Flaming Feud, page 12
He lay low, concentrating upon the marksman beyond the calico, squinting through the blinding sun glare. Droning and whistling, lead pecked around him. The fellow in the rear was unpleasantly persistent. His bullets bounced off the rock above Fiddlefoot's head and were dropping too low for comfort. But the fugitive didn't dare turn to face him, not with another marksman flinging lead ahead.
At last, he saw what he sought, the glint of sunlight upon the barrel of a rifle, beside a rounded boulder high up on the slope. He cuddled the Winchester to his shoulder and watched the spot. Again the gleam. He raised upon his elbows, squeezed the trigger. As the gun bucked, a slug moaned off the rock beside him and chips sprayed his face. Across the defile, he saw something move in the scant shadow of the boulder. He levered, again squeezed trigger. The form of a man, hatless, jerked into view, threshed around like a fish fresh out of water and then lay still, plain in the sunlight.
With grim satisfaction, Fiddlefoot levered another shell into the chamber. One down! Now for the pesky gent behind him.
Body pressed low, he wormed around, searching the slope that inclined up to the rock wall for sign of his tormentor. Another slug droned close and he glimpsed a faint cloud of powdersmoke drifting lazily above a heap of talus. Aligning his Winchester, he waited, attention focussed upon the spot… a smashing blow almost wrenched the rifle out of his grasp. The shell in the breach exploded and whined skyward and the butt slammed against his right ear with paralyzing force. Half-stunned, head ringing from the blow, he rolled sideways out of the field of fire of the man with whom he was trading lead.
Bewildered, he sought the cause of his sudden upset. His puzzled glance fell on the rifle, and the question was answered. A bullet had struck the barrel at an angle, plowed down its length, splintering the stock, carrying away the trigger guard and smashing the trigger. By a miracle, the scourging lead had been deflected and had missed him. Somberly, he eyed the wrecked rifle and pondered the extent of the calamity. Now he was practically defenseless, and four relentless killers were stalking him from the slopes around. His six-gun was useless, except for short range. They could keep their distance and riddle him at leisure. Vanished was the forlorn hope of holding them off until nightfall. He would be lucky to live an hour.
He pushed aside the useless weapon, crawled between two boulders and drew his six-gun. All he could do now was to await the end.
The onslaught slackened now. It was plain to the dust-smothered sweating fugitive that the gunmen lurking in the rocks around were puzzled by his lack of response. It was plain, too, that they were working slowly but inexorably closer.
A shadow drifted over him. He squinted upward. Two black buzzards were circling on sluggish wings. The sun was directly overhead now, its torrid rays biting into his back and scorching his neck as he waited for the lobos around to creep in for the kill. Strangely, his thoughts were not of death, but of water, cold, clear water. His tongue was thick and leathery and his mouth felt as though it was packed with dry cinders. Dust, powdered upon his dry skin, burned like slow fire.
Again the raw spang of Winchesters built up into a rapid drumfire. This, figured the fugitive, was the payoff. They thought him dead, but were raking his refuge before the final assault. A bullet tore at a boot heel, almost twirling him over, another droned so close that he could feel the draft of its passage. Debris dribbled down from the boulder above him. The wolves were closing in. Omens of death, the circling buzzards shadowed him. He gripped his six-gun and braced for his finish.
Chapter 16
Gunfire cut off. A hoarse shouting reached the trapped rider's ears. Perplexed, he wormed forward until he could get sight of the down slope. His assailants were fleeing frantically, leaping downhill and darting around scattered boulders like startled jackrabbits.
The cause of the bushwhackers' panic became plain when a file of horsemen threaded up the defile. At a glance, Fiddlefoot recognized the deputy's spare figure, Weary's long form, Dave Winters, other Boxed H riders. This was plainly the posse. Thought of escape leapt into the blocky rider's mind. He glanced quickly at his pony below, then remembered that his late attackers were ahead and his Winchester was smashed. Dejectedly, he dropped down the slope, reached his calico as Frosty reined up.
"Stretch!" rasped the lawman.
Fiddlefoot's hands came up shoulder high. Frosty stepped down, unbuckled his gunbelt and looped it across his own saddle horn. "What's the ruckus?" he demanded.
