Читать книгу Starlight Riders Boxed-Set 50 Western Classics in One Edition - Ernest Haycox - Страница 71

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Blind Bowlus sat on his doorstep that evening and stirred uneasily the crisp air. During the late afternoon his sharp ears had picked up the tremble of riders going rapidly southward through the pines. The average man would have missed the sound but Bowlus, almost sightless, absorbed the news of the world through his ears with an ability approaching the miraculous. The average man, also, would have thought nothing about these casual rumors of hoofbeats. Here again Bowlus knew better. The very tempo of the air first interested, then warned him. Later he heard the brush crackling back of his place, dying so suddenly that he knew an ambush had been established. At dusk a single rider had passed completely around the clearing on a scout, whereupon Bowlus grunted scornfully, "Damn fool, I couldn't draw a bead on him, blind as I be. Nobody fools old Bowlus."

All this was preliminary. He ate his supper, full in the knowledge that this little clearing was the center around which forces groped and parried for advantage. Dusk passed into dark and for a short interval the world was in the spell of a deep, pervading stillness. Bowlus, true to his habits, smoked a pipe, cheeks slightly turned to catch the first faint runner of night's breeze. He loved to rest on the stoop and feel the universe absorb the dying day, to wait ifor the first sound of wind in the leaves and to catch, through the blurred windows of his soul, the first faint sparkle of stars. These were elementary pleasures, but all that Bowlus had left to him; and like some pagan he steeped himself in the peace and vast serenity of it. Yet not this evening; his sensitive mind was alive to the impalpable threats of forthcoming struggle, his solitude destroyed. And because he was part and parcel of the rangeland he clenched his old fists and shook them outward.

"If I had my sight back—just for a month, even—they could cut me down and be damned to 'em. I'd ride with Box M again, I would. I'd swallow smoke and sling lead and sweat blood, like they're sure going to do. Just one more lick, that's all I'd ask. Hell, better be dead than useless."

He drew in his arms and listened. A stray fragment of sound came slow and soft over the clearing. His dog, crouched by the steps, rose and stiffened. Bowlus said, "Shut up, Tige," and ran a hand over the beast to discover which way he pointed. The dog's muzzle was against the east, trembling with a suppressed growl. "You hush, Tige, and mind your own business." A bit of metal jingled. Then all this faded and was lost for a full five minutes. Bowlus grew rigid, teeth clamping around the stem of his pipe. Fear came to him, the first time in years of lonely living. For the first time he felt a physical presence threatening his own safety. Somebody stood near by, ominously silent. Bowlus gripped the dog at his side with swift pressure to keep the animal from baying; instinctively he felt that his own life depended on remaining still and seemingly ignorant. So he talked idly to the dog.

"Fine evening. Fine, large evening, Tige. Stars is awful big tonight. Been a sort of a hot day, but she's a nice breeze right now. Yessir, Tige, we got a good quiet place to live."

Tige resisted his pressure and broke into a vicious growl. A voice near by muttered, "Keep that brute quiet or I'll strangle him, Bowlus."

Bowlus relaxed at the sound of the voice. The sinister silence was broken, his senses made contact with reality. Moreover, he knew the fellow. Out of the vast gallery of tones he had catalogued and stored away he took the rather high-pitched, immature voice of Curly and matched it with the present talk. It fitted.

"Lord sakes," he muttered, "you scared me." And for diplomatic reasons he went artlessly on. "Kind of upsets a blind gent like me to be disturbed by a stranger after dark."

"Don't know who I am, uh?"

"I can scarcely see daylight, let alone a face in the dark."

Curly advanced. Bowlus saw the flicker of a hand passing in front of his eyes, but kept his head very still. "I always wondered just bow blind you was," grumbled Curly. "I seen too many tricks in my life to be took to camp. But I reckon you're really sightless."

"Blind as a bat. I reckon you might be hungry. Most riders coming my way are. Step in and I'll toss a can o' beans for you—"

Curly interrupted. "Anybody around here, old man?"

"Just me and my dog."

Curly whistled softly. In another moment Bowlus made out riders sifting through the trees. Curly had edged into the cabin for a look. He came out again and walked off, softly giving orders to somebody. Then he returned and laid a hand on Bowlus' shoulder, pressing down hard. "You tell me the truth, old buzzard, or I'll take pleasure in laying my gun across that brittle skull of yours. I'd do it, too, savvy? Nobody around these woods, uh?"

