Читать книгу White Wolf's Law - Dunning Hal - Страница 1

Death had struck twice on that September afternoon, and two riders returning to Cannondale had marked the glow from a fire against the early evening sky.

At first they had mistaken it for a brush fire and had swung their horses off the trail and headed toward it as rapidly as the going would permit. The brush was as dry as tinder, and a fire, unless checked, spelled ruin both to townfolk and plainsmen.

The two riders slid their horses down the shelving bank of a wide arroyo. After their horses had scrambled up the farther side, it was “Toothpick” Jarrick who first realized the truth.

“Hey, ‘Dutchy,’ it’s a house on fire!” he cried.

“Sure is!” Dutchy grunted and checked his horse to a trot.

“Get goin’!” Toothpick cried impatiently.

“Not any,” Dutchy said shortly. “Lava Gang.”

“Yuh sure talk as if words hurt yuh,” Toothpick grumbled.

His companion’s taciturnity was always a source of irritation to the tall, lanky cow-puncher, and he lapsed into a sulky silence for a time, chewing the ever-present toothpick in his mouth, from which he derived his name.

“Yuh mean maybe the gents they calls the Lava Gang is makin’ another raid, and they may be still hangin’ about?” Toothpick asked.

“Yep.”

“Why don’t yuh open yuhr mouth and let the words come out, instead of choking yuhrself on ’em, and makin’ me explain to myself what yuh aim to say?” Toothpick asked scornfully.

Dutchy grunted, drew his rifle out of the boot beneath his saddle flap and balanced it across the pommel.

“If we’re goin’ to war, I’m sure plenty glad to have yuh along,” Toothpick grumbled as he followed the example of his companion; “but yuh sure ain’t no gent to relieve the tedium of existence with light chatter.”

Accustomed as they were to the grim tragedies of the border, they were totally unprepared to find what they did close to the burning house. There was nothing left save smoldering rafters and bare adobe walls. Toothpick swung from his horse and quickly extinguished some brush that had been fired by a spark. Then he gave an exclamation and cried sharply:

“Hey, Dutchy, come here!”

Dutchy was a grizzled two-gun fighter who, rumor said, had once ridden “the long trail.” He had lived close to the border all his life, yet he winced when he saw what the white-faced Toothpick pointed out to him.

A scant five yards from the doorway of the house, the body of a man lay half concealed in the brush. It was mutilated and scalped.

“Apache?” Toothpick queried as he slid a nervous hand to the hammer of his rifle and cast apprehensive glances into the darkness.

“Maybe so,” Dutchy said shortly. “Let’s see if we can find any others.”

After a short search they discovered the body of a woman near a small shed. Powder marks on the back of her head told the story. She had been murdered deliberately – shot at close range.

“Skunks – downed a woman!” Toothpick swore.

“Cussin’ never hurt no one,” Dutchy growled. He wandered to the rear of the ruined house and a little later called: “Here’s a gent what’s got breath in him.”

Toothpick hastened to the side of Dutchy and found him kneeling beside a middle-aged man who was unconscious. The two cow-punchers dressed his wound. After a time the man’s eyelids fluttered open and he stared at them with frightened eyes.

“We’re friends, old-timer,” Toothpick told him. The man sighed with relief.

“Set fire to house to bring help,” the man whispered.

“Well, it come,” Toothpick soothed as he forced a little water between the man’s parched lips. “Who done this?”

The man’s eyes flashed and he raised himself on his elbow.

“Le fils du Diable à Cheval – oui– I knew him – ”

The man sank back and grew silent. Toothpick gave him more water. “Who’s the gent yuh knew?” he asked.

“Le Diable à Cheval.” The man’s voice was nothing but a faint whisper. He sighed and closed his eyes.

“Dable Chaval – huh, that’s a hell of a name,” Toothpick grumbled. “Reckon we’ll have to wait until he comes to again. Will he live?”

“Certain – then he’ll talk.” Dutchy was positive.

“When he does I’m aimin’ to start gunnin’ for the gent what murdered that woman,” Toothpick cried savagely.

“Me, too,” Dutchy said quietly.

They covered the wounded man with a blanket and once more continued their search of the surrounding bushes. Fifteen minutes later, just as they had decided there was nothing more to be found, a voice hailed them from the darkness.

“Hey, Dutchy, what’s goin’ on here?” the voice asked.

At the sound of the summons, both Toothpick and Dutchy instinctively leaped for cover. Recognition of the voice brought them to an abrupt halt.

“Huh, it’s the sheriff,” Toothpick said with a shamefaced grin.

Dutchy nodded and lowered the hammer of his rifle.

Three riders materialized from the darkness and entered the circle of light cast by the smoldering ruins. Tom Powers, the sheriff, came first. He was followed by his deputy, “Silent” Moore, and Sam Hogg, a wiry little man of fifty.

Tom Powers was a slender man of thirty. His face was gaunt, bony, and burned a brick red by the sun. At first his face looked hard, but his deep-set blue eyes told the character of the man. There was no hardness there, only force. He cast one quick glance at Dutchy’s grim face and sensed the tragedy.