The prisoner's lips framed words, but his thickened tongue and parched throat produced no more than an inarticulate grunt. The deputy ignored his motion toward a canteen. Weary stepped down, extended a waterbag. Fiddlefoot took it eagerly. The moisture loosened up his throat. While the possemen crowded around, he told of the trap into which he had ridden and his fight for his life.
"Most saved the law a chore," commented Frosty dryly. "Wal, I guess we kin head for home." A thought struck him, "Who d'yuh figger the hombres were who corralled yuh?"
"The same old gang—Red's rustlers."
"Yuh salivated Red mebbe?" There was brittle inquiry in the lawman's voice.
"I'm no bushwhacker!"
"The record don't say so!"
"But the sign does," broke in Weary. "Lamp his pony, you old gopher, does it paddle?"
"You forgot Rock?" snapped Frosty.
"He didn't down Rock neither!"
"The sheriff don't think thet way," retorted the deputy, "and the proof don't point thet way. Le's ride!"
Jogging across the arid waste of rock towards the valley beside Frosty, the posse stringing behind, Fiddlefoot considered the attack. He was willing to stake his saddle that Butch was behind it. If so, it gave further proof of the beefy rider's guilt. Not that it mattered a damn now, he thought wearily. With Red gone, there would be no more rescue attempts. Butch would take over the gang, and would be as happy as a free nigger if he swung.
Again he breathed the stale stench of the adobe jail and heard Frosty snap the padlock on the hasp of the creaking door. One scant comfort was that he wore no irons, only because the deputy had none.
Day died. The prisoner shook the last crumbs of tobacco out of his sack and built a flabby cigarette. Hunkered against the wall of the darkened cell, he listened to the slow tread of the guard outside and considered the future. That future, he reflected gloomily, was likely to be brief. He'd hang for Rock's killing and the real bushwhacker would escape justice. His grey eyes hardened and his fists clenched with impotent anger as he thought of Butch, the slovenly, shifty-eyed two-gun man, plainly guilty of Red's murder and equally capable of bushwhacking Rock, escaping scot-free.
The rotting roof creaked and groaned above him. The prisoner's pulse pounded with quick excitement as he faintly discerned a swinging rope. In a flash he was on his feet, moving forward. His outstretched hands fastened on a knotted rawhide lariat. Hand over hand he went up the swaying rope. His head thrust through a gap in the flat roof. He crept across it. A pony was blotched in the semi-darkness of the starry night. It was the calico, saddled and bridled, his gunbelt looped on the horn. In the moonlight the form of the guard in front of the adobe was plain—it was Dave Winters.
The Dragoons were cloaked in quivering heat waves and the rattlesnakes sought the deepest crevices beneath the rocks when Fiddlefoot jogged into the rustlers' hideaway. At his appearance, the listlessness of the lounging renegades dropped away, replaced by a taut expectancy. Butch, and three of his cronies, were hunkered apart, playing cards. But the blocky rider forgot them and his eyes focussed upon a slim rider in checked shirt and corduroys, with flaming red hair. His jaw slackened with surprise when he recognized the oval features of Monte Molly.
Quickly, the rustlers gathered around Fiddlefoot's trail-stained form, anxious to learn the truth of Red's killing. The girl trailed over, too. Only Butch and his companions remained apart, bunched in bleak silence.
"Wal," demanded Dakota, "You got the lowdown?"
"Yep!" replied Fiddlefoot tersely.
"We're listening!"
"I reckon Butch should be in on this, too." The blocky rider raised his voice, "Hey, Butch, I got the straight on Red's killing. Ain't you interested?"
"Not in yore windies!" boomed the big rustler.
Fiddlefoot smiled thinly, "I'll take that up later!" He told the gang of Weary's finding the body, the sign that plainly pointed to Butch as the killer, and the trap into which he had himself ridden on the previous day.
No one spoke when he was through, but the heads of the half-dozen men around him slewed around towards Butch and his party, and there was cold condemnation in their eyes.
Dakota broke a taut silence, his voice bitter, "So thet's why Butch rode out with four men at sunup yesterday, and brought three back — the snake-blooded coyote! Claimed he raided the Boxed H!" He turned to the girl, "You beat it, ma'am, I kin smell gunplay."
