Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 1215
“Let go! — Oh, you beast!”
“Baby — I’ll strip you — right now,” panted the gangster.
Lance leaped into the doorway, gun leveled. Uhl had Madge backed against the wall. The gangster’s clawing hands held strips of her clothing. The girl, half-naked, was warding him off, like a tigress at bay.
“Madge! Duck! Get away from him!” shouted Lance.
The gangster froze a second, then sprang into convulsive action, to catch the girl and get her in front of him. But she was as strong as he and far more supple. A short struggle ensued, the end of which came when Uhl made the blunder of striking her down. Then, even as he half turned, his thin face gray, his eyes hot and clear as molten steel, Lance leaped to get in better line. When his gun boomed the gangster appeared to be propelled against the wall. It upheld him a moment. A great bloody blotch came as if by magic. Lance thought he had shot away half of Uhl’s face. He stuck there an instant, a ghastly spectacle, then slid sideways to the floor.
Madge lay apparently unconscious, a bruise on her white temple and a red welt across her bare shoulder. Lance snatched up a blanket, and lifting her flung it around her and carried her out the door. Flemm lay as Lance had last seen him. Far down the trail Fox appeared running toward camp. Lance took a long shot at him for luck, then sheathing his gun, he stepped to the snorting Umpqua, and kicked the stirrup around.
“Steady, Ump! It’s me. Hold, you fool horse!”
With Madge in his left arm Lance mounted and drew her across his saddle. Umpqua needed no urging. As he plunged away a rattle of gunshots blended in a continuous volley, and a rain of bullets whistled and ticked through the trees, and pattered on the cabin. But in a few jumps the horse was behind the cabin, and out of danger. Lance held him to a lope along the wall of foliage, into the woods.
CHAPTER XI
NO SOONER HAD Gene Stewart lain down and dropped to sleep, some hours after midnight, than he was assailed by nightmares. It was just as well that he had not gone to bed in his own room, for he kicked around pretty violently. And he was in the thick of violent events when someone not a hobgoblin or demon thoroughly aroused him. Dawn had come. He made out Nels standing over him.
“Wal, Boss, you was loco. Never seen you so oot of your haid.”
“Hello, old-timer. Been having crazy dreams. Must have been that punch concoction Madge sprung on us.”
“Wait till you see Ren.... Pile oot, Gene, an’ throw on your ridin’ things. We’ve got work on hand.”
“Uhuh. So that was the big idea. What’s up?”
“Sidway just left on the trail of your cattle. Rustled last night before the ball opened.”
“By jacks! — He wanted to tell me last night. But Madge wouldn’t let him.”
“Might hev spoiled her party.... We’re to hit Sidway’s trail pronto. Danny is wranglin’ the hawses. An’ I’ve throwed some grub together. Come along, Boss. We hev Sidway to thank fer somethin’ like old times.”
Nels clinked out into the patio where his musical footsteps died away. Gene quickly dressed in his range garb, and slipped a comb and toothbrush into his pocket. His gunbelt had ample shells, and his rifle was down at Nels’ bunkhouse. Then he went to his wife’s room and poking his head in the door he awakened her: “Sorry, dear. Nels just called me. We’re going after a bunch of strayed stock. May not be back for a day or two.”
“So this is what young Sidway had to tell you?” she replied quickly.
“Good guess, Mom. Go back to sleep, and don’t worry about what that cowboy starts. He’s a finisher.”
Going out through the patio Stewart saw two of Madge’s guests, boy and girl, asleep in each other’s arms in a hammock. They were half covered by a colorful blanket. It was a pretty picture, and Gene thought the girl was Maramee. “Some party!” he muttered, as he strode on. “But dog-gone-it! I had a good time watching them.... Only — my girl worries me!”
Clear daylight had come when Stewart reached the bunkhouses. Four horses saddled and bridled stood at the rail. He found his men inside eating. Danny looked grim and dark as he bent over his plate. Starr appeared drunk.
“Boss, throw some hot cakes under yore belt.... Ren, you drink thet hot coffee or I’ll pour it down you.”
“Nels — old manz — I want drink.”
“I gave you a bracer.”
“Ren, you’re drunk,” said Gene.
“Whosh drunk? I ain’t so.... It wash just thet peach juice las night.”
Nels forced the cowboy to drink the coffee, and stuffed some biscuits and cold meat in his pocket.