"It's been awful quite today," said old Bowlus. "I ain't talked to a soul."

"Hear anything? Don't lie!"

Bowlus, from the tone of the outlaw's voice, visualized Curly leaning forward wolfishly, half-inclined to strike. So he decided on half-truth and spoke softly. "I think a spread o'men passed along the trail a spell before dark."

"Which way?"

"Towards Angels."

"Heard anything since—any brush rattle, any gear squeak, horses, or like that? Has your dog been uneasy. Smell anything in the wind?"

"Not till you come," said Bowlus. "But—" and he affected sudden mystery, "that bunch didn't seem to come back from Angels."

A long silence. Men were moving with sibilant swiftness about the clearing. Curly had gone off once more and Bowlus thought he was rid of the man. But the renegade was like a cat, evading even Bowlus' preternaturally sharp ears; without warning he was back, grumbling, "I don't trust you, not for a minute. When I see a stray horse on the landscape, I want to kill him or put him in my string. Same applies to you. Maybe you're a harmless duffer, but on the other hand you might be bait. Don't say anything, don't move outside of your cabin tonight. I'm watching this place all the time. If I—"

Bowlus waited patiently. He felt them ease off into the woods and it appeared as if the meadow was free of their presence again. His dog alternately lay stiffly silent or rose to growl. Somewhere in the high ground he caught the snap of a bough.

"Trap," he decided. "But who set it, Box M or Curly? Looks to me as if Box M had done such, for Curly acted like he smelled a rat. What brought him over? This ain't his country. I'd like to know what them shots meant this morning."

The breeze grew sharper; the man's old bones protested the cramped position he had so long held. Rising, he pushed the dog inside the house and followed, closing the door. Match in hand, he forebore striking it. A light would only bring grief on his head. Better to wait in the cold. Sit and wait, for sleep was not to be this blood-scented night.

"Tige, if I only had sight—"

Then he drew a great sigh and leaned against the wall. A single shot sent up a muffled echo amid the trees above the clearing. After this was a short lull, a breathless suspense as if the creatures of the earth were cringing away from man's sinister folly. It was only a moment. Another shot sounded, waking somewhere a swift reply. A ragged fusillade developed to the west of the cabin, sagged in strength and threatened to die out. The parties yonder were sparring for advantage, uncertain of each other's location and strength, shifting rapidly, swinging about the fringe of the meadow. A lone rider raced down from the ridge and cut in front of the cabin, slinging a bullet into the door as he passed. Bowlus heard the smack of the slug in the wall and deliberately sat down on the floor.

"Tige, you come here. Lay behind me. That's right—lay flat."

Curly seemed to have found a point of attack, for the gunplay strengthened wickedly farther southward where the Angels Dead Man trail came up from the desert. No longer was the firing sporadic or aimless. Detonations ran into each other wickedly like corn popping; one wild halloo floated back to the meadow. Bowlus listened eagerly. "Must be twenty-thirty men in that play," he reflected. "Don't appear to me as if the trap worked."

His attention swung to the north side of the meadow, picking up the drive of another outfit galloping recklessly through the trees. Presently they were in the meadow, flashing by the house single file, a long line of them with leather squealing and a single voice rising above the noise of advance. "Swing out and come abreast. Fitz, you haul over and hold the right end of our front. West more—and come on!"

"Charterhouse," grunted Bowlus. "I knowed he had a good character first time I heard him talk. Now, Curly, you damn hound! Sit still, Tige, I ain't talking to you."

Bowlus was too thoroughly a Box M man to stay silent any longer, so he got up and went to the door. There was a touch of powder smell in the breeze that called him to battle and he gripped the casing with his gnarled fingers, swearing bitterly. Charterhouse's party was temporarily absorbed in this mystery. But within a minute or two Bowlus caught the swelling echoes as they pitched back to him. The fight became more grimly intense, more voices rose, and the doubling fury of the fire weltered through the trees. They had ceased moving and were in a stand-to conflict. So much he could determine by the steady spat and crack reverberating from the same location. Like men rooted in one spot and jolting each other with blind anger. Sooner or later somebody had to give way; energy and bullets lasted only about so long. Bowlus' practised ears detected a faltering presently and another shifting. Part of the echoes came from a more remote angle of the trees, guns blasted away from wider vantage points. The engagements turned fitful, firing died. A pair of horsemen raced toward the cabin, wheeled around it. Bowlus dropped to the earth as they thundered by. Lead passed over him, shattering his window. He heard them breathing hard, heard them muttering back imprecations, heard them fleeing east into the open prairie.