“Where’s the Courfays?” he asked.

“Scattered about.” Dutchy waved his hand.

Sam Hogg was good-natured and was forever cracking jokes. He now joined in.

“You two boys sure scattered yourselves when you heard us shout,” he said, chuckling. “You acted skittish, like a pair of heifers just out of school.”

A second later his mirth came to an abrupt end when he saw the sheriff, who had dismounted, kneel beside the body of the mutilated man. He swore excitedly and joined the sheriff.

Toothpick briefly told what he knew of the tragedy. He led them first to the body of the woman, then to where the unconscious man lay. The man was muttering in delirium. The sheriff kneeled beside him and listened, but after a moment he arose to his feet and shook his head.

“Can’t catch a word. I know him, though – he was a brother of the woman over there and came from across the border to visit last week,” the sheriff explained.

“He was talkin’ when we – ” Toothpick began, but Dutchy brought his words to an abrupt halt by kicking him in the shins.

“Somebody comin’!” Dutchy warned in a low voice.

They listened and heard the noisy hoofs of a pair of horses and the crunching of wheels. A minute later two men in a buckboard drove up. The sheriff and Sam Hogg walked forward to greet them. Dutchy drew Toothpick aside.

“Some day yuh’ll dig yuhr grave with yuhr tongue,” he growled. “Don’t tell no one that that gent talked to us private.”

“But he didn’t say nothin’ I could understand,” Toothpick protested.

“Maybe the Lava Gang wouldn’t believe yuh,” Dutchy said grimly.

Judge Ransom, one of the two men in the buckboard, climbed out and listened gravely to what the sheriff had to say. He was a man of fifty-five, with the face of a scholar.

“Who’s that jasper?” Dutchy demanded as he nodded toward the buckboard.

“With the judge?”

“Yeh.”

“Gent named Bill Anderson. He’s the new political boss around here,” Toothpick explained.

The man was in his forties, of medium height, and stockily built. He had a round, apple-cheeked face and a jovial manner – one of those men whom others like on sight and hail as a boon companion. Yet a close observer might have detected something about the eyes that seemed to contradict the first impression.

“He rides around with the judge a hull lot,” Toothpick explained further. “Why for did yuh ask?”

“Knew a gent what looks like him once,” Dutchy muttered, with his eyes still watching Anderson, “twenty years ago.”

“Then it can’t be him.”

“Might have been his father,” Dutchy grunted.

They walked toward the others and arrived in time to hear the judge ask them:

“Who do you suppose did this?”

There was a moment of silence which was broken by Bill Anderson.

“I was over in Arizona last week, and the papers were talking about some renegade Apache who were raiding along the border. Maybe they have worked up this way,” he suggested.

“Maybe so,” the sheriff said doubtfully.

Silent Moore, the sheriff’s deputy, carefully examined the mutilated man for a moment; then, for the first time since his arrival, he opened his lips.

“I’ve fit the Apache – ’tain’t their work,” he said.

“Nonsense, man, it’s impossible to tell,” Bill Anderson exclaimed, and the others, with the exception of Toothpick and Dutchy, were inclined to agree with him.

“Greasers did that work – Apaches would have tracked down the man out there and killed him, and they would have used a club on the woman,” the deputy insisted stubbornly.

“Sure yuh’re right,” Sam Hogg cried with an oath. “White men or devils started in to make it look like Injuns – got scared before they finished and run for it.”

“The Lava Gang!” Toothpick cried excitedly. “Judge, where’s ‘Snippets’ and Mary?”

The judge’s face went white as he whispered: “You – you mean that letter from them?”

“Yeah, but where are the girls?” Toothpick asked again.

“They’re safe. I took them over to visit Sam Hogg’s wife at the Frying Pan Ranch this evening. Bill and I were coming back when we saw the fire.”

Toothpick relaxed and uttered a sigh of relief. The Lava Gang sometimes stole girls for ransom and held them across the border.

“What’s this – what letter?” the sheriff asked sharply.

“You all know that I am to preside at the trial of Pete Cable for murder, which takes place a week from to-day. Last week I received a warning signed by the Lava Gang, saying if I did not see that Cable was acquitted, some terrible thing would happen to me.”

“What did yuh do with the letter?” the sheriff demanded.

The judge shrugged. “I tore it up.”

“You are not going to pay any attention to the letter?” Bill Anderson asked curiously as his eyes searched the judge’s face.

“I intend to see justice done,” the judge replied firmly.

Bill Anderson pursed his lips and whistled soundlessly. The others turned and frowned at him. He smiled apologetically.

“No offense, judge. I was admiring your courage. If, as you seem to think, the Lava Gang did this, I would stay in after dark,” the plump politician said.

“To blazes with the Lava Gang! We’ll have the whole bunch in jail before the trial is finished,” Sam Hogg exploded.

Bill Anderson lit a cigarette, then smiled.

“You have to catch them first.”

“We’ll do it.”

