Trail West (A Sam Spur Western Book 6) Page 11

  Chapter Twelve

  Jenner brought his horse to a halt. “Well,” asked Rigbee, “do we go?”

  “You’ll have to wait a while,” Jenner told him. “I have more men coming.”

  Rigbee started so violently that his horse jumped. The rider curbed it with a cruel hand.

  “More men?” he demanded. “What is this? Me and the boys were hired to do this job alone. We don’t want—”

  “That was when we thought we had the Kid to guide us and Sam Spur was dead,” Jenner said.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “The Kid’s run out on us and Spur’s alive.”

  There was dead silence for a moment.

  Rigbee spoke. “Which way did the Kid run?”

  “With Spur.”

  “So we have to cut down on Spur, the Kid and Cuzie Ben. We take on three of the best guns in the territory. That makes a difference. That makes one hell of a difference, doesn’t it, boys?”'

  Rufe Britton said: “I don’t know I want any part of it.”

  “Me neither,” said Huffaker. He had a wife and family to think of. He didn’t hire himself out to get himself killed.

  “All right, boys,” Jenner said, “you want more money.”

  “I didn’t say that,” said Huffaker. “I said I wanted out.”

  “See here,” Jenner said, “there’s more men coming. That and more money and what do you say?”

  “How much more?” Rigbee asked.

  “Another hundred a piece.”

  They haggled for a while, but Jenner was firm. Rigbee saw he wasn’t going to get anywhere, however desperate Jenner might be. Britton and Huffaker reckoned, without too much show of enthusiasm, that they’d go along with him. They dismounted and Britton found a bottle in the house. They passed it around while they waited. They were there an hour before a horseman was heard approaching from the far side of the creek.

  “This’ll be Joe,” Jenner said. “He can track anything on feet.”

  The rider turned his horse into the water and came wading across. The gray light of dawn was now lighting the scene and the waiting men saw that the man was an Apache half-breed. He was dressed in white man’s clothes, but he wore his shirt outside his pants. He was mounted on a ragged little pinto pony and carried a new repeating rifle in his hand. He grunted a greeting to Jenner as he rode up, dismounted, grounded his line and squatted. He built a smoke and didn’t look at anybody. He had a face that looked like it was carved out of hickory. He looked wild and mean. Everybody there was glad that he was on their side.

  Next three men came riding from town. When they drew rein, Jenner introduced them as Lon and Stu Harper, brothers, and Steve Rainer. Every gunman there had seen each other around, every man there knew the reputation of the next man. They were all professionals. They all knew that Jenner had bought the best that money could buy.

  The Harper boys were both small men, both in middle age and were both deadly. They were loyal to each other and were seldom seen apart. When you hired one, you hired them both. Combined, they were the equal of four men. Rainer was a lank Texan, wild and red-headed, a hard drinker when he wasn’t working and known to have a terrible pride and an uncertain temper. A man best left alone because he didn’t kill only for money, he killed because to him killing was a way of life. How he had managed to keep out of the pen nobody knew. The only explanation maybe was that no lawman had the guts or skill to take him.

  Rigbee and his partners were satisfied. If they couldn’t take the three men ahead of them now, nobody could. It was a sobering thought—maybe nobody could. They shrugged their shoulders and mounted. All life was a reckless gamble, so they might as well gamble.

  They forded the river and followed Jenner across country to the arroyo where Spur had made his break-away. Here they dismounted and killed the rest of the bottle while Joe the ’breed sniffed around like a bloodhound.

  Malcolm behind his wall, stayed still until the riders were out of sight. He knew his trade and was well aware that Joe knew his business. He had used him himself in the past. The man could track anything alive and boasted that he could follow a rabbit over rock. The marshal reckoned that wasn’t an idle boast either. He also knew that the half-breed had eyes in the back of his head and was determined that if Joe were using those rear-view eyes of his he wouldn’t see the law coming after him. So he gave the war-party time to pull ahead.

