There was another man in the act of pinning something to the corpse’s shirt, and when he heard me he wheeled and jerked his gun — the man, I mean, not the corpse. He was a mean looking cuss, but he wasn’t Black Whiskers. Seeing I made no hostile move, he put up his gun and grinned.
“That feller’s still kickin’,” I said.
“We just strung him up,” said the fellow. “The other boys has rode back to town, but I stayed to put this warnin’ on his buzzum. Can you read?”
“No,” I said.
“Well,” he said, “this here paper says: ‘Warnin’ to all outlaws and specially them on Grizzly Mountain — Keep away from Wampum.’”
“How far’s Wampum from here?” I asked.
“Half a mile down the road,” he said. “I’m Al Jackson, one of Bill Ormond’s deputies. We aim to clean up Wampum. This is one of them derned outlaws which has denned up on Grizzly Mountain.”
Before I could say anything I heard somebody breathing quick and gaspy, and they was a patter of bare feet in the bresh, and a kid girl about fourteen years old bust into the road.
“You’ve killed Uncle Joab!” she shrieked. “You murderers! A boy told me they was fixin’ to hang him! I run as fast as I could—”
“Git away from that corpse!” roared Jackson, hitting at her with his quirt.
“You stop that!” I ordered. “Don’t you hit that young ‘un.”
“Oh, please, Mister!” she wept, wringing her hands. “You ain’t one of Ormond’s men. Please help me! He ain’t dead — I seen him move!”
Waiting for no more I spurred alongside the body and drawed my knife.
“Don’t you cut that rope!” squawk the deputy, jerking his gun. So I hit him under the jaw and knocked him out of his saddle and into the bresh beside the road where he lay groaning. I then cut the rope and eased the hanged man down on my saddle and got the noose offa his neck. He was purple in the face and his eyes was closed and his tongue lolled out, but he still had some life in him. Evidently they didn’t drop him, but just hauled him up to strangle to death.
I laid him on the ground and work over him till some of his life begun to come back to him, but I knowed he ought to have medical attention. I said: “Where’s the nearest doctor?”
“Doc Richards in Wampum,” whimpered the kid. “But if we take him there Ormond will get him again. Won’t you please take him home?”
“Where you-all live?” I inquired.
“We been livin’ in a cabin on Grizzly Mountain since Ormond run us out of Wampum,” she whimpered.
“Well,” I said, “I’m goin’ to put yore uncle on Cap’n Kidd and you can set behind the saddle and help hold him on, and tell me which way to go.”
So I done so and started off on foot leading Cap’n Kidd in the direction the girl showed me, and as we went I seen the deputy Jackson drag hisself out of the bresh and go limping down the road holding his jaw.
I was losing a awful lot of time, but I couldn’t leave this feller to die, even if he was a outlaw, because probably the little gal didn’t have nobody to take care of her but him. Anyway, I’d never make it back to Bear Creek by daylight on Cap’n Kidd, even if I could have started right then.
It was well after dark when we come up a narrow trail that wound up a thickly timbered mountain side, and purty soon somebody in a thicket ahead of us hollered: “Halt whar you be or I’ll shoot!”
“Don’t shoot, Jim!” called the girl. “This is Ellen, and we’re bringin’ Uncle Joab home.”
A tall hard-looking young feller stepped out in the open, still p’inting his Winchester at me. He cussed when he seen our load.
“He ain’t dead,” I said. “But we ought to git him to his cabin.”
So Jim led me through the thickets until we come into a clearing where they was a cabin, and a woman come running out and screamed like a catamount when she seen Joab. Me and Jim lifted him off and carried
him in and laid him on a bunk, and the women begun to work over him, and I went out to my horse, because I was in a hurry to get gone. Jim follered me.
“This is the kind of stuff we’ve been havin’ ever since Ormond come to Wampum,” he said bitterly. “We been livin’ up here like rats, afeard to stir in the open. I warned Joab against slippin’ down into the village today, but he was sot on it, and wouldn’t let any of the boys go with him. Said he’d sneak in, git what he wanted and sneak out again.”
“Well,” I said, “what’s yore business is none of mine. But this here life is hard lines on women and children.”
“You must be a friend of Joab’s,” she said. “He sent a man east some days ago, but we was afraid one of Ormond’s men trailed him and killed him. But maybe he got through. Are you the man Joab sent for?”
“Meanin’ am I some gunman come in to clean up the town?” I snorted. “Naw, I ain’t. I never seen this feller Joab before.”