Sam Hogg spoke positively, but somehow his words brought cold comfort to the judge.

Some fifteen miles to the southwest there was a great barren waste of lava rock. The Lava Gang had received their name from the fact that after each raid their trail was lost on the smooth slopes of the lava fields. No one knew a single member of the gang. It was suspected that they had their real headquarters in Cannondale. They were as elusive as ghosts. The thought that a member of the gang might be present at that moment made the judge grow thoughtful.

Sam Hogg growled like an angry terrier.

“If we don’t trail ’em to-morrow, I’ll send for that little hellion, ‘Jim-twin’ Allen. I’m bettin’ he’d trail ’em. I hears he’s better than a bloodhound.”

Bill Anderson laughed.

“He’d probably throw in with the Lava Gang himself.”

“Him? Not any!” Toothpick snorted. “He wouldn’t have no truck with hombres what steal girls. He’ll come a-runnin’ and a-shootin’ if I tells him about it.”

“Fairy tales,” the judge snorted.

“You tell him to come, judge, and watch his smoke,” Toothpick pleaded.

“A judge ask help from an outlaw who is wanted for murder in a dozen States?” Anderson laughed again.

“You gents stop gabbin’ and help me get this hombre in the buckboard,” the sheriff called.

A bed of blankets was made on the floor of the wagon, and the unconscious man was lifted in.

“Mr. Anderson, yuh drive him easy to town,” directed the sheriff. “An’ if he starts talkin’, yuh listen hard, ’cause I got a hunch that hombre will sure tell us a heap more about the Lava Gang than we knows now.”

“I’ll certain listen if he starts talking,” Anderson replied. He climbed into the buckboard and picked up the reins. Dutchy watched the team until it vanished in the night.

“I’d sure like to know where I seen that gent before, an’, if I ain’t seen him, who does he remind me of?” Dutchy muttered to himself.

Silent Moore was sent to town to gather a posse. The judge called Dutchy aside and whispered an order to him. Dutchy was known as a deadly fighter and a man who could be trusted.

“Dutchy, I want you to ride to the Frying Pan Ranch, and I don’t want you to let my daughter or Snippets out of your sight until this is over.”

The grizzled puncher mounted his horse and galloped off. The others remained.

Toward morning Silent Moore returned with the posse, and at the first streak of dawn they took up the trail of the murderers. For a time it led due south toward the Mexican border; then it headed sharply to the west, toward the lava fields. Here the trail was lost.

The lava fields were a maze of smooth slopes, abrupt ridges, and deep depressions. For seventy miles they roughly paralleled the border. And in all that expanse of rock there was no sign of verdure, save only an occasional cactus.

The posse scattered and searched for the trail. The sun blazed down and turned the desolate place into a furnace. The hunters were grim men, not easily turned aside. The sun baked them, they suffered from the lack of water, but they continued to search.

Toward noon, “Ace” Cutts, with five of the judge’s riders from the Bar X Ranch, joined the search. The men dismounted and climbed the jagged slopes. They cut their hands and tore their boots on the knifelike edges of the lava rock.

The sun rose past meridian. The rocks and sand were too hot to touch. All that day the men of the posse continued their search, but found nothing. At last, toward evening, they realized their hunt was in vain. Beaten, baffled, they gathered for the return trip to town.

“Yuh figure Jim Allen could track those devils?” Tom Powers asked of Toothpick.

“Sure could,” the lanky cow-puncher replied.

The sheriff reined in his horse. “Then if yuh know where he is, go get him.”

Toothpick was about to answer when he saw Ace Cutts and three other riders were closely watching him. He remembered Dutchy’s warning. He decided to remain silent. If he sought out Jim Allen, it would be well not to let people know it. He shook his head.

“The little devil is like a flea – no one knows where to find him,” he declared. The remark seemed plausible enough.

They were close to Cannondale when another of the judge’s riders joined them. The lathered flanks of his pony told of a hard ride. He swayed in his saddle as he sought out his boss.

“Judge, they jumped us an’ downed Hank and Bill. They got me in the shoulder – ”

“And those two hundred two-year-olds?”

The judge knew the answer even before he asked the question.

“They run ’em off.”

Judge Ransom gripped his saddle. No one there realized what this meant to him – financial ruin. The Lava Gang had made good their threat.

The sheriff had hoped that the wounded man they had found the night before would be able to identify one of the murderers. But this hope was dashed when he met Bill Anderson as they entered the town.

“That poor fellow,” Anderson told him, “got one of his bandages loose and bled to death. I never heard him move, but he was dead when I got to town.”

The sheriff, followed by Toothpick, hurried to the doctor’s house, where they were shown the dead man.

“Toothpick, yuh helped do him up; look them bandages over,” the sheriff said.

After a brief examination Toothpick straightened, caught the sheriff’s eye and nodded.

“I ain’t no match for sneaks. If yuh know where to find him, go fetch Jim-twin Allen!” the sheriff cried passionately.

“Yuh might tell folks I’ve gone north to see my mother,” Toothpick warned.