  Joe meanwhile found what he wanted without much trouble, went to a high point and looked back to be sure that they weren’t being followed and came back to Jenner to tell him that Spur and the Kid had laid a trail that even a white man could follow. He set his horse along the sign and the others followed behind.

  They followed Joe for a whole day until they came to the edge of the foothills. It was now nearing dark and Joe said that if the men being followed were half-smart they would try to lose their sign from here on. He would know more in the morning. He added as an afterthought that they were being followed. Jenner asked him how he knew, because he, Jenner, had watched their back-trail through the day. Joe merely answered: “How you know it night?”

  To be on the safe side they set a one man guard. Jenner retired to his blankets uneasy. He wanted to know how many men were behind them and if George Malcolm was one of them. He respected Malcolm and feared him a little.

  As for Malcolm, he camped on the open plain with his horse tied to his left wrist. He didn’t mean to be set afoot in country of this kind. He did no more than feed his horse a few handfuls of corn, wet its mouth from his canteen and loosen the cinches. He didn’t underestimate the scout up ahead of him and knew that the fellow was quite capable of circling in the dark and coming at him from any direction. That being so, he slept lightly, was awake before dawn and saw the light come up with his rifle in his hands. He did not feel foolish when nothing happened.

  He tightened the cinches and mounted with the thought that if Joe were aware of his presence, the trap would be set for him as he entered the hills. All right, he thought, all right. He’d see about that. Maybe this way he could whittle down the odds against Sam. If he were fired on, he was allowed to defend himself. And if he killed a man or two in self-defense that was all right, too. Maybe he would harry them clean into the hills.

  He was alone and vulnerable, but he wasn’t afraid. He headed for the hills.

  Courageous he might have been, but he was no fool. And he knew Joe.

  He followed the trail until he was within a quarter mile of the hills and when he was fairly sure of being able to estimate more or less the exact spot where the men he was trailing had entered them. He now angled to the left to hit the hills some distance north of where a trap might be ready for him.

  Jenner had left the Harper brothers behind to stop any pursuit. He had left orders that if the following party was weak, they were to wipe it out. If it were strong, they were to ride after the rest of the party and warn them. When Lon and Stu saw one man riding toward them across the open country, they nodded to each other, grinned and declared unhesitatingly that it was a cinch.

  They were justifiably annoyed when the solitary rider suddenly angled off north, put spurs to his horse and within a few minutes disappeared into a fold in the hills.

  “Look at that,” Stu declared. “A smart bastard.”

  Lon got to his feet and said: “Let’s go git him.”

  They ran to their horses, piled into the saddle and got on the move.

  It might have looked at a distance of a quarter of a mile that George Malcolm knew just what he was at. But nothing could have been further from the truth. He had thought as far as the cover of the hills, but beyond that he couldn’t even guess. He didn’t know what the men waiting for him would do, that is if there were any men waiting for him.

  So he found what he thought was a good spot for a reverse ambush, got his horse under the best cover he could find and settled down with his rifle in his hands.

  He didn’t have long to wait. Within the
space of a few minutes he heard the clatter of hoofs. Which meant that either only one man had waited for him or there were more and they had split up. He knew this to be the truth when he heard another horse a little further east. He reckoned the first man was coming almost directly toward him and the other would come round on his left flank. That he didn’t like too much. However, a man couldn’t have it all the ways he wanted.

  In a short while a rider came into sight and he didn’t need a pair of glasses to tell him that it was Stu Harper. He knew the man of old. This fact also told him that the other rider he had heard must be the man’s brother, Lon.

  That meant he was up against two tough hombres. If he had any sense at all he would shoot first and ask questions afterwards.

  That was something, regretfully, he could not do. After all, as he reminded himself now, he was a lawman.

  Stu rode to within about fifty feet of him and drew rein. He looked about him worriedly. Malcolm smiled to himself. Stu had seen him from the rocks back there and he knew who it was and the fact didn’t make him too happy. That gave the marshal a little satisfaction if nothing more.

