Читать книгу Six-Gun Gorilla - Anonymous - Страница 6

Table of Contents

The Strawhan gang had been mounted on horses. They had ridden away at full speed from Bart Masters' shack, the gold stowed in their saddlebags, and they had made top speed over the ranges.

O'Neil had to rely on his own efforts to get him along, but he travelled much faster than a man could have done on foot. Here and there he took shortcuts up the mountainside.

To see him coming up the trail, balancing himself ponderously on his hind legs, the gun swinging on his hip, the bandolier tight around his chest and shoulder, would have been a terrifying shock to anyone. But there was no one to see. Few men travelled in those parts. The district had a bad name, for it was not very far from Muddy Creek where there was a saloon and a handful of shacks.

At Muddy Creek the bad men of the district met to swap stories, play poker, and discuss their forthcoming jobs. Decent citizens gave the place a wide berth.

The Strawhan gang had gone there, and they had a long start on the gorilla, but that did not worry O'Neil.

Over the range and down the other side scrambled the Six-Gun Gorilla.

At the foot of the further slope there was a river, swift and dangerous. In one place boulders had been rolled in to form a ford, but O'Neil did not understand fords. He hated getting his feet wet.

On both sides of the river grew trees with outstretched branches, and the gorilla reached into one of these. Almost without effort, it hauled itself on to a high, springy branch, and climbed out over the water's edge.

Its tremendous weight, over six hundred pounds, made the branch bend. O'Neil did not mind. Gripping with his feet as well as with his hands, he teetered up and down until he was whipping through the air like something on the end of a spring.

Timing it perfectly, he released his hold at the right moment, and hurled himself across the river. The springiness of the branch gave added length to his leap. His outstretched hands caught a branch on the other side, and although the branch broke under his suddenly applied weight, he had accomplished what he wished to do. He had crossed the river.

On he went, and presently, on the right, he saw a lone log building. It was a settler's cabin, and smoke was curling from it. O'Neil headed that way to investigate.

The sound of wood being chopped guided him round the corner of a shed. A man who had his back towards O'Neil was splitting logs with a heavy axe. O'Neil remembered that he knew how to do that. His master had shown him how to perform this useful service, but had given it up when he had discovered that the gorilla could just as well split the logs apart with his fingers.

"Ugh!" grunted the interested gorilla, and the man at the logs turned suddenly.

Just for a moment he found himself staring at the hideous face of O'Neil. The gorilla's eyes were on him: its lips were apart. The settler had never seen anything more horrible.

He had just time to take in the details of the belt, and the gun, in its holster. Sheer stupefaction held him rigid.

Then the apparition waddled towards him. O'Neil could smell this was not one of the men whom he sought. He wanted to make friends, to shake this man's hand as Bart Masters had taught him to do.

But this was too much for the lone settler. He paused just long enough to hurl the axe at the gorilla, then turned and fled for his shack, where he barricaded himself in and grabbed his gun.

Luckily for the Six-Gun Gorilla, the axe missed him, but a few moments later a shotgun banged from the window of the shack. Some buckshot stung him.

It did not hurt more than a horsefly would have done, but it angered and annoyed O'Neil.

He forgot all about the gun at his hip. He grabbed the first thing which came handy. It was half a tree, which the settler had been intending to saw up. It weighed several hundredweights, but thrown by O'Neil's powerful arms it flew through the air with such force that it crashed straight through the roof, into the cabin!

The settler fired no more. Grumbling to himself, the Six-Gun Gorilla returned to the trail. He could not understand the behavior of these creatures who resembled his master in appearance.

Now he was getting nearer to Muddy Creek. A clatter of hoofs made him draw to one side. A mounted man came galloping round the bend. He was a dark, fierce looking ruffian, and was heading in the same direction as O'Neil.

At the sight of the gorilla, standing upright beside the trail, the horse suddenly reared, and bolted. The man was thrown into some bushes, and when he scrambled out, the horse was out of sight.

O'Neil was staring in bewilderment. He could not understand what all the fuss was about. The enraged man snarled under his breath.

"Durn you," he growled. "Where did you come from? There's no such things as gorillas in America."