“Well,” said Jim, “cuttin’ down Joab like you done has already got you in bad with Ormond. Help us run them fellers out of the country! There’s still a good many of us in these hills, even if we have been run out of Wampum. This hangin’ is the last straw. I’ll round up the boys tonight, and we’ll have a show-down with Ormond’s men. We’re outnumbered, and we been licked bad once, but we’ll try it again. Won’t you throw in with us?”
“Lissen,” I said, climbing into the saddle, “just because I cut down a outlaw ain’t no sign I’m ready to be one myself. I done it just because I couldn’t stand to see the little gal take on so. Anyway, I’m lookin’ for a feller with black whiskers and one ear missin’ which rides a roan with a big Lazy-A brand.”
Jim fell back from me and lifted his rifle. “You better ride on,” he said somberly. “I’m obleeged to you for what you’ve did — but a friend of Wolf Ashley cain’t be no friend of our’n.”
I give him a snort of defiance and rode off down the mountain and headed for Wampum, because it was reasonable to suppose that maybe I’d find Black Whiskers there.
Wampum wasn’t much of a town, but they was one big saloon and gambling hall where sounds of hilarity was coming from, and not many people on the streets and them which was mostly went in a hurry. I stopped one of them and ast him where a doctor lived, and he pointed out a house where he said Doc Richards lived, so I rode up to the door and knocked, and somebody inside said: “What you want? I got you covered.”
“Are you Doc Richards?” I said, and he said: “Yes, keep your hands away from your belt or I’ll fix you.”
“This is a nice, friendly town!” I snorted. “I ain’t figgerin’ on harmin’ you. They’s a man up in the hills which needs yore attention.”
At that the door opened and a man with red whiskers and a shotgun stuck his head out and said: “Who do you mean?”
“They call him Joab,” I said. “He’s on Grizzly Mountain.”
“Hmmmm!” said Doc Richards, looking at me very sharp where I sot Cap’n Kidd in the starlight. “I set a man’s jaw tonight, and he had a lot to say about a certain party who cut down a man that was hanged. If you’re that party, my advice to you is to hit the trail before Ormond catches you.”
“I’m hungry and thirsty and I’m lookin’ for a man,” I said. “I aim to leave Wampum when I’m good and ready.”
“I never argue with a man as big as you,” said Doc Richards. “I’ll ride to Grizzly Mountain as quick as I can get my horse saddled. If I never see you alive again, which is very probable, I’ll always remember you as the biggest man I ever saw, and the biggest fool. Good night!”
I thought, the folks in Wampum is the queerest acting I ever seen. I took my horse to the barn which served as a livery stable and seen that he was properly fixed. Then I went into the big saloon which was called the Golden Eagle. I was low in my spirits because I seemed to have lost Black Whiskers’ trail entirely, and even if I found him in Wampum, which I hoped, I never could make it back to Bear Creek by sun-up. But I hoped to recover that derned gold yet, and get back in time to save a few lives.
They was a lot of tough looking fellers in the Golden Eagle drinking and gambling and talking loud and cussing, and they all stopped their noise as I come in, and looked at me very fishy. But I give ’em no heed and went to the bar, and purty soon they kinda forgot about me and the racket started up again.
Whilst I was drinking me a few fingers of whisky, somebody shouldered up to me and said: “Hey!” I turned around and seen a big, broad-built man with a black beard and blood-shot eyes and a pot-belly with two guns on.
I said: “Well?”
“Who air you?” he demanded.
“Who air you?” I come back at him.
“I’m Bill Ormond, sheriff of Wampum,” he said. “That’s who!” And he showed me a star on his shirt.
“Oh,” I said. “Well, I’m Breckinridge Elkins, from Bear Creek.”
I noticed a kind of quiet come over the place, and fellows was laying down their glasses and their billiard sticks, and hitching up their belts and kinda gathering around me. Ormond scowled and combed his beard with his fingers, and rocked on his heels and said: “I got to ‘rest you!”
I sot down my glass quick and he jumped back and hollered: “Don’t you dast pull no gun on the law!” And they was a kind of movement amongst the men around me.
“What you arrestin’ me for?” I demanded. “I ain’t busted no law.”
“You assaulted one of my deputies,” he said, and then I seen that feller Jackson standing behind the sheriff, with his jaw all bandaged up. He couldn’t work his chin to talk. All he could do was p’int his finger at me and shake his fists.