The rustlers around Fiddlefoot growled approval. Boots scraped on rock as they spread, half-circling Butch's party. Molly was staring at Butch with incredulous eyes. She had not moved at Dakota's warning. "Vamoose, ma'am!" urged Fiddlefoot, low-voiced, "Hell's due to break loose."
"Let me kill the skunk!" Her voice was strained in an intensity of anger. "Give me a gun!"
"Keep outa this!" threw back Fiddlefoot sharply. He stepped forward, beyond the crescent of men. His voice raised, "Hold yore hawses, gents! This is strictly between me and Butch and we're gonna settle it right now. You Jaspers siding him! Stand aside, he don't need you tuh back him—he packs two guns!"
Dakota spoke up behind him, "Leave Butch play his own hand, you mavericks, or we'll blast the whole bunch!"
The three men beside the big rustler began to shuffle away, leaving him standing alone. Fiddlefoot heard the scrape of boots as men moved from behind him. This was the way he wanted it—man to man. "Butch, you yellow killer," he said softly, "Go f'r yore gun!" As he spoke, his right hand dabbed down.
The beefy rustler's right-hand gun had already cleared leather. Too hastily, it thundered in hip-low aim and the slug gouged the rock at Fiddlefoot's foot. He thumbed the hammer again, but Fiddlefoot's forty-five was spitting, as fast as a snake strikes. The first bullet took Butch in his hairy chest. He staggered back, rocking from the impact, and fighting to level his wobbling iron. Another pitiless slug smashed his gun arm, and a third whipped clear through his bare throat. His body crashed down in a flurry of dust. Smoking iron in his fist, Fiddlefoot watched the sprawled form. Butch's limbs jerked convulsively, once, then slackened in death.
Dakota's voice broke the silence that succeeded the blare of gunfire, "Gawd, thet was fast!"
At sight of Butch's bloodied form, draped on the dusty ground, his three cohorts moved towards their ponies. While the remainder of the gang watched silently, they saddled up, mounted and rode away.
The red-headed girl approached Fiddlefoot. "Why would—he—kill Red?" she asked, blue eyes puzzled, as she gestured towards the dead man. "They were friends, they fought side by side."
"Why does a rattler strike, ma'am? It's jest the nature of the critter. Butch craved to rod this gang—and Red was in the way. Thet's all!"
"It was a sad day," she burst out, "that brought the Rourkes to Arizona."
"You look for trouble and you'll find it—anywhere." Fiddlefoot eyed her troubled features with the ghost of a smile, "Trouble kinda trails you redheads. Howcome you folks headed west?"
"Years back, dad's half brother was crippled in a gunfight—"
"Not in Texas!" put in Fiddlefoot, with simulated disbelief.
"In Texas! He came west and when mother died, dad and the boys followed."
"And started trouble!"
"All my father wanted was water and a piece of land."
"And he tried to grab it off Rock Hansen!"
"It was free Government range," she disputed hotly.
"So it went to the gent with the fastest gun!"
"The man who could hire the largest force of killers!"
"I think, ma'am, yore a mite prejudiced," said Fiddlefoot, with a grin, "and I'm quitting the argument before we lock horns."
The gang had bunched, with Dakota in their midst. Now the old renegade broke away and approached the pair. "We done elected you leader, Fiddlefoot," he announced.
The blocky rider's lips quirked with amusement—first Border outcast, then range detective, next prisoner accused of triple murder, now rustler leader. Events moved fast. But his thoughts were busy, considering Dakota's words. Why not take him up? He was beyond the law. Forever he must remain a fugitive, shadowed by the hangman's noose. How could he better avoid arrest than by becoming the leader of this hard-riding, fast-shooting gang of renegades?
"Hunky-dory!" he told Dakota and turned back to the girl, "Maybe you could put me straight. Was Red running the deal on his lonesome, or was he hitched with Nick?"
"They had an agreement. Red rustled the cows, changed the brands and drove them to the Border. Nick arranged for their sale and collected the money. They split the proceeds."
Fiddlefoot could not resist a dig, "And you rustled the Boxed H punchers' pay checks! Was thet part of the deal?"
"It was," she admitted coolly. "We were fighting the Boxed H—Red in his way, I in mine."
Fiddlefoot rasped his chin, considering, "Maybe I should check with Nick and see jest how we stand."
