The Bandit of Hell's Bend by Edgar Rice Burroughs (ebook reader web .txt) 📕

Possibly his pony cost no more than ten dollars, his boots were worn and his trousers blue denim overalls, greasy and frayed, yet Texas Pete otherwise was a thing of beauty and a joy forever. The rowels of his silver-inlaid Mexican spurs dragged the ground when he walked and the dumb-bells depending from their hubs tinkled merrily a gay accompaniment to his boyish heart beating beneath ragged underclothing.

Texas Pete galloped along the dusty road toward the small cattle-town that served the simple needs of that frontier community with its general store, its restaurant, its Chinese laundry, blacksmith shop, hotel, newspaper office and five saloons, and as he galloped he sang:

“Then the door swings agin an’ my pal he steps in An’ the light in his eye it was bad, An’ the raw-boned guy wheels an’ the girl there she squeals: ‘O, fer gawd’s sake don’t shoot, Bill, it’s dad!’”

A mile ahead of Pete another pony tore through the dust toward town-a blazed-face chestnut with two white hind feet—Blazes, the pride of the foreman’s heart.

In the deep saddle, centaurlike, sat the horseman.

Hendersville tinkled softly in the quiet of early evening. Later, gaining momentum, it would speed up a bit under his own power. At present it reposed in the partial lethargy of digestive functionings-it was barely first drink time after supper. Its tinkling was the tinkling of spurs, chips and only very occasional glassware.

Suddenly its repose was shattered by a wild whoop from without, the clatter of swift hoofs and the rapid crack, crack, crack of a six-gun. Gum Smith, sheriff, rose from behind the faro layout and cocked an attentive ear.

Gum guided the destinies of the most lucrative thirst emporium in Hendersville. Being sheriff flattered his vanity and attracted business, but it had its drawbacks; the noises from without sounded like one of them and Gum was pained.

It was at times such as this that he almost wished that someone else was sheriff, but a quick glance at the shiny badge pinned to the left hand pocket of his vest reassured him quickly on that point and he glanced swiftly about the room at its other occupants and sighed in relief-there were at least a dozen husky young punchers there.

Across the street, in the office of the Hendersville Tribune, Elias Henders sat visiting with Ye Editor. As the shouting and the shots broke the quiet of the evening the two men looked up and outward toward the street.

“Boys will be boys,” remarked the editor.

A bullet crashed through the glass at the top of the window. With a single movement the editor extinguished the lamp that burned on the desk before them, and both men, with a celerity that spoke habit, crouched quickly behind that piece of furniture.

“Sometimes they’re damn careless, though,” replied Elias Henders.

Down the road Texas Pete galloped and sang:

“For the thing she had saw was Bill reach for to draw When the guy she called dad drawed on Bill. In the door was my pal with his eyes on the gal An’ his hand on his gun-standin’ still.”

From the distance ahead came, thinly, the sound of shots.

“By gollies!” exclaimed Texas Pete, “the darned son-of-a-gun !”

The men lolling about the barroom of Gum’s Place-Liquors and Cigars-looked up at the sound of the shots and grinned. An instant later a horse’s unshod hoofs pounded on the rough boards of the covered “porch” in front of Gum’s Place, the swinging doors burst in and Blazes was brought to his haunches in the center of the floor with a wild whoop from his rider, who waved a smoking gun above his head.

Bull, the Bar Y foreman, let his gaze run quickly about the room. When his steel-grey eyes alighted upon the sheriff they remained there. Gum Smith appeared to wilt behind the faro table. He shook a wavering finger at the Bar Y foreman.

“Yo’ all’s undah arrest,” he piped in a high, thin voice, and turning toward the men seated about the neighboring tables he pointed first at one and then at another. “Ah depatize yo! Ah depatize yo! Ah depatize yo!” he announced to each as he covered them in turn with his swiftly moving index finger. “Seize him, men!” No one moved. Gum Smith waxed excited. “Seize him, yo’-all! Ah’m sheriff o’ this yere county. Ef Ah depatize yo’-all yo’-all’s got to be depatized.”

“My mother was a wild cat, My father was a bear,”

announced Bull,

“I picks my teeth with barbwire. With cactus combs my hair.”

and I craves drink-pronto!”

“Yo’-all’s undah arrest! Seize him, men!” shrilled Gum.

