Читать книгу Saddle and Ride: Western Classics - Boxed Set - Ernest Haycox - Страница 51

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Wedged there between shoulders of rock that permitted his body to sink slightly inside the steep face of the canyon wall, and with a ledge no more than four inches wide holding him against a sheer drop to death, Jim Chaffee passed through those thundering, crashing moments of ordeal and torture. He was surrounded all at once by the crush and the bellow of a herd going to its doom. This mass swept out of the darkness to right and left of him. The brutes shot directly over the top of his head, pitching far into the maw of the gorge. Nothing could stop the force of that flight; nothing could divert it now. Sprays of sand and rock skimmed his back, and all that protected him from being struck and torn loose by those scudding, flailing hoofs was the insecure outcrop of lava substance above him. Even so, a breaking away of that outcrop by the tremendous pressure exerted upon it might happen at any instant; a chance hoof might plunge down and knock his feet clear of the ledge. He faced eternity while the roar and the confusion swelled to an indescribable pitch and his brain grew giddy from the strain of it.

Far down he heard the wailing of animate flesh; he had the sensation of a vast waterfall ruslnng over the rim. All muscles were growing numb from the pressure he placed upon them. Where was the barb wire that had been on the fence posts earlier in the afternoon? At this very spot he had spread the strands apart to let himself and Gay Thatcher through. Cattle stench was in his throat, and a stumbling brute fell so close to him that he got the impact of wind breaking against the carcass. He no longer was able to command his fingers, no longer able to feel the strain of them against the rock. In that second of black despair when he was about ready to give up, the last member of the herd capsized and hurtled down with a grunt and full-throated bawling. And then it was over, and a queer, oppressed silence settled along the dusty earth. He started to haul himself out and was arrested by voices.

"Got 'em all?"

"Yeah. Every last pound o' flesh."

Riders were moving within ten feet of Chaffee. He heard the rasp of leather and the jingle of chains. A match broke the darkness, but he was in too cramped a position to be able to look above the outcrop.

"Cut that out! Pinch the match, yuh fool!"

"What's the difference? Shucks—"

"Which one o' you addle-brains fired that shot?"

Jim heard denial come from a number of throats. There could be no mistaking the voice of the questioner. That rumbling tone could come only from the immense barrel of Theodorik Perrine.

"Well, by Jupiter, somebody fired it!"

"Reckon' Chaffee come back from Woolfridgc's in time to get mixed up with the herd?"

"I shore would like to think he was takin' his last drink o' water now," growled Perrine. "But we ain't gettin' rid o' Chaffee that easy. Some o' you dudes is lyin' to me. When I find out who it is I'll strip said party and cut my mark. Didn't I say no shootin'? We ain't advertisin' this."

"Nobody in this outfit fired a shot." That, Chaffee decided, was Sleepy Slade. Sleepy was the only man in Perrine's gang able to talk back. "Let's sift around and see if we can corral Chaffee."

"We're goin' to get out of here," said Perrine. "It's work aplenty for one night. I got orders to be humble about it. I got orders not to get in a personal fight with Chaffee, and I don't want none of you gents to kill him afore I get directions to do it myself."

"I'll bet plenty pesos he ain't far off," grumbled Sleepy Slade. "Let's look, anyhow."

"Shut up, Sleepy. I'm runnin' this gang. I'm obeyin' instructions until I get a good crack at him when nobody's lookin'. Come on. Back to home. Stretch out."

They galloped away. Chaffee raised one half-paralyzed arm and hooked it over the rim. Then he raised the other. And there he hung for a long, doubtful moment until the cramp wore out of his hands. He pulled himself upward and back to safety, and fell flat as his muscles and nerves, stretched to the point of breaking, began to jangle and shake as they had never done in twenty-seven years.

It would have broken a lesser man—broken him for all time. But at the end of five minutes Jim Chaffee sat up and rolled himself a cigarette, shielding the flare of the match in his palms. The light wavered a little, which made him swear softly. "I never thought anything could do that. But I'm here to tell the universe and every part and parcel thereof I ain't ashamed of these shakes. Don't know when just bein' alive felt so all-fired good."

