Flaming Feud, page 4
He ejected a brown stream of tobacco juice into the fire, "Sure, Red, when do we string 'em up?"
The redhead directed his attention to Fiddlefoot, "Howcome you conked our lookout and butted into the canyon?" His voice was harsh.
"Howcome you rustled our cows?" retorted the rider.
"You ride f'r the Boxed H?"
"Nope, the Barred M."
Butch exploded into a roar of laughter. "Now I git it! Dakota lamped the dood and two saddle-pounders combing the range f'r seventy-four cows and two bulls. This is the Limey's crew. I gamble they followed Dakota's sign."
The redhead chewed his underlip, hard blue eyes dwelling on the prisoners. Butch still chuckled throatily. That and the crackle of dry sticks on the fire were the only sounds, save for the mournful lowing of cows on the flat.
"They's only one out," decided Red finally, "You gotta throw in with the gang. It's thet or a rope."
"Count me in!" came back Fiddlefoot promptly.
"Me, I never did fancy a tight collar," declared Weary.
"Hold yore hawses!" boomed Butch. "Le's frisk 'em!" He swaggered up to Weary, fingered the tall rider's loose-hanging vest, pulled out the contents of his pants pockets—and found nothing but a jackknife, matches and the makin's.
Cold sweat bathed Fiddlefoot as he remembered the brass badge. Butch was bulking in front of him now. The big, gnarled hands probed his pockets. Fiddlefoot's grey-eyes hardened with the defiance of despair as the rustler held up a brass badge with a triumphant roar, "I hadda hunch! This coyote is an Association dick. Ef we don't swing him and his pard pronto, every gordamn man in this canyon u'll stew in Yuma. Lamp this, Red!"
The metal gleamed in the firelight as he flicked the badge across to the rustler leader. Red caught it, examined it briefly, nodded. "At sunup," he agreed laconically, and tossed the badge away.
Chapter 5
Above the rustlers' camp towered the cliff wall. At its base a rude shack was set amid thin brush.
Without further talk, the two condemned prisoners were hustled out of the circle of firelight, back to the shack, inside of which the stocky packer with the tobacco-stained mustache was stacking supplies. Their gunbelts were unbuckled and tossed into the shack. One was hazed to each side of the building. Their legs were securely lashed and their captors roughly toppled them over into the brush, where they were left, helplessly trussed.
Stable lantern swinging from his hand, the packer stepped outside and inspected them. "I gamble you wisht you never found them cows," he commented dryly, and moved off to join his pards by the campfire.
After awhile the thud of hooves reached Fiddlefoot's ears. He levered his body to a sitting position. Through a tracery of twigs he saw riders leading their ponies out onto the cleared space from the shade of the chaparral. Cinches were tightened and headstalls adjusted. Ten men, led by the redhead, jogged out into the night. Another raid on Boxed H beef, considered Fiddlefoot. Only Dakota, the packer, who was apparently cook and roustabout, remained seated by the fire.
As Fiddlefoot watched, the glimmering of a plan came into his mind. It was plain that the only chance of Weary and himself seeing another sunrise was to make a break before the rustlers returned.
He commenced a desperate struggle to loosen his bonds. Twisting, squirming and wrenching, he rolled around in the darkness.
Disturbed by the threshing in the brush, Dakota picked up his lantern and waddled over on bowed legs. Eying the undergrowth, crushed by the struggles of the prisoner, he chuckled with grim humor, and moved off to check on Weary. Again, the blocky rider began to squirm around. The rustler returned, irritation in his quick steps. "Quit stirrin' up a racket or I'll conk yuh!" he promised sourly.
"Torture ain't in the sentence," protested the rider. "Loosen up this rope a mite!"
"You won't suffer long," came back Dakota. "Come sunup you'll be flapping yore lily-white wings."
He wandered back to the fire.
Fiddlefoot lay watching the solitary man by the fire. The first part of his plan was accomplished—he had worked to the edge of the brush, so that he could roll out onto the cleared ground without too much noise or difficulty. Now, he had to wait until Dakota slept.
Silence settled down upon the canyon. The moon, almost full, floated serenely against the velvet of the heavens. Small night animals rustled around the shack and the deep bellow of a bull echoed down canyon.
Fiddlefoot still watched Dakota, set comfortably against the curve of a saddle beside the fire. Time dragged and the flames died down to glowing embers. The rustler's head nodded. As the embers blackened the guard's body slumped, head dropping forward upon his chest.