"Curly's men," exulted Bowlus. "They took a hiding, by gosh!"

Bowlus started to rise, then scuttled to another side of the cabin and flattened in the deeper darkness. A whole party swept back from the south, turned into the clearing and halted. Scouts broke away, searching around.

Charterhouse's voice called anxiously. "Bowlus."

Bowlus rose and felt his way back to the front. "Give 'em a drubbing, did you?"

He heard a mutter of relief. More men were coming from the scene of battle. Somebody coughed. Bowlus recognized the cause of it with pity. He also picked up Heck Seastrom's usually easy- going tones cold with rage. "The buzzards will pay this bill in full before we get through, boys. Take Lee in and put him on Bowlus' bunk. As for Pink, ain't no use. He's done."

"Bowlus, I'm relieved to see you. Curly make any threats?"

"Yeah, but nothing else. You whipped him?"

"Not enough, Bowlus. Not near enough. Anybody ride back this way?"

"Couple gents fogging for the open hell-bent. But the meadow's empty."

Charterhouse seemed to be holding a conference with the others. "Think Curly held his bunch pretty well together. They've all gone west, which means Angels, I guess."

"Mebbe we ought to have followed," suggested Seastrom.

"No advantage," decided Charterhouse. "The idea in this was to keep the percentage on our side. Never play their game. Surprise 'em. I think we crippled four-five, but that ain't fair enough exchange for one man dead and one man hurt."

"Then what?" asked Seastrom.

"I'd like to know what they figure to do next," mused Charterhouse. "If Curly goes to Angels, the rest of the pack will be there soon enough. Well, I think I'll drift in by myself and see if I can pick up any dope."

"Not wise," said Fitzgibbon.

"Take me," put in Seastrom.

"No, I'll creep in alone. You boys stay right here until I come back. Meanwhile, somebody will have to ride to Box M and see if the doctor is there. Bring him back for Lee. As for Pink, I hate to say it, but he'd better be buried here and now. We may move fast before daylight."

"Why not cut for Shander's and clean out the joint since we know Curly ain't reinforcing him at present?"

"Move like that would be liable to place us beyond a quick run to Box M. Above all, boys, we've got to keep tab on these Curly wolves. That reminds me, a man had better go up and camp on the ridge trail to see nobody slides up during the dark. Same for the Dead Man trail. We've got our finger on Curly and we can't let him ease off to unknown directions. I'm going. Stick tight. This is a game of checkers. Party that does the most jumping wins. Our idea is to keep the other bunch out of our king row."

"Take Seastrom," said Fitzgibbon. "Two's better'n one. You'll bear more and see more."

"All right. Let's ride, Heck."

"If you ain't back by daylight," went on Fitzgibbon with unusual loquacity, "I'll bust into Angels."

"We'll be back before midnight," promised Clint, swinging away.

"Ain't sure," grumbled Fitzgibbon. "That town is the original breeding place of sin and treachery."

The two left the meadow and tracked over the scene of fighting. Shortly beyond they took the more open area to the west. But once timber began to rank around them Charterhouse led off and hit independently into the ridge. So, silently, they passed across it and lined out for Angels, the lights of which beckoned sardonically at them through the distance. The wind was fresh and clear, the night very dark. From afar one lonely shot faintly reverberated.

"Angels celebrating in its homely, hospitable manner," grunted Seastrom, breaking the long silence.

Charterhouse had been thinking of Casabella politics. "Listen, Heck. We'll say Curly fights because he's a born herd jumper. We'll say Studd plays the same game because he is a sort of peanut politician and looking out for himself. We'll go so far as to admit Wolfert is dote what he is told to do. But Shander—what does he stand to gain by tipping over the bucket? He's got land and cattle. If he loses this ruction, he also loses his property. I don't quite get it. Ain't natural to play so hard for a plumb uncertain stake."

"Casabella style, Casabella fever."

"Always some sort of reason for fevers," countered Clint. "It appears to me there must be a nigger in the woodpile we've overlooked."

