Читать книгу The Hate Trail: A Walt Slade Western - Bradford Scott - Страница 6

WALT SLADE did not join the pursuit. Instead, he sent Shadow worming his way through the growth to the north, on the faint chance that he might overtake Sosna. It was not impossible that the uncanny hellion had figured what he would do and was holed up somewhere waiting for him. To the devil with him! He’d risk it.

In fact, seething with anger, he was in a mood for anything. Once again Sosna had given him the slip when he thought he was all set to drop his loop. The sidewinder wasn’t human!

Of course Sosna always had one advantage. Slade could not shoot him on sight. The stern code of the Rangers held that the quarry must be given the chance to surrender, and Sosna was not restricted by a code of any kind. He would shoot on sight. The devil with him!

Slade rode on, Shadow avoiding as many thorns and low-hanging branches as possible and plainly disgusted with the whole futile performance. After what seemed a long time they reached the final fringe of the brush. And less than a half mile ahead was the lip of the Canadian River Valley.

There was nobody in sight. The prairie lay silent and deserted in the white flood of the moonlight. As disgusted as his mount, Slade turned west and rode until he had skirted the belt of chaparral. Reaching the trail he pulled up, and rolled and lighted a cigarette. In the far distance to the west he could see rising and falling blobs that were doubtless the posse. Hooking one long leg over the saddle horn, he drew in deep drafts of the satisfying smoke and waited. His normally cheerful disposition was regaining the ascendancy. Sosna got away, his luck plus his uncanny ability still held. Oh, well, maybe next time! He watched the sheriff and deputies draw near and waved a reassuring hand.

The posse straggled to where he sat, their horses still breathing heavily.

“Any luck?” called the sheriff. Slade shook his head.

“Hellion got away,” he replied. “Oh, it was Sosna, all right; I recognized him first off. How about you?”

“No luck, either,” growled Carter. “The sidewinders had better cayuses than we did and pulled away in a hurry, edging toward the Valley. When they went over the edge we gave up. I think one was hit—rode like he was. Anyhow, I figure we did for a couple of ’em. Let’s go see.”

When they reached the bend in the trail, the sheriff’s judgment was vindicated. Two dead men lay in the dust, their horses nosing about and trying to graze on the scanty grass fringing the edge of the brush.

“Ornery looking specimens,” Carter growled as he dismounted. “Indian blood, all right. Let’s see what they got on them.”

“First, is anybody badly hurt?” Slade asked.

“Oh, Perley has a slice along his arm and Wayne a hunk of meat knocked outa his gunhand, nothing to bother about,” the sheriff replied. “I tied ’em up and they’ll do till Doc Beard gets a look at them.”

While the sheriff and the deputies were going through the pockets of the dead outlaws, unearthing odds and ends of no significance and quite a bit of money, Slade approached the horses and opened one of the saddle pouches—each rig boasted two. He rummaged about inside, drew out a shirt and a pair of overalls. Then he hit paydirt. His hand came out filled with packets of bills of large denomination and a couple of rolls of gold coin.

The other pouches produced more treasure. “Looks like they divided up before they turned back east,” he observed, passing the money to the sheriff.

“Say!” exclaimed Carter, “we didn’t do so bad. With what they had in their pockets, must be eight or ten thousand dollars here; we’ll count it carefully when we get to the office. Packing in a couple of carcasses and all this dinero ain’t bad at all.”

“But the he-wolf of the pack made it in the clear,” Slade observed morosely.

“He’ll get his, sooner or later, on that I’m willing to lay a hatful of pesos,” the sheriff predicted cheerfully. “Hoist ’em up, boys, and rope ’em to the saddles. Good looking cayuses, too. We’ll turn ’em over to somebody who can use ’em. All set? Let’s go; I’m hungry.”

The cavalcade got under way, the bodies jerking and flopping grotesquely to the motion of the led horses. Everybody was cheerful, the sheriff and the deputies chattering away blithely. Slade had recovered from his moment of depression and joined in the talk from time to time. Might have been worse. At least he had given Sosna something of a jolt, and right now the outlaw leader wasn’t feeling at all too good over the night’s happenings. Slade doubted that he realized, just yet, that El Halcón was again on his trail and was probably puzzling his head as to how he had been outsmarted.

Not that he would pay much mind to the loss of two of his followers—he could get more—and very likely he had tied onto the biggest share of the bank loot. But being outsmarted was something else again. Outsmarted and lured into a trap. That wouldn’t set at all well with Veck Sosna.

Well, as Slade had learned through experience, if he got mad enough he was also prone to get a bit reckless, which Slade considered was to his advantage, especially if Sosna had not yet learned he was in the section. He rode on in a complacent frame of mind.

Although it was past midnight when the posse arrived in Amarillo with the fruits of victory, there were still plenty of people on the streets. People who stared in astonishment at the grim procession and converged on the sheriff’s office.

Soon the deputies were circulating through the crowd, explaining, answering questions. Admiring glances were cast at Slade. The sheriff was complimented and congratulated on the success of the venture.

The bodies were laid out on the floor and covered with blankets. Several citizens and a couple of bartenders were convinced they had seen the unsavory pair in town quite recently.

With the recovered money safely in the office safe and the wounded men packed off to the doctor, Sheriff Carter shooed out the crowd and locked the door. After which he and Slade and the uninjured deputy, sardonic Bill Harley, adjourned to the Trail End and something to eat.