“Boss, let’s get goin’,” interposed Danny Mains, darkly. “If I don’t miss my guess we’ll hev hell catchin’ Sidway. Thet boy’s another Nick Steele.”
“Right,” agreed Nels.
They dragged Starr outside and threw him on his horse.
“Can you stick on?” queried Stewart.
“You insolt me,” protested Ren, swaying in his saddle.
“I’ll hold him on, Gene,” said Danny, “till he sobers up.”
“Bosh, whash in ‘ell was thet punch as night?”
“I don’t know, Ren. It sure gave me a hell of a nightmare.”
“I’m agonna get thet mixtoure from Miss Madge — an’ make million bucks. Washen thet heavern best drink ever?”
“A most deceiving one, Ren. It led you on.”
“Whash wuz in it?”
“Dynamite, greased lightning, sweet cider and aqua fortis.”
“Hell you shay?”
They rode down past the village, Stewart and Nels gradually drawing ahead, while Mains came along behind steadying Starr in his saddle.
“Nels, what’s the deal?” asked Stewart.
“Wal, some Mexicans sloped off with the rest of yore an’ Danny’s cattle. Gosh, but Danny is sore! They was slick aboot it, when every last person in the country was heah last night. I’ve a hunch how Sidway got wise to the deal. He’s a clever boy, Gene. But how he found oot ain’t nothin’ to us. The thieves drove the cattle acrost to the valley behind Gray Divide. An’ they expect to work them by easy stages down acrost the border. It’d been a cinch but fer Sidway.... Wal, he’s goin’ to locate them, then ride on into town an’ get help. In the mawnin’ he’ll haid the rustlers off in thet narrow valley. Our part is to ride in behind the ridge an’ trail them down, keepin’ oot of sight. By this time tomorrow I reckon we’ll be smokin’ them up.”
“Hardly, in that open valley,” replied Stewart. “They’ll see us and slope. Which suits me, though I’d like to throw a scare into them.”
“Wal, we’ll get the cattle back, an’ mebbe thet’ll end this two-bit rustlin’.”
“Nels, as long as westerners raise cattle out on the range there will be stealing.”
“Kind of a disease.... Look, Gene, heah’s the trail, plain as plowed ground. An’ there’s the track of Sidway’s hawse.”
“I see.... Nels, do you remember when I gave my great roan Majesty to Madeline and beat it for Mexico to get myself shot?”
“My Gawd, yes,” declared Nels, fervently. “All thet past seems to be gettin’ clearer in my memory.... Gene, I’ll bet Sidway gives Umpqua to Madge.”
“Not that cowboy. He’s got too much spunk. He’s onto Madge,” replied Gene, a little sadly.
“Wal, I reckon thet won’t make no hell of a difference. There ain’t a man in the world who could resist thet girl long.”
“If you put it that way,” agreed Stewart, pleased with the old cattleman’s hint.
Once across the highway the four riders settled down to a steady trot, and in two hours had reached the rocky point of the ridge. They rode around cautiously. The gateway to the valley was wide, and on the ridge side thick with sage and brush.
“Let’s hold up heah,” suggested Nels, and reined in. “Ren, air you so bleary-eyed yet you cain’t see nothin’?”
“Nels, I can see a hawse ten miles an’ a steer more’n thet — an’ a gurl with a red bonnet twice as fur,” declared Starr, swaggeringly.
“All right. Climb up the slope heah an’ see if you can spot the cattle down the valley.”
“My Gawd! — Climb in these high-heel boots?”
“Come on, Ren. I’ll go, too,” offered Stewart. They did not ascend the rough brushy slope more than a hundred feet when Starr made good his brag. Then Gene saw a long black band, moving like a snake, down the valley.
“Eight or ten miles?” asked Gene.
“More’n thet, Boss. Jest moseyin’ along.”
They retraced their steps and reported to Nels. “Wal,” said that worthy, “I reckon we better keep travelin’. We want to be on their heels when Sidway haids them back in the mawnin’.”
“Ren, don’t I remember there’s good water down this valley?” asked Gene.
“Shore you do. Nice rocky creek haids aboot where them cattle air now.”
“That’ll be far enough for us. We’ll camp there.... Walk your horses and keep your eyes peeled.”
They rode on in single file, somewhat separated. The sun rose hot; a flock of buzzards circled high over the locality where the herd moved, indicating death to a calf or heifer. Coyotes slunk through the sage, another indication of meat on the move; the black domes of the Peloncillos sank behind the gray foothills.