Seastrom's reply was slow and cautious. "Any names to add to the list?"

"None. But I believe there's some motives, at present unknown, to add to the list."

"Mebbe, but what of it? We've got plenty of motives to start all the needful friction. We'd better turn off to hit Angels behind the slaughterhouse. It's deserted. Easy place to leave the horses."

Accordingly they veered and slid off from the town's front side. A quarter hour of slow travel brought them near the slaughterhouse. Dismounting, they went forward, Seastrom leading. The windmill was turning and the joints squeaked badly; water trickled in the gloom. Seastrom kept swerving one way and another until he stopped Charterhouse in the lee of a stinking shed.

"Safe enough here," he whispered. "What next?"

"You keep to this side of town, Heck. Cruise along back with your eyes and ears open. I'm cutting around the plaza. Want to see if Shander's in town. We may get some ideas out of the trip. Don't take any chances. Meet me here in about an hour."

"Listen, I ain't so strong for splitting up. This is one tough joint."

"I know, but we'll stand a better chance of getting information that way. But if I don't show up in time, you wait an extra hour and pull out alone. That's to keep Fitz from becoming too nervous. He ain't to move away from the clearing until I get back."

"You're the doctor," assented Seastrom.

They walked the length of the slaughterhouse and reached the back of a store building. Seastrom halted. Charterhouse murmured, "Take it easy," and slipped off. He paused at a narrow alley and saw a small section of the dark plaza down the far end; men crossed his vision and vanished. There was the sudden lure to follow the alley and come out among them, but he disregarded it and went on, studying a beam of light that came through a back door and lay directly across his path. He hesitated, heard voices, and shot over the revealing rays on the run to find himself at the stable's rear. Familiar territory.

Peering down the length of the interior, Clint discovered sundry citizens of Angels leisurely loitering under a lantern suspended from the rafters. A gust of laughter came to him, and he put aside temptation for the second time, pressing around a corral and reaching the open desert. Soundlessly he faded into it.

He had only that moment disappeared when a man flung open the same back door he had recently skirted and ran forward as far as the stable. The man crouched in the darkness, staring all about the shadows of the corral; then he rose and ran beyond the stable and swept the cloaked prairie carefully. A grunt of dissatisfaction escaped him. Doubling back, he went down the stable's vault, out the front and across the plaza hurriedly. About the same time a rider came loping into Angels from eastward and hauled his pony to a cruel stop by Studd's saloon. Dismounting, he thrust a surly question at one of the bystanders. "Where's Wolfert?" The bystander nodded his head, and the rider tramped beyond the saloon a few buildings into a door.

Clint Charterhouse, flat on his belly at the plaza's southwest corner, saw the rider go in. It was too dark to determine the fellow's identity but there was a familiar carriage about those shoulders that interested him. Silently he considered the proposition. "Looks like he was in a hurry. Good news or bad news, maybe, which he wants to impart. Who'd he impart it to if not the wise gents in charge of this scrap? That means he's gone in yonder door to find them. Proceeding from which—"

He got up and slid into the shadows, fouled himself in baling wire and scented the proximity of stale beer kegs.

He was behind Studd's, hearing the swell of talk that emerged. A second-story window lifted to considerable profanity and an empty bottle fell beside him. Farther on he began to listen for particular voices. The building next to Studd's seemed empty and adjacent to that was a store. Beyond the store ran a shorter tenement containing a back porch. He settled on the porch and put his eye to a keyhole, discovering only darkness.

"Let's consider," he muttered. "The fellow went one, two, three doors from Studd's. This must be it. No lights, no sound. I wonder if there's a room between me and the front end—and what am I getting into?"

He stepped away from the porch, scanning the upper windows. "Grated, which means jail above and sheriff or marshal's office below. Now—"

Unexpectedly he discovered men poking along the back of town. A boot slammed into a box near the saloon and somebody's surly curse rolled sluggishly through the darkness. At almost the same time another questing citizen moved up from the opposite buildings, speaking with impatience. "Why don't you sound the fire bell and let everyone know where you are? For the love o' gosh, be quiet about it. Tim, see anything?"

"No, and it's a fool business."

"Well, he's skulking around these premises somewhere. Come this way. We'll drag along every building."

