The Coming of Cassidy by Clarence E. Mulford (romantic novels in english TXT) 📕

Skinny looked after him and smiled. “Larry, there’s a blamed fine youngster,” he remarked, reflectively. “Well, he ought to be—he had th’ best mother God ever put breath into.” He thought for a moment and then went slowly towards the door. “I’ve heard so much about Bradley’s gunplay that I’m some curious. Reckon I’ll see if it’s all true,” and he had leaped through the doorway, gun in hand. There was no shot, no sign of his enemy. A group of men lounged in the door of the “hash house” farther down the street, all friends of his, and he nodded to them. One of them turned quickly and looked down the intersecting street, saying something that made his companions turn and look with him. The man who had been standing quietly by the corner saloon had disappeared. Skinny smiling knowingly, moved closer to Quigg’s shack so as to be better able to see around the indicated corner, and half drew the Colt which he had just replaced in the holster. As he drew even with the corner of the building he heard Quigg’s warning shout and dropped instantly, a bullet singing over him and into a window of a near-by store. He rolled around the corner, scrambled to his feet and dashed around the rear of the saloon and the corral behind it, crossed the street in four bounds and began to work up behind the buildings on his enemy’s side^of the street, cold with anger.

“Pot shooting, hey!” he gritted, savagely.

“Says I’m a-scared to face him, an’ then tries that. There, d—n you!” His Colt exploded and a piece of wood sprang from the corner board of Wright’s store. “Missed!” he swore. “Anyhow, I’ve notified you, you coyote.”

He sprang forward, turned the corner of the store and followed it to the street. When he came to the street end cf the wall he leaped past it, his Colt preceding him. Finding no one to dispute with him he moved cautiously towards the other corner and stopped. Giving a quick glance around, he smiled suddenly, for the glass in Quigg’s half -open door, with the black curtain behind it, made a fair mirror. He could see the reflection of Wright’s corral and Ace leaning against it, ready to handle the brother if he should appear as a belligerent; and he could see along the other side of the store, where Dick Bradley, crouched, was halfway to the street and coming nearer at each slow step.

Skinny, remembering the shot which he had so narrowly escaped, resolved that he wouldn’t take chances with a man who would pot-shoot. He wheeled, slipped back along his side of the building, turned the rear corner and then, spurting, sprang out beyond the other wall, crying: “Here!”

Bradley, startled, fired under his arm as he leaped aside. Turning while in the air, his halfraised Colt described a swift, short arc and roared as he alighted. As the bullet sang past his enemy’s ear he staggered and fell, and Skinny’s smoking gun chocked into its holster.

“There, you coyote!” muttered the victor. “Yore brother is next if he wants to take it up.”

*

As night fell Skinny rode into a small grove and prepared to camp there. Picketing his horse, he removed the saddle and dropped it where he would sleep, for a saddle makes a fair pillow. He threw his blanket after it and then started a quick, hot fire for his coffee-making. While gathering fuel for it he came across a large log and determined to use it for his night fire, and for that purpose carried it back to camp with him. It was not long before he had reduced the provisions in his saddle-bags and leaned back against a tree to enjoy a smoke. Suddenly he knocked the ashes from his pipe and grew thoughtful, finally slipping it into his pocket and getting up.

“That coyote’s brother will know I went North an’ all about it,” he muttered. “He knows I’ve got to camp tonight an’ he can foller a trail as good as th’ next man. An’ he knows I shot his brother. I reckon, mebby, he’ll be some surprised.”

An hour later a blanket-covered figure lay with its carefully covered feet to the fire, and its head, sheltered from the night air by a sombrero, lay on the saddle. A rifle barrel projected above the saddle, the dim flickering light of the greenwood fire and a stray beam or two from the moon glinted from its rustless surface. The fire was badly constructed, giving almost no light, while the leaves overhead shut out most of the moonlight.

Thirty yards away, in another clearing, a horse moved about at the end of a lariat and contentedly cropped the rich grass, enjoying a good night’s rest. An hour passed, another, and a third and fourth, and then the horse’s ears flicked forward as it turned its head to see what approached.

A crouched figure moved stealthily forward to the edge of the clearing, paused to read the brand on the animal’s flank and then moved off towards the fitful light of the smoking fire. Closer and closer it drew until it made out the indistinct blanketed figure on the ground. A glint from the rifle barrel caused it to shrink back deeper into the shadows and raise the weapon it carried. For half a minute it stood thus and then, holding back the trigger of the rifle so there would be no warning clicks, drew the hammer to a full cock and let the trigger fall into place, slowly moving forward all the while. A passing breeze fanned the fire for an instant and threw the grotesque shadow of a stump across the quiet figure in the clearing.

The skulker raised his rifle and waited until he had figured out the exact mark and then a burst of fire and smoke leaped into the brush. He bent low to look under the smoke cloud and saw that the figure had not moved. Another flash split the night and then, assured beyond a doubt, he moved forward quickly.