He relished the smoke as he never had relished another. The cold, sharp night fog penetrated his clothes and quickly chilled him. Still he kept his place on the hard ground, lungs reaching out for the pungent air, looking up to the unfathomed sky. "I ought to be plumb glad I'm in a shape to feel cold. So Theodorik's got orders not to kill me unless it's done private and secret. Huh. Wonder who he's takin' orders from? There's another item that comes under the head of useful information. I might make a guess. If I did I might be wrong. But sure as the Lord made little green apples there's one man or one outfit that's tryin' to get a corner on Roarin' Horse real estate. And usin' Theodorik to hurry up the process. What happened to the barb wire around here?"

He spoke mildly, as if he discussed a subject of no great interest. The manner was only a cloak. Deep within Jim Chaffee the fires were burning brighter and hotter. There was being developed a tremendously harsh anger in the man an explosive, savage temper that ripped at the barriers he placed against it. Chaffee knew this state of heart and mind. Once or twice before he had struggled with it, half ashamed and half afraid of the consequences ensuing from it. Reason and discretion alike abandoned him when that temper gripped him, and he was apt to do things of which he was not proud. He hated to lose control of his actions, no matter how just those acts might be. So he asked himself soft and serene questions. And in the end rose to inspect the fence.

There was no fence. Not even posts for a hundred yards along the rim; the resistless sweep of the doomed cattle had carried all things away. But progressing another hundred yards he found posts intact, with the strands of wire clipped off them. And apparently thrown into the canyon, for he could find no trace of the wire. This cutting had gone on for almost a quarter mile either way from his point of investigation. Theodorik Perrine's gang had done it thoroughly and swiftly sometime beyond midafternoon.

"They must've been cached in a gulley around here, watching Gay and me," opined Chaffee. "Must've kept pretty close tab on all my meanderin' back and forth. I'll give Theodorik ample credit. And he will pay interest on that credit, likewise." He let himself go, then and there. "That damned bull-necked mountain of low-down crookedness! Nobody but a man with the butcherin', slashin' instincts of a murderer would throw all them cows over the brink. He's been growing ugly five years, just waitin' for somebody to tip him on over into bloodlettin'. Theodorik, if you don't die sudden I'll have to brace you."

He steadied himself. Yet when he remembered that his horse and outfit had also gone into the chasm he saw red again. The Stirrup S home quarters lay five miles distant and thither he turned. An hour and ten minutes later he reached the ranch porch to find Miz Satterlee quite alone. The weary tramp had not improved his state of mind; rather it had served to enrage him the more and to crystallize his determination to close with Theodorik and settled the account.

"Where's the boys?"

"Mack heard a rumor about rustlers bein' down in the alkali flats," said Miz Satterlee. "So he took the crowd and went over there."

"Yeah, that's another angle Theodorik doped out to make himself safe," grunted Chaffee. He moved along the steps and Miz Satterlee had a moment's view of his face as it met the outthrust light.

"Jim Chaffee—what on earth—!"

"Accident," said Jim, reaching for his brown papers. "Theodorik Perrine cut a lot of wire off our canyon fence and run all the lower bench stuff into the brink. Ma'am—I hate to tell you that."

Miz Satterlee said nothing for many long moments. Chaffee expected to hear a vigorous and bitter appraisal of Perrine. He was mistaken.

"I knew this was coming soon enough," said the mistress of Stirrup S very gently. "I'm sorry about the cattle—but I'm a great deal more sorry to think what it means to you and the outfit, Jim. There will be bloodshed. I hate to think of that. I believe I'd rather sell out than have any of my boys brought home injured. Jim, where are you going?"

Her question stopped him a yard or so removed from the porch. "I'm going to get a fresh horse and saddle, ma'am."

"To do what at this hour of the night?"

"To hunt Theodorik Perrine, ma'am," said he, rage shaking the words in his throat. "To find Theodorik Perrine and Sleepy Slade and the seven other prowlin', slinkin' yella dogs that run in his pack!"

"What will you do when you find them, Jim?" She was still speaking in the same quiet, sad manner; and she seemed to be trying to bring him out of the fury that clouded the cool and shrewd judgment of the man.

"I don't know—yet," he muttered.

"I know," said Miz Satterlee, talking with more energy. "You will be killed. Jim, you're outside of yourself. Stay here until you cool off. What can you do alone against them? I depend on you—don't go back on me. I know—I know how you feel. But I will not allow you to be killed. What will happen to Stirrup S then? There is no other man I can trust— nobody else big enough to hold it for me. Jim—"

"Yeah. Wait until I cool off. Wait until Perrine is out of reach. Let him think he's gettin' away with this. Let whoever's payin' him to rustle and kill think he's gettin away with it. No. They've got to be smashed! They've got to be hit sudden and hit hard! Supposin' we let 'em alone until to-morrow. Then you'll say to let 'em alone until the day after. All the while they're gettin' bolder and bolder. And some night our barns go up in smoke, and they rake the place with lead. The rest of our stock is rustled. No, ma'am. I'm goin' now, and I'm goin' to do somethin'!"