"Red used to ride in nights, hide his pony in Nick's barn and tap the back door—four sharp raps."
Once again Fiddlefoot crossed the ford and followed the wagon road into Adobe. It was after midnight and the town ahead was wrapt in darkness. As he jogged along, his thoughts dwelt on Rock's killing. Had Butch plugged the cowman, as he had Red, or was the killer still alive? If only he knew who picked up Nick's gun, pondered the rider, he would have the answer. Mentally, he reviewed the events that followed the murder—the sheriff's visit to the Barred M; the Dude's trip to Bitter Spring; Weary's absence; the finding of Jack Small's badge; Nick's denials. Then, as though the sun had knifed through black clouds, the identity of the killer leapt into his mind. The longer he pondered, the more convinced he became. All he needed was proof!
Cases of empty bottles were stacked against the rear of The Longhorn. Fiddlefoot dismounted, trailed his reins and knocked the door—four times. He heard a stirring within, the complaint of a withdrawn bolt. The door inched open and Nick eyed him through a narrow crack, small eyes hard with suspicion.
"I done took over the gang," said the blocky rider shortly, "and I figure we should powwow."
"Where's Butch Mulloy?"
"Dead!"
"Not—you?"
"Yep, me!" Fiddlefoot grinned faintly, "I give him three pills, the kind yuh can't digest."
"Well, what do you want with me?"
"I got a notion you and Red worked in cahoots. Maybe we should get together."
"You've got the wrong idea, mister," asserted the saloon man forcefully, and pulled back. Before he could close the partially opened door, Fiddlefoot's right boot kicked forward and wedged it. "Open up!" he directed curtly, "Or I'm liable to talk with lead."
Reluctantly, the saloon man gave way and the rider followed him into the room.
"Le's have more light!" Fiddlefoot stood by the desk, gun menacing Nick. The latter turned and reached for the oil lamp bracketed on the wall.
As the light brightened, Fiddlefoot's gaze dropped to a yellow telegraph form lying on the desk. The word "Rock" caught his eye. Unobserved, he gathered up the flimsy and crushed it into a pants pocket. "Now," he drawled, "Tell me howcome you got cold feet?"
"You tell me," fumed the saloon owner, rage burning in his small eyes, "Why you, an admitted killer, dare to break into the home of an honest man and make senseless accusations. What Red did is none of my business, or your business."
Fiddlefoot smiled easily. "Yore lying, Nick! You know it and I know it. I'm gonna make it my business to prove it. Whittle-whaming won't get us nowheres, so I guess I'll beat it. So-long!" With a cold grin, he backed to the door.
Outside of town again, he checked the calico and pulled the crumpled telegram out of his pocket. By the light of a match he read:
NICK DARDON,
ADOBE.
MISS PRISCILLA HALLIFORD ONLY DAUGHTER OF THE LATE ROCK HANSEN'S SISTER JUST ARRIVED FROM BOSTON TO CLAIM BOXED H. I EXPLAINED MISSING SON HAD BEEN FOUND. SHE IS PROCEEDING TO ADOBE TO MEET HIM. ASK THAT YOU AFFORD HER EVERY COURTESY.
WARNER WALLINGTON.
Fiddlefoot stared at the yellow form, forehead furrowed. Why would Rock's lawyer wire Nick, a bitter enemy of the cowman, to help one of Rock's relatives from the East? Maybe it was a simple act of courtesy. Maybe the message held a deeper meaning. As he pondered, light began to dawn.
Chapter 17
A prim young lady mounted the wooden stairway that led to Warner Wallington's law office, opposite the high-windowed courthouse in Fremont Wells, the county seat. High button shoes encased her neat ankles and her severely cut black bodice was fastened with a plain gold broach high beneath a small chin that held a hint of obstinacy. Crowned by a poke bonnet, her hair, black as a raven's wing, was gathered in a tight knot. But her oldmaidish garb failed to conceal the shapeliness of a lithe young body, and there was a vivacity in her black eyes that protested the studied composure of her features. A piquant little nose, slightly uptilted, joined in the protest.
At sight of his visitor, Warner Wallington, attorney-at-law and aspiring politician, hastily scraped back his chair. Despite the paunchiness of middle age and a spreading bald spot, he still had an appreciative eye for a pleasing feminine form.