With that he snatched out his gun, and started to open fire, believing that the gorilla would bolt. There was a surprise in store for him. The gorilla thought that this was a challenge to a shooting match. He lugged out his six shooter, pointed it in the general direction of the man, and pulled the trigger three times.

The man dropped his gun in surprise, felt a bullet whistle close to his ear, and fled.

Shaking his hideous head dolefully at the strange behavior of men, the Six-Gun Gorilla ambled on his way, dropping from time to time on all fours and sniffing the ground.

His scent was remarkably keen. He knew that the men he sought had passed this way.

His head still ached a little from the bullet groove on his skull, but it was not enough to make him slacken his speed. It was only dusk, and the sun had no more than dipped behind the mountains, when O'Neil came in sight of Muddy Creek.

He stopped on the hillside, balancing himself with one hand high in a tree. Monstrous he seemed in the fading light, and the gun swinging at his hip seemed more fanciful than ever.

The breeze was coming his way, and his nostrils twitched as he made out the various smells. Tobacco and cooking! O'Neil remembered that he was hungry, but there was something else he had to do before he satisfied his appetite. Among those varied smells he could scent the men he sought.

Snarling, grimacing, he went down the hill on all fours. No one saw him coming. Some horses were tethered outside the door of the saloon, but there were no men in sight. It was the hour when they began to collect at the saloon for the serious business of drinking and card playing.

O'Neil checked himself as he neared the saloon. He rose on his hind legs and stalked forward with something resembling dignity.

The gun still swung against his leg, and to check the bumping he put one hand on it.

The sound of voices made him twitch his ears. There were quite a number of men in the building already. He made for the door, but it was closed. He changed his mind, and headed for the nearest window.

It was high from the ground, but not too high for O'Neil. Rearing himself to his full height, resting one hand on the edge of the wooden tiled roof above, he pressed his face to the dirty glass panes which obstructed his view.

The window was very dirty. Grime and smoke had crusted it thickly. Everything O'Neil saw in there was misty and distorted. He blinked his eyes as though blaming them for this.

There were some men lined up at the counter with glasses in their hands. Others were sitting at one or two of the tables, playing cards. Money was clinking. Voices were raised in argument.

At one end of the counter a man with a drooping red moustache was pouring some gold dust from a narrow sack into a piece of paper which the saloonkeeper was holding for him.

It was Tutt Strawhan, and he was paying for some stores which he had just purchased. Beside him was Pete Stark, with a filled sack of goods. The other two members of the gang were waiting outside the settlement with the horses and the rest of the gold. The scoundrels had decided to push on even further before stopping any considerable time. Only because they had had to buy stores had they come to Muddy Creek.

The Six-Gun Gorilla sniffed. He was trying to scent which of these men were the ones he wanted, but the closed window prevented this. Then, all at once, he sighted Strawhan.

The shaft of moonlight in the cabin at the Dragonfly Mine had revealed this man's face to the gorilla just before it had been stricken down by the bullets. At sight of that face with the drooping red moustache the great beast stiffened.

Its mouth opened as if it were about to roar, but no sound came. Its hand was still clutching the butt of the gun in its holster to steady the weapon. Almost without knowing what he did, O'Neil had drawn the six shooter.

Great staring eyes were pressed close to the window. Parted lips revealed wicked fangs. If the opening had been bigger the gorilla would have leapt through and settled the matter with its bare hands, but the window was too small.

O'Neil raised the gun, pointed it through the window towards the further end of the counter, and clutched the trigger so fiercely that the gun jerked upwards as he fired.

The shot, the shattering of the window, and the breaking of a bottle behind the bar, all happened quickly. Twenty men whirled as one to see what was happening. Many of them dropped their hands to their guns.

But no gun was drawn. What those men in the saloon at Muddy Creek saw was sufficient to paralyze their arms. They just stared spellbound.

With the smoking gun still in his immense paw, O'Neil had stuck his head through the broken window to glare at the result of his shot. Nothing more horrible than his face could have been imagined.

It was Tutt Strawhan who found his voice first. It rose in a shriek—

"It can't be true! It can't be true! It's Bart Masters' gorilla. See the chain still hanging from its neck. But it can't be the same gorilla—for it's dead!"