"Jim, you can't—"

"Miz Satterlee, I never have gone against your husband's word, nor your word. But I've got to do it now. Sure, I plenty understand it's all against reason to trail out alone. But Theodorik's got to have the fear of God planted in him. And I want him to know I ain't afraid. I'll bend that gent's neck and make him humble. If I don't nobody in Roarin' Horse is safe. Remember that."

He hurried away. She called again to him. He didn't answer. Out in the corral he roped one of his string, a fresh, tough paint pony, and he got a spare saddle and bridle from the bunkhouse. He was up and spurring away, hearing Miz Satterlee send a last call after him.

South and west he traveled, as fast as the paint horse would take him; and along down the dark vault of the desert the chill wind cleared his head to give him a clearer sight of what he was about to do. Perhaps he had no business setting out alone. Perhaps he should have waited for the Stirrup S men to return from their wild goose chase. But that would not be until morning—they'd range the flat land until dawn came—and morning was too late. Theodorik Perrine would be watching then. Or else the gang would be scattered. If Perrine was to be hit the hitting must be done immediately; the renegade had to be taught that there was an instant rebound to an affair like this. Once let Perrine see the range sleeping and debating over such wanton aggression and the range was lost to all security.

Such was Jim Chaffee's reasoning as he galloped arrow-straight for the southwest lava flow country where Perrine hid. Yet that was not all. There was something beyond reason that urged Chaffee headlong into certain trouble. The same unseen power that had killed Dad Satterlee also had driven the herd into the deep chasm of the Roaring Horse. Whatever different instruments might have been used for each deed, the power behind was the same. He was sure of it. Here was a chance to show resistance to that power, to break the machine-like sureness of it. And here was a chance to accept Theodorik Perrine's challenge of long standing. There would never come a better time.

"Theodorik dead will mean a whole lot to this country right now," muttered Jim Chaffee. "Me bein' dead won't make much difference."

Jim Chaffee in his normal workaday senses would never have crossed that first lava scarp and pressed along the tortuous path leading still lower into the labyrinth of pockets and pinnacles. He would have used entirely different methods. On this night Chaffee was another man. Anger tightened his nerves and muscles. His natural kindliness, his buoyant and easygoing spirit, his law-respecting judgment—all these were wiped out for the time. To-night he was a stalking savage. So at last he turned a bend of the narrow path, passed between sentinel mounds, and commanded a view of Theodorik Perrine's hut one hundred yards farther on. Dismounting, he led the pony a little off the trail and behind one of those mounds, let the reins fall, and stepped forward with both guns drawn.

Once upon a time that had been the home of an early settler; inevitably the settler starved and moved away and Theodorik had assumed tenancy. Nothing could grow within a mile of the hut, but it occupied an admirably strategic location. There was only the one trail leading in through the lava, easily commanded by day, easily guarded at night. So jagged and crater-like was the land to either side of the trail that no horse could travel there, and for a man to attempt approach or departure across the needlelike surface of the lava was to invite torn flesh and clothing. The trail was the only safe way of entering. There was a rumor abroad that Perrine knew of another route behind the hut leading deeper into the volcanic wastes westward. If such a route existed he alone knew it. Very few people cared to explore the useless and forbidding section.

A light glimmered through the hut windows, and the sparks of a fire shot up from the chimney. Chaffee crept forward foot by foot, sweeping the shadows for a possible sentry along the path. After to-night's affair Perrine would not leave himself unguarded. Yet Chaffee found nobody opposing his approach. Arriving near the house he paused, dissatisfied. He couldn't start a play unless he was certain nobody flanked him in the rimming darkness; so, turning, he began a tedious exploration of the bowl. He skirted a corral, seeing the vague bulk of the horses inside; and he dropped to his haunches, listening. In a few minutes he pressed on to the ramshackle barn and there waited until the very silence of the place oppressed him. Still not sure, he completed a second circle and at last closed on the hut. Uneasiness rode his shoulders. Why wasn't a sentry somewhere around?