Bull fired into the floor at the foot of the faro table and Gum Smith disappeared behind it. The men all laughed. Bull turned his attention toward the barkeep and fired into the back bar. The barkeep grinned.

“Be keerful, Bull,” he admonished, “I got a bad heart. My doctor tells me as how I should avoid excitement.”

The front doors swung in again and Bull wheeled with ready six-gun to cover the newcomer, but at sight of the man who entered the room the muzzle of his gun dropped and he was sobered in the instant.

“Oh!” said Elias Henders, “so it’s you agin, Bull, eh?

The two men stood looking at one another in silence for a moment. What was passing in their minds no one might have guessed. It was the older man who spoke again first.

“I reckon I’ll not be needin’ you any more, Bull,” he said, and then, after a moment’s-reflection, “unless you want a job as a hand-after you sober up.”

He turned and left the building and as he stepped down into the dust of the road Texas Pete swung from his pony and brushed past him.

Inside, Bull sat his horse at one side of the large room, near the bar. Behind him Gum Smith was slowly emerging from the concealment of the faro table. When he saw the man he feared sitting with his back toward him, a crafty look came into the eyes of the sheriff. He glanced quickly about the room. The men were all looking at Bull. No one seemed to be noticing Gum.

He drew his gun and levelled it at the back of the ex-foreman of the Bar Y Instantly there was a flash from the doorway, the crack of a shot, and the sheriffs gun dropped from his hand. All eyes turned in the direction of the entrance. There stood Texas Pete, his shooting iron smoking in his hand.

“You damn pole-cat!” he exclaimed, his eyes on Gum. “Come on, Bull; this ain’t no place for quiet young fellers like us.”

Bull wheeled Blazes and rode slowly through the doorway, with never a glance toward the sheriff; nor could he better have shown his utter contempt for the man. There had always been bad blood between them. Smith had been elected by the lawless element of the community and at the time of the campaign Bull had worked diligently for the opposing candidate who had been backed by the better element, consisting largely of the cattle owners, headed by Elias Henders.

What Bull’s position would have been had he not been foreman for Henders at the time was rather an open question among the voters of Hendersville, but the fact remained that he had been foreman and that he had worked to such good purpose for the candidate of the reform element that he had not only almost succeeded in electing him, but had so exposed the rottenness of the gang back of Smith’s candidacy that their power was generally considered to be on the wane.

“It’ll be Bull for sheriff next election,” was considered a safe prophecy and even a foregone conclusion, by some.

Gum Smith picked up his gun and examined it. Texas Pete’s shot had struck the barrel just in front of the cylinder. The man looked angrily around at the other occupants of the room.

“Ah wants yo’-all to remember that Ah’m sheriff here,” he cried, “an’ when Ah depatizes yo’-all it’s plum legal, an’ yo’all gotta do what Ah tell yo’ to.”

“Oh, shut up, Gum,” admonished one of the men.

Outside, Texas Pete had mounted his pony and was moving along slowly stirrup to stirrup with Bull, who was now apparently as sober as though he had never had a drink in his life.

“It’s a good thing fer us he didn’t have his gang there tonight,” remarked Pete.

Bull shrugged, but said nothing in reply. Texas Pete resigned himself to song.

“Then thet damned raw-boned guy with the ornery eye Up an’ shoots my pal dead in the door; But I’m here to opine with this bazoo o’ mine Thet he won’t shoot no hombres no more.”

“What was you doin’ up to town, Texas’?” inquired Bull.

“Oh, I jest thought as how I’d ride up an’ see what was doin’-maybe you didn’t know the old man was there tonight-reckon I was a bit late, eh?”

“Yes. Thanks, just the same-I won’t ferget it.”

“Tough luck.”

“How’d you know the old man was goin’ to be in town tonight?”

“Why, I reckon as how everybody exceptin’ you knew it, Bull.”

“Did Colby know it?”

“Why, I recken as how he must of.”

They rode on for some time in silence, which Texas finally broke.

“Jest a moment, an’ where they’d been five o’ us there, We hed suddenly dwindled to three. The barkeep, he was one-the darned son-of-a-gun- An’ the others, a orphan an’ me.”

When Bull and Texas entered the bunkhouse most of the men were asleep, but Hal Colby rolled over on his bunk and smiled at Bull as the latter lighted a lamp.

“Have a good time, Bull?” he inquired.

“The old man was there,” said Bull, “an’ I ain’t foreman no more.”

“Touch luck,” sympathized Colby.