In the saloon they received more congratulations and the details of the episode had to be repeated. Slade let Carter and the deputy do the talking, and found Harley’s dry humor refreshing.

After finishing his meal he smoked a cigarette and announced, “I’m going to bed. See you in the morning, Sheriff. Suppose there’ll be an inquest?”

“Oh, I reckon Doc Beard will want to set on ’em,” Carter replied.

“He’s county coroner and figures he should do something to earn his pay. I’ve a notion he’ll be a busy man from now on, and so will the undertaker, if you run true to form. Take care of yourself, son, be seeing you.”

As was his habit, Slade approached the livery stable warily. Everything was peaceful, however, and after cleaning and oiling his guns he went to bed and slept soundly until midmorning.

After a sluice in the trough and a shave, he repaired to the Trail End for some breakfast. Next he dropped in at the sheriff’s office and learned that the inquest wouldn’t be held until two o’clock. With time on his hands, he decided to look the town over a bit.

In the three years since Slade had visited Amarillo, the new Cowboy Capital had grown more than a little. It was indeed a far cry from the original railroad construction camp that was its inception. In the beginning it was a collection of buffalo-hide huts that served as a supply depot and shipping point for the hunters, then sweeping the last of the great buffalo herds from the prairies. It boasted a hotel, the walls, partitions and roof made of buffalo hides. When dry, the hides became to a degree transparent; so there were not many secrets in Ragtown, as the settlement was called.

The passing of the buffaloes did not much affect the little community sprawled beside the railroad tracks. Some gentlemen of thrift and vision realized the commerical value of the buffalo bones bleaching on the prairies, and bone gathering became a thriving industry, to the emolument of Ragtown, for many thousands of tons of bones were shipped for fertilizer within the next few years.

Then along came the great cattle ranches and Ragtown sat up and took notice. Also taking notice was another gentleman of vision, a land developer named Henry B. Sanborn. Mr. Sanborn, looking to the future, was confident that here was the natural site for a town that one day would become the metropolis of the prairie empire known as the Texas Panhandle. In which Mr. Sanborn was right.

So Mr. Sanborn laid out a town site southeast of Ragtown, at a point where the railroad tracks curved around a natural body of water called Amarillo Lake. He called his town Oneida. There had been a protracted dry spell which greatly reduced the water area. Mr. Sanborn made a mistake when he began erecting his buildings, railroad station and stockyards. Everything was going nicely when along came the rains, and they kept coming. Before long the incensed Mr. Sanborn saw his buildings, railroad station and stockyards standing in four feet of water.

Mr. Sanborn was a man who put up with no nonsense. He went away from there, taking his buildings and stockyards with him to higher ground, their present location, where they would be safe from the clutches of pestiferous Amarillo Lake. He left the name “Oneida” behind and changed the name of his town to Amarillo, perhaps as a taunt to the now frustrated lake. Very quickly, Amarillo swallowed up Ragtown and suffered pangs of indigestion thereby.

Mr. Sanborn, amongst many other merits, had that of being an adroit politician. He wanted the county seat of Potter County for his town and proceeded to get it. As it happened, the cowhands of the great XL Ranch constituted the majority of the legal voting strength. Mr. Sanborn offered the cowboys a town lot each if they would vote for his town for county seat.

The cowboys, proud to become land owners, did so, and victory for Mr. Sanborn was easy. Some of the waddies who were the recipients of the real estate were smart enough to hold onto their lots, to lease but never sell. As a reward for their perspicacity, they in later years became wealthy.

So when Walt Slade strolled along Filmore Street that sunny morning, Amarillo was on its way, but with still some distance to go. Cattle had supplanted the buffalo as the horned kings of the prairie, and the great ranchowners were the “feudal lords” of the Panhandle.

Not that their sovereignty was unchallenged. Already the plow was moving westward, bringing with it that abomination of the oldtimers—barbed wire. Both were and would be productive of trouble.

Yes, Amarillo was on its way, but was still as wild a frontier town as one could hope to find. Lines of cow ponies stood tied to the hitch racks of the main streets, and their riders crowded the hotels, saloons, gambling houses, dance halls and restaurants. Teamsters, railroad workers, and gentlemen of doubtful antecedents did their gentle best to keep things lively, and succeeded. Food consisted largely of canned goods, beef, and wild game. A pile of empty and rusting tin cans marked the rear of every eating place as conspicuously as the sign in front. The “sovereign seal” of the Panhandle might well have been crossed skillets with grease dripping.

At the moment, however, Walt Slade was more concerned with Amarillo’s present than Amarillo’s possible future. He knew that the town was the lodestone for the lawless elements of the section, their favorite spot when in search of diversion. Here they came to drink and carouse, and when the redeye began getting in its licks there was always the chance of somebody doing some loose talking.

Such a character as Veck Sosna could hardly operate in the section without attracting the attention of the local chapter of the share-the-wealth brotherhood. He was very likely a prime topic of discussion at owlhoot conversaziones. So Slade hoped that he might catch a word here or there that would provide a lead which would give him a line on his elusive quarry.

With which in mind he dropped into several of the less reputable saloons, toyed with a drink and listened to all that was said within earshot. But as two o’clock drew near he had not so far heard anything he considered of significance. Finally he gave up for the time being and headed for the sheriff’s office with the inquest in mind.