He slid to a side window of the hut and lifted his head until he commanded a partial view of the interior. Theodorik Perrine and Sleepy Slade were bent over a table, playing cards. Three of the gang sat around the stove. That made five. One man oiled his revolver in a corner. Six. Leaving three to be accounted for, and he couldn't see those corners of the place in which the bunks were built. Ducking, he passed to the other side of the window and looked again. Two men were rolled in their blankets and he thought he saw the ninth and last of that party lying in a dim corner. But, though he tried to penetrate the dark angle of the place, he slid away, still uncertain. It might be the ninth man rolled in for the night, or it might only be a pile of blankets heaped up on the bunk.

He came quietly to the door and set the muzzle of one gun under the latch; before lifting the latch and throwing the barrier wide he debated with his better judgment and again set aside the small voice of caution. If ever he was to put the fear of the Lord into the heart of Theodorik Perrine it must be now, when the man, fresh from wanton destruction, sat relaxed and confident over the card game. The gun muzzle rose with the latch, the door flew open, and he threw both guns down upon the assembled renegades. They couldn't see him as he stood outside the place and to one side of the opening, but they heard plain enough the brittle snap of his command.

"Hit for the ceilin'—you! Up! Throw 'em high in a hustle! Sleepy—don't move out of that chair or I'll spill you all over the place! That's right—now you buzzards roll off them bunks and move back. What're you stallin' for, Red? I'm not goin' to do any countin'. Get back there, you hairless Mexican pup! Keep your elbows away from that lamp, Sleepy! It won't hurt me none to send some of you lousy, putty-livered coyotes to hell and gone down the chute!"

Nobody could miss the restless, jammed-up temper of Jim Chaffee at that moment. It crackled and smashed around their heads like the popping of a bull whip; it beat upon them stronger and harsher with each word until it seemed he was on the very point of ripping the hut wide with bullets. All hands rose; those in the bunks dropped to the floor and marched back of the stove. Sleepy Slade and Theodorik Perrine never moved from the table. Sleepy's gaunt and saturnine face was an evil thing to see in the lamplight; Perrine's back was turned to the door and the lifted fists were doubled tight.

Eight men in the hut, no more. Chaffee kicked the door wider and saw only a huddle of blankets on that shadow cloaked bunk. Either the ninth man was out in the bowl or he had split off from the gang earlier. It was a gamble, and he had to move fast. "One at a time—drop your belts. One at a time—startin' from the corner!"

Belts fell. Theodorik Perrine, staring at the opposite wall, threw a question over his giant shoulders. "What kind of a play do yuh think to make, Chaffee? Yore on trembly ground. I'm sayin' it. You ain't got no backin' in this county. Not any more. Yuh can't make the bluff good."

"Stand up, Theodorik, and slip your belt. Now sit down. Sleepy, do the same. Don't try to stall on me. It's just as easy to leave a few of you cattle butchers on the floor. Sit down, Sleepy! Theodorik, take off your boots and throw 'em back here."

"What's the need o'—"

The first shock of surprise having passed, they sparred for time. Chaffee knew by the way Perrine bent and hauled at his boots that the renegade expected a turn of the tide. That ninth man must be in the neighborhood. Chaffee pulled himself a little more to one side of the door's opening. "Theodorik, if that boot seems tight I'll help it with a little lead. Throw it back. Other one, too." They came sailing through the door. Chaffee took one of them and slid it beneath his belt. "Rest of you imitation bad men do the same. Throw 'em this way."

Perrine turned in the chair, big face grinning malevolently. "I'm plumb interested. Yuh can't make the bluff good. The jail won't hold none of us. Politics have changed, Chaffee. What else do yuh aim to try? Stirrup S is on the slide. It don't count no more."

Boots came flying out. Chaffee kicked them on into the yard. Eight men stood in their socks, glowering. "What I aim to do, Theodorik, is to string all you jack rabbits on one rope and walk you barefoot across the lava and back to the ranch. By the time you get that far you'll be halter broke." Then he stopped, thinking he heard a remote sound beyond the yard.

"You can't do it!" roared Theodorik Perrine. "You can't make the bluff good!"

"Barefoot," replied Chaffee grimly. "And if a jail won't hold you, then Stirrup S will. We'll break your back, Theodorik. That's the beginning. Stand up. Sleepy, get that rope and put a hitch around your neck. You boys won't be doin any more dirty chores for a while. Neither will your boss when we find out who he is."

"You'll last about as long as a snowball in—" began Perrine. The rest of it was cut off by a grumbling, half-awake question from the barn. "What's all that racket over there, huh?"