Finally, when the fire had gutted down to smoking ashes and the moonlight washed Dakota's slack form, Fiddlefoot began to roll slowly out of the brush onto the bare ground in front of the shack.
When at last he lay plain in the moonlight, the sleeping rustler stirred. Dakota moved uneasily, slid lower, as Fiddlefoot, helpless, watched with locked jaw and pounding pulse. Finally, the rustler settled down again and the prisoner released his tight-held breath. Again he commenced to roll, quickly and quietly on the cleared ground, to the further side of the shack.
"You there, Weary?" he whispered hoarsely.
"I sure wisht I was somewheres else," came back a melancholy voice from the gloom.
"Kin you roll out?"
"Nope, I'm stuck betwixt two stumps, tighter'n a fly in molasses."
"Wal, I'm coming in!"
The brush was unbroken here. Inch by inch, heart pounding with every snapping stick, Fiddlefoot propelled his body through the tough, low-growing mesquite.
"Pard, yore making more noise than hell emigrating on cartwheels," grunted Weary from the shadows ahead.
Sweat generated by anxiety and physical effort rolled off the blocky rider. His back collided with two sharp-toed boots. He squirmed along Weary's long form.
"Get yore grinders busy on them knots," he gritted wriggling higher, so that the rawhide lashings around his wrists were level with the lanky puncher's jaw. "And work fast!"
He felt the thongs jerk as Weary went to work with his teeth. The puncher swore softly, spat, "There goes that gold tooth I got in Kansas City," he groaned, "All the gold I ever owned!"
"Dig in!" urged the tensed Fiddlefoot. It seemed to the blocky rider, ears attuned for sound of movement from the direction of the campfire, that the minutes stretched into hours while Weary worried the knots… relief surged through him as he felt the lashings loosen. He twisted his sore wrists, triumphantly wrenched them free. In a flash he was digging in a pants pocket for his jackknife. He severed the rope around his numb legs, cut Weary loose.
He tried to rise, but his legs were as useless as chunks of rubber. On hands and knees, he wormed out of the brush, crawled back to the shack. In the darkness he fingered around, found the gunbelts.
Exhilaration flowed through him as he buckled on his gun. Dragging the other gunbelt, he crawled outside. Weary's head and shoulders emerged from the undergrowth. Fiddlefoot swung the loose gunbelt in his direction, pushed up and swayed towards the sleeping rustler like a drunken man… Dakota awoke with the hard muzzle of a gun nudging his belly. "I'll be double-damned!" he ejaculated, heavy eyed.
Leaving the rustler securely roped, they mounted their ponies and hit for the mouth of the canyon. They passed through the narrow portals, but they did not breathe easily again until they threaded through the tangle of the barrens. "Closest I been to shaking hands with St. Peter, since I got too familiar with a sheepherder's wife," observed Weary, "and I sure ain't anxious tuh get so close to the gent again. I guess we gather a posse, pronto?"
Fiddlefoot considered. Discovery of the Cattlemen's Protective Badge had ruined his chance of tying in with the rustlers. They had him tagged as an enemy and there was nothing he could do but continue to play the part of Association detective. "Sure!" he agreed, whipping up a pretension of eagerness.
At mid-morning they stepped down at the tin-roofed shack that served as Deputy Sheriff Ferlow's office in Adobe. Almost as gaunted as their leg-weary ponies, they crossed the plankwalk.
"Don't let Frosty fool yuh," cautioned Weary. "He's a cantankerous old lobo, got a stiff leg. Folks claim he smashed the knee-cap bronko busting when he was young and spry. Reckon it kinda soured his disposition."
When Fiddlefoot set his eyes on Frosty, however, sucking the stem of a corncob pipe and reading The Cochise County Times at the rough plank table that served as desk, he was reminded of an old bald buzzard. The desert had dehydrated the deputy until he was little more than a bony skeleton wrapped in wrinkled skin. His polished brown pate was fringed by greying hair and a discouraged mustache straggled over his mouth, but his eyes were needle sharp. A dented star was pinned to his worn vest. Shabby dark pants were tucked into scuffed riding boots, and a blue shirt lay loose upon his shoulders. Gunbelt and hat hung from a peg on the wall.
"Howdy, Frosty!" greeted the tall cowpoke, "Why in heck don't yuh straddle thet fleabitten bronk eating its head off in the livery and shuck some of thet fat?"
"I'd say you'd been doing it for me," came back the deputy, eying their trail-stained garb and fatigue-lined faces. "Don't tell me a job got hot on yore trail!"