“You likewise cut down a outlaw we had just hunged,” said Ormond. “Yore under arrest!”
“But I’m lookin’ for a man!” I protested. “I ain’t got time to be arrested!”
“You should of thunk about that when you busted the law,” opined Ormond. “Gimme yore gun and come along peaceable.”
A dozen men had their hands on their guns, but it wasn’t that which made me give in. Pap had always taught me never to resist no officer of the law, so it was kind of instinctive for me to hand my gun over to Ormond and go along with him without no fight. I was kind of bewildered and my thoughts was addled anyway. I ain’t one of these fast thinking sharps.
Ormond escorted me down the street a ways, with a whole bunch of men following us, and stopped at a log building with barred windows which was next to a board shack. A man come out of this shack with a big bunch of keys, and Ormond said he was the jailer. So they put me in the log jail and Ormond went off with everybody but the jailer, who sat down on the step outside the shack and rolled a cigaret.
There wasn’t no light in the jail, but I found the bunk and tried to lay down on it, but it wasn’t built for a man six and a half foot tall. I sot down on it and at last realized what a infernal mess I was in. Here I ought to be hunting Black Whiskers and getting the gold to take back to Bear Creek and save the lives of a lot of my kin-folks, but instead I was in jail, and no way of getting out without killing a officer of the law. With daybreak Joel and Erath would be at each other’s throats, and Uncle Jeppard would be gunning for both of ‘em. It was too much to hope that the other relatives would let them three fight it out amongst theirselves. I never seen such a clan for butting into each other’s business. The guns would be talking all up and down Bear Creek, and the population would be decreasing with every volley. I thought about it till I got dizzy, and then the jailer stuck his head up to the window and said if I would give him five dollars he’d go get me something to eat.
I give it to him, and he went off and was gone quite a spell, and at last he come back and give me a ham sandwich. I ast him was that all he could get for five dollars, and he said grub was awful high in Wampum. I et the sandwich in one bite, because I hadn’t et nothing since morning, and then he said if I’d give him some more money he’d get me another sandwich. But I didn’t have no more and to
ld him so.
“What!” he said, breathing licker fumes in my face through the window bars. “No money? And you expect us to feed you for nothin’?” So he cussed me, and went off. Purty soon the sheriff come and looked in at me and said: “What’s this I hear about you not havin’ no money?”
“I ain’t got none left,” I said, and he cussed something fierce.
“How you expect to pay yore fine?” he demanded. “You think you can lay up in our jail and eat us out of house and home? What kind of a critter are you, anyway?” Just then the jailer chipped in and said somebody told him I had a horse down at the livery stable.
“Good,” said the sheriff. “We’ll sell the horse for his fine.”
“No, you won’t neither,” I said, beginning to get mad. “You try to sell Cap’n Kidd, and I’ll forgit what pap told me about officers, and take you plumb apart.”
I riz up and glared at him through the window, and he fell back and put his hand on his gun. But just about that time I seen a man going into the Golden Eagle which was in easy sight of the jail, and lit up so the light streamed out into the street. I give a yell that made Ormond jump about a foot. It was Black Whiskers!
“Arrest that man, Sheriff!” I hollered. “He’s a thief!”
Ormond whirled and looked, and then he said: “Are you plumb crazy? That’s Wolf Ashley, my deperty.”
“I don’t give a dern,” I said. “He stole a poke of gold from my Uncle Jeppard up in the Humbolts, and I’ve trailed him clean from Bear Creek. Do yore duty and arrest him.”
“You shut up!” roared Ormond. “You can’t tell me my business! I ain’t goin’ to arrest my best gunman — my star deperty, I mean. What you mean tryin’ to start trouble this way? One more yap outa you and I’ll throw a chunk of lead through you.”
And he turned and stalked off muttering: “Poke of gold, huh? Holdin’ out on me is he? I’ll see about that!”
I sot down and held my head in bewilderment. What kind of a sheriff was this which wouldn’t arrest a derned thief? My thoughts run in circles till my wits was addled. The jailer had gone off and I wondered if he had went to sell Cap’n Kidd. I wondered what was going on back at Bear Creek, and I shivered to think what would bust loose at daybreak. And here I was in jail, with them fellers fixing to sell my horse whilst that derned thief swaggered around at large. I looked helplessly out the window.
Delphi Works of Robert E. Howard (Illustrated) (Series Four) Page 211