  He levered a round into the breech of his rifle and called out: “Looking for me, Stu?”

  Malcolm had guessed that would be a cue for action, but he never thought to see such action so rapidly executed.

  No sooner had he finished his sentence than Stu Harper had dropped over the side of his horse, landed on his feet and sent two shots hammering up at him.

  The marshal couldn’t help himself ducking.

  He knew Stu’s skill with guns and shifted his position a little before he put his head up for his first shot. The man below spotted him before he could press his own trigger and the bullet hit rock not a couple of inches from his face, blew rock splinters painfully into his face and made him flinch back. Not before, however, he had seen that Stu was standing behind his horse using the animal as cover.

  Right, thought Malcolm, the horse goes first. He decided that with regret but knew that he had to down Stu before Lon arrived on the scene. He could hear the other brother pounding in his direction already, warned by the sound of the rifle.

  He crawled rapidly south, came around the edge of a boulder, sighted rapidly on the horse and shot it through the head. The animal went down as if it were pole axed. He sent three shots rapidly after the first only to find that Stu had thrown himself down behind the dead animal and was returning his fire with interest.

  Malcolm started to sweat now.

  The sound of the approaching horse had stopped now. That meant that Lon was working his way through the rocks. Malcolm decided that it was time he made a big move or he would be finishing up dead.

  He crawled east now, hoping that he was going past Lon and that he would get both men in front of him. This also meant that he was working his way onto higher ground. This might give him the advantage he would soon badly need.

  Down on the lower ground, Stu was bellowing directions to Lon.

  When Malcolm thought that he was high enough and far enough to the east, he came to a halt and put his gun back on Stu. Now that he was on higher ground he could see almost the whole of the man’s body as he lay behind his horse. Tension rose in him, as it always did before he cut down on a man. After all it was no light matter. When he pressed that trigger a man might die.

  As he sighted on the man, Stu got to his feet and started running for the cover of the nearest rocks. Had he done it a half-minute before he would have been able to make it safely. He had left it too late.

  It was not a difficult shot for a man of Malcolm’s skill with guns. Even so, he could have done better. He should have killed Stu. A wounded Harper was a dangerous animal. As it was, he shot him in the legs. Stu seemed to trip on his own heels and hit the ground violently to roll over several times. Malcolm put another shot in his direction, but he himself came under fire from the south and he saw that Lon was on the same level as himself. They exchanged several shots and Lon’s accurate shooting drove Malcolm to better cover. Lon, however, had either had enough himself or he wanted to get down below and attend to his wounded brother. He broke off the fight and Malcolm had a glimpse of him a little later making his way down through the rocks. The marshal held his fire, hoping for a plain shot at him as he came out of cover to reach the wounded man.

  He settled down to wait.

  Spur halted the mare.

  “There’s something wrong,” he said.

  He didn’t know why he knew that, maybe it was just some instinct founded upon unconscious knowledge. He and the Cimarron Kid had come out above the shelf on which the mine stood and were gazing down onto the opening of the shaft at a distance of about a quarter-mile. Ben was not in sight. But that was to be expected. Spur knew that the Negro had taken up a position on the bluff above the mine so that he could easily cover its entrance from a position of advantage.

  “Kid,” Spur said, “ease your way around to the right yonder.” He pointed to the higher land to the east well-covered with timber. The Kid nodded and rode slowly off, pulling his rifle from its boot. Spur wondered how much he could trust the boy. He had gone over to the other side for money once and he could do it again. He wondered why the hell he bothered with him. One day he was going to bring him a lot of grief. Maybe Ben was right and they should rid themselves of him.

  He himself went straight ahead, rifle out and ready, going slowly into the open space before the mine shaft.

  If there were anybody in wait down there for him, they would have heard him by now.

  “Ben,” he called, “sing out.”

  He halted and listened.

  Silence.