Theodorik Perrine's face turned thunder black. "He went asleep again! It's the last time for him!"

"What's the racket?" repeated the voice, coming nearer. Chaffee crouched as far in the shadows as he dared. Perrine began to shift weight and grumble. The whole crowd inside the hut started moving. Chaffee warned them with a sibilant whisper. Perrine laughed. Of a sudden the ninth man out in the yard yelled. His gun smashed the silence, bullets ripped the ground by the door and Perrine shouted a warning. Chaffee fired at the ninth man point-blank. The hut trembled, the light went out and confusion turned the place upside down. Another shot plunged past Chaffee; and he, marking the source by the mushrooming purple point of light, matched it. He heard the man fall.

There was no time left now. Window glass broke. Perrine bellowed his wrath through the openings. Chaffee ran five yards from the house, commanding a dim view of the door and the near window. They began to find their guns and rake the doorway from the inside. Chaffee lifted his voice. "Better light the lamp and cave in. I've got this dump covered."

"Yuh ain't broad enough to cover it!" roared Perrine. They placed him from his voice, and in a moment he heard them crawling through the window on the far side. One man raced headlong around the corner, flinging lead at each step. Chaffee dropped him. But the tide was setting out; they had gotten beyond his control and in another moment they would have him trapped in this bowl. So, with Thcodorik Perrine's boot still tucked under his belt—a valuable trophy in itself—and knowing that he had in a measure shaken the gang, he raced along the path, got his horse, and threaded the lava to open country. He pointed the pony toward Roaring Horse town, dropping the spurs. He heard Theodorik Perrine following, and he knew that before the night had run its course he would collide with the giant again.

"Bad odds from now on," he murmured to himself. "If I ducked back to Stirrup S I might find the gang home. And we'd take Theodorik into camp. But if the outfit ain't back then I'm only invitin' a wholesale bonfire. That's what Theodorik would do. If I hit into the open country and try to outrun those boys I ain't doing a thing but admit I'm licked. And then I ain't of any use. I'm out. Same as havin' a price on my head. No, sir. I'll track into town and see what this boot tells me. They'll follow. But I don't believe they've got nerve enough to try' a wholesale battle with everybody lookin' on. Theodorik will brace me alone. If he ain't able to do it he'll shunt another of the bunch on me. I don't mind that kind of a scrap. And I can do a lot of duckin' around the buildings in case it gets too hot."

He lost sound of the pursuing party. Halfway to Roaring Horse he stopped to listen. Presently he heard the drum of pursuit swelling through the soft shadows; so he raced on, came into the main street of the town, and left his horse down a convenient back alley. It was late, yet the saloons were still open, a few nighthawks loitered along the building porches, and Doc Fanchers' light beckoned through a window above Tilton's. Jim Chaffee climbed the stairs.

Hardly had he disappeared from sight when Theodorik Perrine and the rest of the renegades slipped quietly around the rodeo field and dismounted. There in the darkness they debated.

"Don't see his horse," said Sleepy Slade.

"He's here," grunted Penrine. "Runnin' for a hole. Hidin' out somewhere. Red, skin down to the other end of the street and block it. Duck, you stay here with me. Sleepy, wait near the Gusher. Rest scatter along the alleys. He don't get away, see? He's makin' a payment on the damage he did back at the hut." The man's tremendous body seemed to swell. "Jupiter, but I hate to let him alone! But I got orders to keep away personal. I ain't in no shape to disobey, either. So, whichever you boys see him—he's yore game. Get that?"

"Some town dudes roamin' up the street," murmured Slade.

"Never mind 'em," replied Perrine. "They don't make no difference. What they see don't count. We're protected. Listen to me. Chaffee's in this town. He don't ever leave it alive. Take no chances when yuh see him. Don't give him a break. Start reachin' before he gets a chance. They ain't nobody in this outfit except me that's as fast as he is. So keep out o' the light and let him have it. Shoot him in the back if yuh can. Now get goin'."

They spread apart, slouching down the dark lanes, closing quietly upon their designated stations. Both ends of town were closed, the alleys were covered; and one of the gang, stumbling upon Chaffee's hidden horse, led it away. So silently and discreetly was the maneuver accomplished that not a single one of the loitering townsmen knew what had occurred. Roaring Horse was blockaded; and Sleepy Slade stood in a black corner of the hotel porch, facing that stairway up which Jim Chaffee had a moment ago climbed. And down which Jim Chaffee would presently come.