Stewart’s memory was busy. He recalled his early days with Nick Steele and Monty Price, and others of Stillwell’s famous cowboys. And that reminded him of Madeline’s brother Al, who had married Florence Kingsley, and had moved to Colorado to take charge of a ranch she had inherited. They had prospered. Stewart wondered if it would not be a good plan to ask financial assistance of Al. Something had to be done as soon as Madge’s guests left, or he would lose the ranch. Madge would have to be told of the impending ruin, and Stewart hated the thought. But he must do it. Madge was wonderful, adorable, irresistible, but she was on the wrong track. Hours wore away while Stewart revolved memories and problems and hurts over and over in his mind.
Some time late in the afternoon Stewart and his men arrived at the head of the creek and halted to make camp there. It was an ideal spot, with grass and sage, and cottonwood trees, and dead cedars near by on the slope.
“Wal, I’ll boil a pot of coffee,” drawled Nels, “an’ what with our meat an’ biscuits we won’t fare so bad.”
“Rustle then, for I’m almost asleep this minute,” replied Gene.
“We ain’t none of us had a damn wink of sleep,” added Starr.
“Why, Ren, I had to kick you onmerciful this mawnin,” protested Nels.
“Thet wasn’t sleep. I was unconscious from Majesty Stewart’s punch.... Boss, don’t you never let thet gurl make thet drink again. My Gawd! if college eddication is responsible fer thet — wall, when I marry Bonita an’ we hev a dotter, she ain’t goin’ to get any modern schoolin’ atall.”
“Ren, your philosophy is sound,” declared Stewart, ruefully after the laugh had subsided. “But it can’t be adopted.”
“An’ why’n th’ell not?”
“Because these days girls will do as they please whether they have education or not. They are going to have equal rights with men.”
“Wal, Gene, thet’ll make a better world,” interposed Nels.
“Nels, never in yore born days, did you know anythin’ aboot wimmen, much less a dotter,” observed Danny, pessimistically.
“Dan, do you mean a dotter is a turrible burden?”
“More’n turrible’n awful.”
“An’ if you had it all to live over again would you kept single, so you couldn’t hev no dotter?”
“I ain’t sayin’ thet.”
“An’ you, Gene, would you rather never hev had Madge?”
“Nels, old pard, ten thousand times no,” burst out Stewart, somehow glad to express himself. “Madge has been a joy. And will be forever.”
“Thar yore talkin’. She’s life — beautiful life — an’ thet cain’t be perfect.”
They talked and had their leisurely and frugal meal round the little smokeless campfire, while the sun set, and shadows appeared under the slopes. Stewart made his bed with saddle and blankets, and scarcely had he stretched himself when a subtle glue touched his eyelids. Late in the night he awoke, saw Danny replenishing the fire, fell asleep again, to be roused at dawn by an ungentle boot.
“Come an’ get it,” said Nels, cheerily. “I’ve a hunch we’ve a day ahaid of us.”
Before broad daylight they were on the move. When the sun arose, Danny and Ren rode up the slope to locate the cattle, but failed to do so, owing to a projecting cape that ran down into the valley. This was some miles ahead. Before they reached it Ren sighted dust clouds.
“On the run already,” declared Nels.
“Looks like it,” admitted Stewart.
“They’re pretty far yet, Boss,” added Ren.
“Wal, there ain’t no use in our haidin’ the cattle off, when we want them to come this way.”
“No. But how about the rustlers?”
“If they got haided off below, we won’t see hide nor hair of them.”
They rounded the cape and rode at a trot fully five miles farther before Ren sighted cattle. They were headed up the valley and evidently had been running, but had now slowed down. They rode on, keeping sharp lookout for riders on the slopes, and presently had to take to higher ground to let a scattered herd pass.
“Aboot seven hundred, I’d say,” observed Nels. “Reckon thet’s all of them. Not winded much. They’ll be home tomorrow.”
“Wonder where’n hell them rustlers rode?” complained Ren. “I ain’t feelin’ swell, an’ I’d shore like to shoot at somebody.”
“Suits me,” replied Danny, relieved. “Killin’ Mexicans even from acrost the border wouldn’t set good with my family.”
“Danny, we don’t know them rustlers was greasers,” declared Ren, too casually.