  He didn’t like it. His nerves and muscles tensed themselves for instant action. His eyes moved from the cabin to the left to the mouth of the shaft and over to the right up into the trees. He could see the Kid working his way slowly through them. A shot might come his way at any moment.

  He halted the mare in the center of the open space in front of the mine and slipped from the saddle.

  On foot he headed for the mine shaft, moving along to one side of it, flicking his eyes warily to right and left.

  At last he reached the open maw of the mine.

  Everything was still.

  He walked into the darkness of the mine, keeping close against the wall, his finger on the trigger of the Spencer. He stopped and listened, went on.

  Finally, he came to the spot where the prisoners had lain.

  They were gone.

  He let the air out of his straining lungs and walked back the way he had come. The Kid was dismounted near the mare.

  “There ain’t a damn thing here,” the Kid said. “Maybe Ben lit out. It could make sense.”

  “Let’s look around,” Spur said.

  They searched through the cabin, the mouth of the mineshaft, the high land around the mine. And they found nothing but the sign of horses. There didn’t seem to be anything that told them there had been a fight.

  “You could be right,” Spur said. “Maybe Ben just moved.”

  They now searched through the timber more carefully and Spur picked up the sign of the horses. The sign seemed right. Ben could merely have shifted the prisoners. Spur thought that made sense. He knew that Ben didn’t trust the Kid and the Kid had ridden out of here with the knowledge of where the prisoners were being kept. That was like Ben—always cautious. Spur approved.

  They followed along the trail and it took them deep into the mountains. They followed it through the day and toward dusk they lost it.

  Spur knew Ben meant them to lose it.

  They decided to make camp. They found a good spot with grass for the horses near water. They were about to settle down in their blankets when a coyote cried not far away. Spur sat up and sent a similar call back. Not long after, Ben walked into camp. He was nothing more than a dark blur in the dim light of the stars.

  “Lucky I ain’t nobody else,” he said witheringly. “I could of blowed your heads off.”


  The Kid snarled: “You sure wasted our time.”

  Ben jerked his head toward the Kid.

  “I see you still got him taggin’ along,” he said. “You mean he didn’t play you double in town.”

  Spur grinned.

  “He played me double,” he said. “But he came back on my side when it came to it.”

  The Kid was mad.

  “All I wanted was to earn a little cash. Where’s the harm in that?” he demanded angrily.

  “It nearly got me killed,” Spur reminded him gently.

  “I never can’t do right,” the Kid complained bitterly.

  “That’s right,” said Ben. “You can’t.”

  Spur said: “Where’ve you got Strange and Offing?”

  “No more’n a spit away,” said Ben. “Come on.”

  They rolled their blankets and saddled their horses. Slowly they followed Ben through the night. It wasn’t long before Spur saw why Ben had moved. He had found a spot that could be defended much more easily than the mine. It was a natural cave in the mountain with a great overhang of rock that protected the position from above. There was water here. No more than a freshet, but enough to keep them from thirst. It was a natural fortress.

  “Pretty good,” said Spur.

  The two prisoners were lying tied inside the cave. It would take smart and bold men to get them out of there.

  Ben said: “There’s men not far behind you. I spotted them earlier today. They should come up with us tomorrow. I played around with my sign a mite to hold ’em up. But they’ll be here tomorrow. If we was to take one or two of ’em, I reckon we’d have this case tied up tight. One of ’em has to talk.” He showed his white teeth. “If they don’t I show ’em my knife and look like a real savage nigger. That should move their tongues.”

  Spur took first guard while the other two got into their blankets. Ben refused to allow the Kid to stand guard. He said he’d played them false once and Ben wasn’t going to risk that happening again. The Kid sulked.

  The night was uneventful and they awoke to a glorious mountain dawn. They watered the horses and fed the prisoners. Both men were now sullen and desperate. Spur offered to help them if they cared to talk. He tried everything he could think of, telling them that Jenner was going to have them killed, that he had already tried to do that, but it didn’t have any effect on them.