“First shot!” he exclaimed with satisfaction. “I reckons you won’t do no boastin’ ‘bout killin’ Dick, d—n you!”

As he was about to drop to his knees to search the body he started and sprang back, glancing fearfully around as he drew his Colt.

“Han’s up!” came the command from the edge of the clearing as a man stepped into sight. “I reckon “Skinny leaped aside as the other’s gun roared out and fired from his hip; and Sam Bradley plunged across the blanket-covered log and leaves.

“There,” Skinny soliloquized, moving forward. “I knowed they was coyotes, both of ‘em. Knowed it all th’ time.”

Two days north of Skinny on the bank of Little Wind River a fire was burning itself out, while four men lay on the sand or squatted on their heels and watched it contentedly. “Yes, I got plumb sick of that country,” Lanky Smith was saying, “an’ when Buck sent for me to go up an’ help him out, I pulls up, an’ here I am.”

“I never heard of th’ Bar-20,” replied a little, wizened man, whose eyes were so bright they seemed to be on fire. “Didn’t know there was any ranches in that country.”

“Buck’s got th’ only one,” responded Lanky, packing his pipe. “He’s located on Snake Creek, an’ he’s got four thousand head. Reckon there ain’t nobody within two hundred mile of him. Lewis said he’s got a fine range an’ all th’ water he can use; but three men can’t handle all them cows in that country, so I’m goin’ up.”

The little man’s eyes seldom left Lanky’s face, and he seemed to be studying the stranger very closely. When Lanky had ridden upon their noon-day camp the little man had not lost a movement that the stranger made and the other two, disappearing quietly, returned a little later and nodded reassuringly to their leader.

The wizened leader glanced at one of his companions, but spoke to Lanky. “George, here, said as how they finally got Butch Lynch. You didn’t hear nothin’ about it, did you?”

“They was a rumor down on Mesquite range that Butch was got. I heard his gang was wiped out. Well, it had to come sometime he was carryin’ things with a purty high hand for a long time. But I’ve done heard that before; more ‘n once, too. I reckon Butch is a li’l too slick to get hisself killed.”

“Ever see him?” asked George carelessly.

“Never; an’ don’t want to. If them fellers can’t clean their own range an’ pertect their own cows, I ain’t got no call to edge in.”

“He’s only a couple of inches taller ‘n Jim,” observed the third man, glancing at his leader, “an’ about th’ same build. But he’s h—l on th’ shoot. I saw him twice, but I was mindin’ my own business.”

Lanky nodded at the leader. “That’d make him about as tall as me. Size don’t make no dif rence no more King Colt makes ‘em look all alike.”

Jim tossed away his cigarette and arose, stretching and grunting. “I shore ate too much,” he complained. “Well, there’s one thing about yore friend’s ranch: he ain’t got no rustlers to fight, so he ain’t as bad off as he might be. I reckon he done named that crick hisself, didn’t he? I never heard tell of it.”

“Yes; so Lewis says. He says he’d called it Split Mesa Crick, ‘cause it empties into Mesa River plumb acrost from a big mesa what’s split in two as clean as a knife could ‘a’ done it.”

“The Bar-20 expectin’ you?” casually asked Jim as he picked up his saddle.

“Shore; they done sent for me. Me an’ Buck is old friends. He was up in Montana ranchin’ with a pardner, but Slippery Trendley kills his pardner’s wife an’ drove th’ feller loco. Buck an’ him hunted Slippery for two years an’ finally drifted back south again. I dunno where Frenchy is. If it wasn’t for me I reckon Buck’d still be on th’ warpath. You bet he’s expectin’ me!” He turned and threw his saddle on the evil-tempered horse he rode and, cinching deftly, slung himself up by the stirrup. As he struck the saddle there was a sharp report and he pitched off and sprawled grotesquely on the sand. The little man peered through the smoke and slid his gun back into the holster. He turned to his companions, who looked on idly and with but little interest. “Yo’re d—d right Butch Lynch is too slick to get killed ~ I ain’t takin’ no chances with nobody that rides over my trail these days. An’, boys, I got a great scheme! It comes to me like a flash when he’s talkin’. Come on, pull out; an’ don’t open yore traps till I says so. I want to figger this thing out to th’ last card. George, shoot his cayuse; an’ not another sound.”

“But that’s a good cayuse; worth easy—”

“Shoot it!” shouted Jim, his eyes snapping. It was unnecessary to add the alternative, for George and his companion had great respect for the lightning-like, deadly-accurate gun hands. He started to draw, but was too late. The crashing report seemed to come from the leader’s holster, so quick had been the draw, and the horse sank slowly down, but unobserved. Two pairs of eyes asked a question of the little man and he sneered in reply as he lowered the gun. “It might ‘a’ been you. Hereafter