“No. But I was afeared they might be.”
Stewart suggested they ride on to meet Sidway, and whoever he had with him. Very soon Ren sighted three riders, whereupon Stewart ordered a halt.
“Lance ain’t in thet ootfit,” declared Starr, presently. “Say, they see us, an’ air ridin’ to beat the band.”
Stewart was curious about the three horsemen who were evidently in a hurry to reach them. In very short order they arrived, three lean cowboys, ragged and dusty and hard-eyed. Stewart recognized them.
“Howdy, boys. Where’s Sidway?”
Stewart thought Sloan’s intent eyes searched his with undue fire, and he wondered what was coming.
“Mawnin’, all,” returned Sloan. “Stewart, you don’t ‘pear all het up aboot this raid — or nothin’.”
“I’m well satisfied, thanks to you boys. Did you get a line on the rustlers?”
“They seen us far off an’ bolted. We couldn’t make them out.”
“All right, that’s that. Where’s Sidway?” rejoined Stewart, sharply, suddenly sensing some untoward circumstance.
“By now Sidway must be at Cochise’s stronghold, guidin’ some gangsters who’d kidnaped your girl Madge an’ a young fellow.”
A blank silence ensued. But amaze did not long obstruct Stewart’s faculties. He had sensed catastrophe. Sloan’s tan had lost a shade. His eyes smoldered.
Nels flung a clenched hand at him. “Sloan, what you sayin’?”
“Listen, all of you. But don’t waste no time restin’ here. Come on. Ride close an’ let me spill it.... Yesterday a little before sundown, Sidway caught up with us on the road to town. He told us about this cattle steal an’ asked us to help him haid them back this mawnin’. Me an’ the Spencers was glad to help, of course. We made camp jest outside of town. Jest about dusk, Sidway walked in town to get some coffee an’ butter. Not long after, but it was dark, a big black car came up, an’ Sidway was on the runnin’ board. We was held up by two men with machine guns. Then their boss got out an’ bought my hawse outfit fer a thousand dollars. They was a gangster outfit an’ Sidway ‘peared to be on good terms with them. I didn’t get wise to the kidnapin’ till Miss Madge an’ the young feller was dragged out of the car. Then I seen it plain as print.... Now, to make it short, one gangster drove the car away, up the range road. Sidway an’ us fellers, under them guns, saddled an’ packed. Then thet pale-faced gangster ordered me to wait till mawnin’, an’ notify you to send one man up the Cochise Trail with fifty thousand dollars fer Miss Madge an’ the same for the young feller. An’ if his orders was not carried out Miss Madge would be raped, an’ both of them killed.... It was hard fer me to wait till mawnin’ but with your telephone wire cut, I couldn’t find out if you’d left, an’ I knew you’d be comin’ along here after the cattle. So here we are.”
By the time Sloan had concluded, Stewart’s horror had mounted to a ruthless and terrible wrath. Starr’s face had grown a leaden white, and he appeared incapable of speech. After a brief paroxysm of emotion Nels interrupted Danny Mains’ curses with a terse query: “Gene, what do you make of Sidway?”
“What do you?” countered Stewart, huskily.
“I got it figgered. When he went in town he seen thet car with Madge in it. He must hev been slick enough to scare them kidnapers off the highway, to take to the hills.”
Sloan interrupted impatiently: “But, Nels — Stewart, it looked like Sidway was one of thet gang.”
“It shore did,” corroborated the Spencer boys in unison. “Their boss knew him.”
“You all think Sidway was in with the gangsters?” queried Stewart.
“I’m afraid, sir — we do. Why, we stayed awake half the night talkin’ it over. These kidnapers are pretty smart. They take their time. We figger Sidway must have been sent on ahead — planned the job — rode away the day it was done. But we jest couldn’t figger this cattle steal in the job atall.”
“Sloan, I’ll grant it looked that way to you,” rejoined Stewart, tersely. “But you don’t know Sidway. I tell you the idea is preposterous.”
“All right, sir. I only hope an’ pray you’re right.”
Then Ren Starr exploded. “I ought to throw my gun on you,” he roared. “Sidway’s my pard. He’s as true as steel. He couldn’t be in a deal like this. How in hell he ever got mixed up in it I can’t guess, but you bet your life it’s damn lucky for the girl an’ us. He’ll save her. An’ you’ll have to apologize to me fer thinkin’ him a crook.”