Weary turned to his companion, "Didn't I claim he was a rambunctious old catamount?" With a groan as saddle-sore muscles complained, he hunkered against the wall. "Meet Jack Small of the Cattlemen's Protective!"
Fiddlefoot nodded and dropped onto a chair.
Frosty's gimlet eyes probed the blocky rider, "Mebbe I should take a gander at your badge, mister."
Weary chuckled. "A rustler's packing thet badge. Hold yore hawses 'til you get the lowdown." He told of trailing the packer, their capture in the canyon, and escape.
"And now," said the deputy, with chill humor, "you want I should swear in a posse and round up the brand-blotchers—twelve hours after they beat it."
"Wal," drawled Weary, "you could go through the motions."
Frosty folded his paper and knocked the dottle out of his pipe bowl. He reached for his hat, swung the gunbelt around his lean middle. "I'll need you to ride with me." Weary groaned.
"Ain't you gathering a posse?"
"Posse!" echoed Frosty, with withering contempt. "What would we do with a posse? Two men kin comb an empty canyon."
His attention came back to Fiddlefoot. "How long you been with the Protective?"
"Two, three years."
"First time in Skeleton Valley?"
"Sure, I rode up from Nogales, three-four days back."
Frosty frowned. "I coulda swore I'd lamped you somewhere's afore." Apparently satisfied, he moved away, followed by Weary, but the blocky rider was conscious of uneasy qualms. Maybe it was due to the casual, but keen, deliberation with which the grizzled lawman had weighed him. He shrugged off his misgiving, the cards were dealt and he had no choice but to play the hand, or hightail for the Border.
Moodily, he stepped outside, swung into the saddle of his gaunted calico, and headed for the livery barn. Here he watered the pony, stripped off its gear and grained it. The stack of straw was too inviting to resist, he stretched out and quickly dropped off to sleep.
The sun had sunk when he awoke, feeling as grimy as a mud hen, his chin rough with stubble and wisps of straw decorating his shirt. He dropped into the New York Barber Shop, a clapboard shack with a leanto addition that served as bathhouse. The barber was a talkative little man with a waxed mustache and Cockney accent. "I never did hold wiv these women gamblers," he told Fiddlefoot, lathering the rider's chin. "Red-headed females got no right in saloons."
"You should talk to Nick, he rods the saloon," advised Fiddlefoot, through the soap.
"Nick!" scoffed the little Cockney. " 'Ee gets 'is cut, or I don't know Nick, and 'ee 'ates Rock's guts. I wouldn't be surprised if 'ee brought the redhead in to clean up the Boxed H crew."
"Howcome he don't cotton to Rock?"
The Cockney stropped his razor, plucked a hair from his head and divided it with an annoyed flick. "That was another of 'is gambling deals. 'Ee rung in a tinhorn gambler, who cold-decked a bunch of Rock's boys. Well, sir, Rock comes to town wiv 'is foreman. 'Ee boots Mr. Tinhorn hout on the street and 'ee himforms Mr. Nick Dardon e'll run 'im out of town ef 'ee don't mind 'is P's and Q's. Rock don't mince matters!"
After the shave, a soaking in the Cockney's big zinc tub and a thick steak in the eating house, Fiddlefoot felt as spruce as a two-year-old.
There was the usual line-up of Boxed H ponies outside The Longhorn. He pushed through the batwings. Monte Molly presided over a crowded card table, as before, and Nick was perched on his stool at the far end of the bar, smoking a thin cigar.
With nothing to do until Weary and the deputy returned, he carried a bottle of beer to a table and set a chair so that he could watch Molly. Fine looking girl, he mused. High spirited, too. As much akin to the painted, harsh-voiced floosies he had met in dance halls along the Border as a diamond was to chips of a broken whiskey bottle. Seemed as though her shoulders drooped a mite. Maybe she was tired, and no wonder, harried by a bunch of hard-drinking, wise-cracking punchers. Howcome she drifted into this gambling racket—dealing crooked cards?
Three riders banged in, dust thick on their shirts and Stetsons. The first was a burly, swaggering fellow, beard sprouting black from his chin. A gun was thonged to each leg—Butch Mulloy! Fiddlefoot slid his Stetson forward to hide his face and leaned over the table.