Several men came toward Clint Charterhouse, pinching him in from both sides. He was trapped in the small area. Crawling over the porch, he tested the knob of the back jail door; it gave to pressure and emitted the smell of musty leather and burlap sacks. More important, it also gave him the rumble of talk from some front room of the place. Momentarily the searchers approached. He even saw their dim outlines swaying forward.

"Try that jail yard. I'm telling you he's around somewhere. But don't wake the dead. We want to catch him off balance."

"Who is it?"

"Charterhouse, who'd you suppose? Didn't Haggerty—" Clint slid inside the room and softly closed the door against them. A shaft of light seeped below an inner portal, along with the aroma of tobacco smoke. A chair scraped. Immediately he recognized the sullen, surly tones of the Box M foreman. Haggerty himself!

"I'm taking a big chance in coming away from the ranch. It might mean my hide."

"You was sent, wasn't you? That's a fair excuse."

"Yeah, I was sent down to warn the bunch at Bowlus' place. But I ought to've hit right back instead of dallying into Angels. Seastrom and Charterhouse are both here. Fitz told me they was. Said Charterhouse had given orders for the bunch to stay put until they scouted this joint."

Studd's unmistakable rumble came through. "I call that gall. Seastrom's crazy enough to put his head in a trap, but this Charterhouse is a cool, hard number. I'm thinking we got a man to deal with as stiff as old John was himself. And the gal gave Charterhouse a free hand?"

"Absolutely," growled Haggerty.

"I'd sure like to know how Mister Buck Manners takes that," said Studd ironically. "Him expecting to marry Sherry Nickum and still nosed out by a total stranger. Hell, that's rich."

Charterhouse stood in the middle of the black little room, mind devouring every scrap of phrase that came to him. Haggerty was a traitor, yet the news somehow failed to surprise him much. His estimate of the man's character had not been high in the first place and this new revelation only bore out the judgment he had formed. But what did Haggerty mean in saying he had come from Box M to warn the men at the Bowlus place? Listening intently, Clint was disturbed by the nearing sounds of the search party outside. They were going around the area with a fine-tooth comb.

"It don't make things no easier for us," put in Haggerty.

"Nor harder," was Studd's reply. "If they start scrapping among themselves, for control of Box M, we get all the breaks."

The almost girlish voice of Curly cut in. "Quit shaking hands with yourself, Studd. I lost men tonight and I don't propose to sit around and grin about it. Get busy and give us some ideas."

"I ain't running this show, Curly."

"Well, by gosh, if somebody don't take a heavier hand in the situation, I'll crack Box M wide open. I been wanting to do it a long while. What's the use of fiddling? Everybody knows what we're trying to do anyhow. Why beat about the bush? Sock 'em hard and get it done. There ain't anybody in Casabella able to stop us."

"We had ought to be out looking for those two buzzards right now," stated Haggerty.

"The longer they stick here the more they hang themselves," said the unexcitable Studd. "You boys never have learned to play a patient game."

"Too much patience all around—"

Somebody came into the office. Studd spoke with a slightly more suave manner. "We had to send for you, Shander. Things is sort of moving to a point."

Curly interrupted, explaining the fight and its consequences. Shander stopped him. "I have already heard about it. Heard about the whole business. Know just where everybody is now."

"Well, then," snapped Curly, "do something, or I'll make a play of my own and pull out."

"What would that be?" demanded Shander coldly.

There was a short silence. Curly started speaking in a slightly lower tone. Charterhouse heard the beginning, "My idea is to use—" and the rest of it was erased by a more immediate distraction. The searchers back of the buildings were stubbornly returning to their first scent. They began to advance on the jail.

"He come 'round this way," said someone. "And he ain't had no chance to slip off." Boots crossed the porch, a hand fell on the doorknob. "He's hiding close by. You wait, I'm going through and see Studd." The door opened slowly as Charterhouse backed into a corner and slipped his gun free. Another moment and the man stood within five feet of him, breath rising and falling; and in still another breath he would be across, opening the inner portal and throwing a revealing ray upon the back room. Certain exposure. Rigid, mind flashing around to find a loophole of escape, Charterhouse heard Shander say, "Well, that's a good idea, Curly, and the one I came to offer myself. We'll act on it. Tomorrow. Fort Carson. Keep your men—"

The searcher crossed the room, stumbled over a discarded saddle and groped for the inner knob. Charter-house raised his gun, suddenly cold and nerveless. He was trapped before and behind.