Two of the newcomers stopped at the bar and ordered drinks. Butch jingled to the rear. From beneath his Stetson, Fiddlefoot saw him pull up beside the saloon owner. There was some talk. Butch turned and Fiddlefoot knew that the rustler was staring straight at him. He glanced quickly towards the batwings. He still had time to slide out. Some ingrained streak of obstinacy held him to his seat.
Mulloy came up the bar again, a bottle of whisky in one hand. Threw a word to his two pards and headed straight for Fiddlefoot's table. His thick lips curled with an unpleasant grin as he set the bottle upon it and hooked up a chair opposite the blocky rider.
"Wal, ef it ain't Mister Small himself, and drinking alone!" he sneered.
Grey eyes wary, right hand inching for his gun butt, Fiddlefoot eased back his chair. Then Butch's two pards plunked down, one on each side of him. Butch raised his bottle, took a long drink and set it down. He wiped off his lips with the back of a big hand; his close-set eyes dwelt malevolently on the blocky rider. "Wal, Small, you hogswiggled us once, but, by Gawd, we'll nail you down this time."
Chapter 6
Fiddlefoot figured his chances fast as he met Butch Mulloy's scowl across the liquor-stained table. It was plain the rustlers were set to gun him. They had him cornered. Their play was now to pick a quarrel, taunt him, cut him down and claim self-defense. Weary and the deputy, the only two who were likely to side him, were deep in the Barrens. He might get Butch, but the hard-eyed hombres watching him closely from both sides would get him. Well, he decided, if he had to go out, he'd go out fighting.
These thoughts whirled through his brain as he braced for the draw, watching Butch's hands slide off the table. Spurs jingled behind him. He saw quick surprise leap into the rustler's eyes, and he saw the shadow of fear. Still watching his opponent, he heard a soft voice from behind his shoulder, soft but as sibilant as a snake's hiss, "You straddle thet blazed sorrel outside, Mulloy?"
Dave Winters, whipcord foreman of the Boxed H, stepped up to the table, pale eyes chilled.
"What's it tuh you, Winters?" blustered the beefy rustler.
"Thet hawse was on Boxed H range last night and it carried a coyote who rustled our steers."
"Hell, I was thirty miles away from yore spread last night, as these gents u'll bear out," protested Mulloy.
Fiddlefoot was beginning to enjoy himself. He slipped out of his seat and stood beside the little cock of a foreman, hand brushing his gun butt. The odds were evening up.
"Yore a cock-eyed liar!" Winters snapped out the accusation and there was no softness in his voice now. Right arm crooked over his holster, eyes gleaming with cold fire, he stood balanced for the draw as he flung the fighting words. Mulloy's eyes slid from right to left, like those of a trapped animal. His two companions sat still as statues, tensed for gunplay.
"This is Butch's fight," put in Fiddlefoot softly, "I'll plug the first bustard who butts in."
Belligerency was oozing out of Mulloy faster than grain out of a torn sack.
"Wal," barked Winters, "Yore guts turned to fiddle strings?"
"Heck," complained the rustler, with the trace of a whine, "Mine ain't the only blazed sorrel in Skeleton Valley."
"Ef I knew it was," taunted the foreman, "I'd feed you a slug—and I gamble you'd bleed yaller."
Butch's thick neck reddened at the insult, but he kept his hands on the edge of the table. He must have sensed the contempt in his fellow rustlers' eyes. A touch of the old bluster flowed into his voice. "You talk big, Winters, with a parcel of Boxed H punchers tuh back yore play." His head jerked towards the crowded card table.
The foreman smiled brittlely, "I can't pin it on you this time, but next time, Mulloy," he promised with bleak emphasis, "I'm coming asmoking. Keep outa my way from now on—and ride around Boxed H range." He backed away from the table, with Fiddlefoot beside him. Together, they bellied up to the bar.
"Have a drink on me," invited the foreman, appraising the blocky young rider with a penetrating glance, "I needed yore gun!"
Fiddlefoot chuckled, "Mister, you don't know how much I needed yours."
"Howcome?"
"Was hunting Barred M strays with a gent named Weary. Trailed 'em to a canyon in the Barrens. Butch's gang grabbed us and we were due to hang at sunup. We busted out when they hightailed," he grinned, "to raid yore beef. Then damned ef they didn't jump me, right in this saloon."
Winters was all attention now. He sipped his drink with a frown. "So I had Mulloy dead tuh rights!" he murmured with faint annoyance. "I suspicioned the jasper, but I was only trying tuh throw a scare inter him. Heck, feller, you shoulda spilled this when I braced the sidewinder."
